Housing Society unveils trial modular public housing scheme for elderly that aims to provide quicker cheaper homes for Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s “housing laboratory” is planning a public housing tower for the elderly constructed of prefabricated units similar to shipping containers stacked on top of one another. It is an attempt to provide the city’s construction industry with experience of using modular building technology, which is both cheaper and faster than existing modes.

The project – the city’s first permanent residential block to be built with prefab technology – was announced on Friday by the Housing Society, Hong Kong’s second largest public housing provider. It is expected to cost HK$80 million (US$10.2 million) and be completed by 2022.

“As a housing laboratory, we hope we can set an example, and then share our experience with the industry,” said the society’s chairman Walter Chan Kar-lok.

The planned 10-floor block on a 4,000 sq ft site partly used as a badminton court at the existing Jat Min Chuen estate in Sha Tin will provide 70 flats of about 300 square feet. The building and flats will be designed specially for elderly residents, with extra-large entrances and doors, handrails along corridors and recreational facilities. The badminton court will be relocated.

Eric Yeung Ka-hong, the society’s director of development and marketing, said the prefab technology, or modular integrated construction (MIC), would reduce the expected construction time from four years to two, and cut costs from HK$1 million to HK$600,000 per flat.