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Good news for Mario Draghi. Photo: AP

There is some dismay at the design of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business that is being planned for the Victoria Road ex-detention centre in Pok Fu Lam. The heritage site comprises three grade-three historic buildings.

"The school wants to preserve the history of the site," said Gavin Tun, the director of project management at the university.

However, looking at the artist impressions of the site, which can be seen on the Town Planning Board's website, you would not have thought so. The historic buildings appear to be completely swamped by new buildings.

The executive summary lodged with the board says the development will "strive to conserve the existing structures on site as much as possible via adaptive reuse. Notwithstanding, the applicant has strived strenuously to minimise the scale of development and thus impact upon the surrounding environment without compromising the operational requirements of the university".

Nevertheless, the development is a big building and will clearly change the nature of the environment. It is clearly nonsense for the application to say the development will not have an adverse "visual" or "heritage impact". It will obviously block views of the sea from the road. This is despite being insisted by the developer that "the ribbon contour blends into the contour of the hillside". The application talks of building an elevated structure that "will float atop the existing heritage structure". So it will obviously affect the historic buildings.

The building extends along Victoria Road. If it were to extend down the hillside, it might be less obtrusive and would maintain a view of the sea from the road, though that might cost more than the HK$387.6 million the school is proposing to spend. However, it probably would not make any difference to the 227 trees that are to be chopped down to make way for it.

So once again, we have the government fumbling with another heritage site that is to be given over to private use. At the very least, the Town Planning Board should stipulate that no high walls should be built along the road and that there is a provision for public open space so the public have the right to enter and enjoy this publicly owned building.

The application states: "As a heritage conservation project, the proposed development is consistent with the government's policy objectives related to heritage preservation."

Given the government's usually half-baked approach to heritage preservation, this statement, ironically, may be true. The deadline for objections is February 10.

We hear of the curious case of a 94-year-old Chinese woman who was only able to speak English after suffering a stroke. She was a former English language teacher, the BBC reports, citing Hunan Television.

Liu Jiayu found she was unable to speak Chinese after the part of her brain that controls her ability to speak her native language was damaged by a stroke. Hunan Television showed her answering questions from a nurse in English.

There have been cases where stroke victims have developed a different accent. The reason for Liu's situation is apparently that the Chinese language is complex and requires the use of both sides of the brain, while English only uses one side.

A good line from the : "Some good news for Mario Draghi. As Tom Hardy from the New England Patriots proved, you can flirt with deflation but still come through as a winner."

 

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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Pok Fu Lam heritage site will be swamped by new development
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