Thursday, October 2, 2008

Aigburth (Hong Kong)

The Aigburth is a skyscraper located in the Mid-levels district of Hong Kong. The tower rises 48 and in height. The building was completed in 1999. It was designed by architectural firm Wong Tung & Partners, and was developed by Kerry Properties Limited. The Aigburth, which stands as the 66th-tallest building in Hong Kong, is composed entirely of residential units. It is an example of postmodern architecture.

Grand Promenade

2005 The entire complex, also known as the Sai Wan Ho Harbour Plaza, was developed by Henderson Land Development and the The building is composed entirely of residential units, and contains 2,020 apartments.

Buildings of the complex

Grand Millennium Plaza II

The Grand Millennium Plaza II is a 30-floor tower part of the Grand Millennium Plaza on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong, China. The tower has a total structural height of 123 m . Construction of the Grand Millennium Plaza II was completed in 1998.

Caribbean Coast

Caribbean Coast is a multiphase residential and commercial development in Tung Chung as part of the station development of .

It was developed by Cheung Kong Limited, and Hutchison Whampoa Limited. As the grantee of the lot, MTR Corporation was retained as the property manager overseeing the estate.

Description


Grantee of the lot: MTR Corporation

Architect: Hsin Yieh Architects & Engineers Ltd 興業建築師
Landscape Architect: Belt Collins HK Ltd.

Site: Site 5, Tung Chung Town Centre

Site Area: 6.79 ha

Zoning: Comprehensive Development Area “CDA”

''Total GFA: ''

Domestic : 407,300 m?

''
Non-domestic : ''

5,000 m?

350 m?

500 m?

379 m?

3,800 m?

''No. of Blocks: ''

13

56

''No. of Storeys:''

50-52

4

''No. of Units:''

5,300

56

''
No. of Car Parking Spaces:''

1,090

125

''
No. of Loading/Unloading Bays:''

14

6

Summary of developments




High-rise Towers


There are 13 high-rise towers in total. Each phase has special names for their respective towers. There is no block 4, for reasons of superstition.

In Phase I during 2003 four towers were released; Monterey Cove 1, 2, 3, 5. Phase II released in 2004 had Albany Cove 6, 7, 8. In 2005, completion of four more towers including Carmel 9, 10, 11, 12 in Phase III. The name of Phase IV is omitted as taboo in Cantonese.

Phase V finished in 2007 conclude with the last two towers, Crystal Cove 15, 16.

All towers are about 170.0 m high and are 54 stories except for Monterey Cove 1 and Albany Cover 6. Apartment sizes range from 636 to 1,295 sq ft. Floor-to-floor height measures up to 9 ft. 7 in. All units have balconies, except for those on 33rd floor and below in phase 1.

Garden Houses


According to the latest amendment plan, a total of 56 houses will be built. Each house is 4-storey high and size from 3,000 sq ft to 3,800 sq ft each, attached with private ground garden. The original plan was to build 10 low-rise buildings as be part of Phase VI.

Clubhouse


Under Construction.

Caribbean Bazaar Shopping Arcade


Retail Floor Area : 4,996 m?.
Wet Market Floor Area: 508 m?

In 2005, the Lands Department issued a Waiver to allow the Wet market to be combined as part of the supermarket.

Shops include among others, , Watson's, 7-Eleven, and Circle K.

Construction



;Foundations
*Main Contractor: Chun Wo Foundations Limited
*Date of Completion: October 2000
*Contract sum: HK$217,000,000

;Phase 1
* Main Contractor: China Overseas
* Date of Completion : December 2002
* Declared Building Cost: HK$1,060,000,000

;Phase 2
* Main Contractor: Hong Kong Construction
* Date of Completion : September 2004
* Declared Building Cost: HK$975,000,000 including the three-level podium from Tower 6 to Tower 16, the shopping arcade, car park and clubhouse.

;Covered Walkway & Footbridge
* Date of Completion : April 2005
* Declared Building Cost: HK$32,000,000

;Phase 3
* Main Contractor: Paul Y-ITC
* Date of Completion : July 2005
* Declared Building Cost: HK$679,700,000

;Clubhouse
* Main Contractor:
* Date of Completion : July 2006
* Declared Building Cost: HK$67,181,223

;Phase 4
* Main Contractor: Paul Y-ITC
* Date of Completion : September 2006
* Declared Building Cost: HK$307,000,000

Surrounding area




Neighbor residential estates in Tung Chung



*Coastal Skyline
*Seaview Crescent
*Tung Chung Crescent
*Yat Tung Estate
*Fu Tung Estate

Schools


There are two local schools in the area. Ho Yu College and Ho Yu School.

Shopping


* Fu Tung Shopping Centre
* Yat Tung Shopping Centre - the first and second phase was completed in March 2001 and May 2002 respectively, providing supermarkets, services, and a number of eating outlets.
* Citygate Outlet - constructed in the glass and steel style of the Hong Kong International Airport, contains 500,000 square feet of shopping, entertainment, and food outlets spread across five floors.

Transportation


Caribbean Coast is connected by a free residents' shuttle service to the on the Tung Chung Line of the MTR.

Bellagio Towers

The Bellagio Towers is a high-rise development located in Hong Kong. The tallest tower in the complex is the Bellagio Tower 6-9, which rises 60 and in height. The entire complex was completed in 2002. Bellagio Tower 6-9, which stands as the 55th-tallest building in Hong Kong, is composed entirely of residential units. It is the only structure in the development that ranks among the 100 tallest buildings in Hong Kong.

Banyan Garden

Banyan Garden is a highrise private housing estate in Hong Kong. Located in Cheung Sha Wan of New Kowloon, it was built on a former site of a shipyard which was relocated owning to the commencement of the West Kowloon Reclamation. The estate is in adjacent to . Together with The Pacifica, the three estates are packed in an island of high residential buildings between Lai Chi Kok Road and Sham Shing Road.

Banyan Garden is comprised of seven towers. Each of the tallest towers has 57 floors and the roof height is 191 metres . They are among the 100 tallest residential skyscrapers.

The estate is located within walking distance from the Lai Chi Kok Station of MTR.

The estates was built by Cheung Kong Holdings, a corporation founded by Li Ka Shing. Its shopping centre thus has PARKnSHOP and the broadband services is monopolised by Hutchison Whampoa.

Architecture of Hong Kong

The Architecture of Hong Kong features great emphasis on Contemporary architecture, specially Modernism, Postmodernism ,, etc. Due to the lack of available space, few historical buildings remain in the urban areas of Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong has become a centre for modern architecture as older buildings are cleared away to make space for newer, larger buildings.

Chinese architecture era


Before the British colonization of Hong Kong in 1841, architecture in Hong Kong belonged to the . With the majority of the population being s at the mercy of typhoons and pirates, numerous were dedicated to their patron Goddess. Likewise farmers built fortified villages to defend themselves from bandits.

After the British established the entrep?t of Victoria City , the local population increased substantially, and as a result ''Tong Lau'' began to appear. These were three-to-four storey buildings, tightly packed in city blocks, and combining Chinese and European architectural elements. The ground floor were typically shops, with apartments and small balconies upstairs. These buildings had stairs but no elevators, and sometimes had neither toilet facilities. These ''Tong Lau'' remained the mainstay of Hong Kong architecture until at least World War II; a number of these building survive to this day, albeit often in a derelict state.

European architecture era


Meanwhile, the British introduced Victorian architecture and Edwardian architecture styles from the mid-19th Century onwards; notable surviving examples include the Legislative Council Building, the Central Police Station and Murray House. One building that has since been demolished was the Hong Kong Club Building; it was built atop a smaller structure designed in style in 1897. The building was the subject of a bitter heritage struggle in the late 1970s, which ultimately failed to save the building.

The first building in Hong Kong to be classified as the first high rise was constructed between June 1904 and December 1905. It consisted of 5 major buildings, each stacking 5 to 6 stories high. The structures were raised by the Hong Kong Land company under Catchick Paul Chater and . Most high rise buildings to be built afterwards were for business purposes; the first true skyscraper in Hong Kong was built for in 1935, which was also the first building in Hong Kong to have air conditioning; however this has since been replaced with the HSBC Main Building, Hong Kong of 1985. Likewise the few examples of 1930s Streamline Moderne and Bauhaus architecture in Hong Kong, such as the Central Market and the Wan Chai Market, are facing imminent demolitions despite protests from heritage conservation groups.

As far as residential buildings are concerned, multi-story buildings did not appear until the ''Buildings Ordinance 1955'' lifted the height limit of residential buildings. This change was necessitated by the massive influx of refugees into Hong Kong after the in 1949, and the subsequent Shek Kip Mei slum fire in 1953.
Public housing estates, originally seven-storeys high with notoriously cramped conditions, public bathrooms and no kitchens, were hastily built to accommodate the homeless; meanwhile private apartments, still tightly packed into city blocks like the ''Tong Lau'' of old, had grown to over 20 storeys high by the mid-1960s.

The private housing estate began in 1965 with Mei Foo Sun Chuen. The first major private construction came from in 1972 with the development of middle-class estate of Taikoo Shing. With little space wasted on statues or landmarks that consumed unnecessary real estate, Taikoo Shing's design was the new standard.

Present


Until the late 1990s, the primary demand for high-end buildings was in and around . The buildings of Central comprise the skyline along the coast of the Victoria Harbour, a famous tourist attraction in Hong Kong. But until Kai Tak Airport closed in 1998, strict height restrictions were in force in Kowloon so that s could come in to land. These restrictions have now been lifted, and many new skyscrapers in Kowloon have been constructed, with several others under construction, including the International Commerce Center at the West Kowloon , which will be the tallest building in Hong Kong upon its completion in 2010.



Many commercial and residential towers built in the past two decades are among the tallest in the world, including Highcliff, , and The Harbourside. Still, more towers are under construction, like One Island East. At present, Hong Kong has the world's biggest skyline with a total of 7,681 skyscapers, placing it ahead of even New York City, despite the fact that New York is larger in area. Most of these were built in past two decades. Many would argue that .

Hong Kong's best-known building is probably Ieoh Ming Pei's Bank of China Tower. The building attracted heated controversy from the moment its design was released to the public, which continued for years after the building's completion in 1990. The building was said to cast negative feng shui energy into the heart of Hong Kong due to the building's sharp angles. One rumour even went so far as to say that the negative energy was concentrated on the Government House as a Chinese plot to foil any decisions taken there. The two white aerials on top on the building were deemed inauspicious as two sticks of incense are burned for the dead.

One of the largest construction projects in Hong Kong has been the new Hong Kong International Airport on Chek Lap Kok near Lantau, which was the most extensive single civil engineering project ever undertaken. Designed by , the huge land reclamation project is linked to the centre of Hong Kong by the Lantau Link, which features three new major bridges: the world's suspension bridge, , which was built in 1997, connecting the islands of Tsing Yi and Ma Wan; the world's longest cable-stayed bridge carrying both road and railway traffic, , which links Ma Wan and Lantau; and the world's first major 4-span cable-stayed bridge, , which connects Tsing Yi and the mainland New Territories.

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