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Hong Kong’s political economic system, mountainous topography and population make

it one of the densest urban environments in the world. The population density and re-

sultant extremely high land values have triggered vertical development and a tendency

for compact dwelling units. The combination of high land values and one of the world’s

most restrictive building codes tends to incentivize standardization and repetition in

building organization, form and production, especially for residential development.

This design project seeks to address typical modes of standardized design and produc-

tion by investigating the use of parametric design and modelling technologies for precast

building facades. The project also addresses issues of density and urban compaction, spe-

cific to cities like Hong Kong, by proposing a new, ultra-thin residential building type.

PARAMETRIC FAÇADE SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE-DRIVEN DESIGN FOR ULTRA-THIN BUILDINGS IN HONG KONG Jason Carlow University of Hong Kong

56RESEARCH PROJECTS ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

The design team analyzed the floor plans and building façade

components of typical residential towers in Hong Kong. Due to

planning strategies and building code requirements, many hous-

ing estates in Hong Kong are composed of repetitive towers with

eight units per floor, arranged in a symmetrical fashion around

a service core. The use of standardized building façade com-

ponents is also widespread in Hong Kong and closely linked to

building codes. Financial and Gross Floor Area (GFA) incentives for

pre-fabricated components in recent decades also encouraged

developers to make use of factory cast façade elements such as

projecting bay windows (Figure 2).

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With an understanding of layout planning and financial incentives

for precast façade elements, the design team literally unfolded the

floor plan of a typical high-rise, Hong Kong apartment building into a

linear array of rooms along the façade of the building. The result is a

thickened strip of exterior and interior space that the project uses as

a conceptual platform for design. The model revealed a thickened

façade system where window projections, balconies, plumbing and

mechanical systems on the exterior were intimately related to fur-

nishings, rooms and programs on the interior. (Figure 3).

From the conceptual drawings and models, the design research

explored the challenges and limitations of living in Hong Kong’s

compact spaces by producing an extremely narrow linear apart-

ment for a single individual. By rearranging a series of residential

programs into a thin strip, the project pushes the design of a do-

mestic environment to a spatial extreme (Figure 4).

A Parametrically Generated Array of Window Types with Variation in Height, Width, Depth and Orientation

57 CARLOW PARAMETRIC FAÇADE SYSTEMS

Exploded Axonometric Drawing Analysis of the South Horizon Estate in Hong Kong Showing Dense Master Planning of Repetitive Towers Arrayed in a Field with Typical Floor Plan and Unit Layouts

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58RESEARCH PROJECTS ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

Unfolded Axonometric Drawing of a Typical Hong Kong Residential Tower Floor Plan3

IMAGE CREDITSAll images credits to Jason Carlow (2014).

The project utilized the Rhinoceros modeling software with the para-

metric modeling plug-in Grasshopper to develop a new catalogue

of projecting bay windows that offers subtle variation in window

height, width, depth and orientation (Figure 5). In the prototype,

spaces for living, dining, cooking, bathing and sleeping are arranged

in a linear array of miniature rooms. Window units are angled and

inflected inwards and outwards to adjust for privacy or views.

Room types can be sequenced differently on each floor according

to the desires of the occupants. Units are stacked on top of each

other to create a building that may be attached to the blank party

walls of industrial or commercial buildings to take advantage of

highly valuable, under-utilized space in the city (Figure 6).

Photo Montage of Stacked Residential Units Attached to the Blank Party Wall of a Commercial Building in Hong Kong

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Pre-fabricated, Factory Produced Bay Windows in a Pearl River Delta Region Concrete Plant

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JASON CARLOW is an Assistant Professor and M.Arch Program Director in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. He grew up near Boston, Massachusetts and holds a B.A. in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University and a Master of Architecture from Yale. His research, writing and teaching is centered on the relationship between digital and traditional modes of drawing, modeling and fabrication. As the founding principal of Carlow Architecture & Design his work has been featured in international exhibitions in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Beijing, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, London and the 2008 and 2010 Venice Biennales.