Motivation to go “green”

It is noticed that building account for 90% electricity consumption or 60% greenhouse gas emissions in Hong Kong. As one of the largest housing providers in Hong Kong, the HA has been actively embracing innovation and technology to enhance the safety, efficiency, productivity, and sustainability of public housing development. The aim is to provide a better living environment to our citizen.

Way to enhances health and well-being

Innovative waste management measures to substitute the using of temporary refuse chute

As proposed by the contractor, material hoists are used instead of temporary refuse chute, to transport wastes / materials away from typical floor together with following achievements-

a. All wastes are sorted into waste for disposal or recyclable materials and stored at designated locations at typical floor. The quantity of non-inert waste disposed to landfill would be effectively reduced compared to other project with similar scale;

b. A Hilti On-Track System is installed to record the use of material hoist and the recycled materials digitally.  The quantity of recycled materials will be shown at the PIMAP Dashboard for real time monitoring.  To ensure only trained person can operate the material hoist, a face recognition system is adopted as well;

c. Different with traditional practice which normally the landing is accessed through the window opens at more than 1m above floor level, the landing level of material hoist at each floor is designed at the same level of the typical floor level which provides a safer construction environment for workers and allows using material hoist to deliver both the building materials and recycled materials more effectively and efficiency;

YWR Site Photo

Other Traditional Practice

d. Noise and dust pollution due to the operation of temporary refuse chute in traditional operation, especially from high level floor is avoided;

e. The quantity of Non-Inert Waste dumping to landfill site is largely reduced by 89%.

Smart solution - A Total Digital Solution for project management (PIMAP)

The HA has launched a GIS-BIM integrated Project Information Management and Analysis Platform (PIMAP) to effectively handle the extensive data generated by its numerous public housing projects. This system seamlessly integrates planning and design data, construction data, handover data, and open data from other sources.

During the construction stage of YWR project, the cloud-based open platform integrates data from smart site system, such as smart helmets, AI-enabled CCTV, RFID, site access control and recording system. It also incorporates BIM model, SUA scanning model of overall site progress, virtual reality 3D scanning model for sample flat. This platform offers a unified and convenient interface for all level project members to monitor the site activities and progress.

Furthermore, the system ensures a reliable record retrieving platform for the team to share, retrieve and compare records, including site photo easily in a complex and long duration construction project.

The implementation of PIMAP at Yip Wong Road Phase 1 and Phase 2 public housing project has been recognized with the Grand Award of OpenBIM/OpenGIS Awards 2023. In addition, the 4 dashboards derived from PIMAP have served as templates / samples for other HA projects to implement the digitalization system.