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This event is organised by Hong Kong Green Building Council Limited (HKGBC).

Session 1: Sustainable Masterplanning

Masterplan design development requires an understanding of a large array of interlinking factors, from commercial, site and environmental considerations, to human comfort, health and community inclusion.  How a masterplan design responds to these factors will depend upon the local climate, site opportunities and constraints and the overall vision for the development.

To help guide the sustainable design process, it is important to consider ways to promote social, cultural, environmental and economic sustainability, while optimising resource efficiencies, such as energy, water and materials usage.

This seminar aims to share insight into the process for developing sustainability frameworks for masterplans, with a focus on the importance of site specific understanding.  It will then look in more detail at microclimate and energy strategy development, and review some international case studies and lessons learnt that could be used for masterplan development here in Hong Kong SAR.   A review of the relationship to BEAM Plus NB requirements is also assessed.

Topics to be covered include:

• Why develop a sustainability framework for a masterplan?
• Human benefits, Policy requirements, Resource efficiencies, Operational cost benefits, Climate change resilience, etc;
• Sustainability framework development:<
  • Site assessment (Climate, Environment, Topography, Adjacent land, etc);
  • Client Drivers / Vision / Future Growth;
  • Policy Drivers;
  • Best Practice assessment and benchmarking / applicable case studies;
  • Stakeholder and design team engagement.
• Microclimate and Energy Strategy Development Principles:
  • Energy Hierarchy (passive / active / renewables);
  • Considerations for thermal comfort (Temperature / Solar gains and Shading / wind management / Rainfall / Humidity / heat island)
  • Relationship between masterplan design and building design;
  • Key considerations for different climates;
• Case study - Al Duqm, Oman: Microclimate assessment, and masterplan development around environmental considerations
• Case study - Brent Cross, London, UK: Reviewing district energy options, and impact of changing building design standards on masterplan options.
• Relationship between key principles and achieving BEAM Plus NB

Speaker: Mr Jonny PERKS, Associate, Steensen Varming

Jonny is an Associate within Steensen Varming’s Sustainability team in Hong Kong.  With diverse experience, primarily within urban development, he is passionate about improving the sustainability of cities, and understanding the climatic, cultural and site-specific influences for developing sustainable design solutions.  Having lived and worked in the UK, Australia, Middle East and now Hong Kong, he understands the importance and complexity of adapting design solutions to the local context.

Jonny has developed sustainability and energy strategies for a range of masterplans, buildings and infrastructure developments, including microclimate analysis and optimisation of passive thermal comfort design for outdoor and indoor spaces.  He has also produced strategic carbon and energy reduction analysis for government bodies. 

He has experience managing many international sustainability rating systems, and has carried out assessments for projects around the world.  This includes LEED, WELL, Green Star and EEO assessments in Australia, GSAS and CEEQUAL in Qatar, LEED on a range of international projects, and BREEAM in the UK.  He has developed bespoke sustainability frameworks for both masterplans and buildings, incorporating strategies to optimise the efficient use of resources, while ensuring designs can adapt to future climatic conditions.

Session 2: Walkability in super dense cities

It is now widely agreed that walkable neighbourhoods have accessibility, health, environmental, social and economic benefits. Most walkability design principles* originate from north America/Australia and Europe where vitality, walking to transport and reducing the use of private car remain the main impact goals of urban design. Yet in Asia and emerging dense and super dense megacities and in the densest part of global cities elsewhere, the issues are very different. Because of the presence of large numbers of people on the streets, vitality and walking to transport hubs happens very “naturally” – the well-researched conjunction of the 5Ds and its controversy. For these super dense cities walkability presents a set of yet to be fully addressed challenges: over-crowding, congestion, vertical walkability, appropriate standards and policies.

In this presentation, we start with a brief review of walkability definitions illustrated with western examples. Moving to Shanghai, we tease out the changes in scale, weather conditions that impacts walkability criteria in a time of climate change and aging society. Finally with the exceptionalism of Hong Kong, we discuss HKUrbanLab’s current work on a 3D digital pedestrian route map that will provide a pedestrian infrastructure platform for all manner of active super dense walkability interventions.

Speaker:
Mr Alain CHIARADIA 
Associate Professor,  Department of Urban Planning and Design
Programme Director, Master of Urban Design
University of Hong Kong

Alain Chiaradia is Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong, Department of Urban Planning and Design. He is the Programme Director of the Master of Urban Design. Alain has worked on walkability in the US, Europe, the Middle East and China. He has led research and software tool development for analysis of property markets and their urban design determinants (densities, green space, street and transport networks layout). The software tools developed are widely used in health research (HealthsDNA) and for walkability in dense/vertical cities.

(WalksDNA). As an urban design and walkability consultant, he has advised municipal authorities, urban designers and masterplanners on urban planning and design of future cities at various scales, from masterplan to neighborhood, to district and conurbation. He has published widely on these topics.

WalksDNA was a Top 5 Winner at the Walk21 Hong Kong CityTech competition, 2016.

HealthsDNA-based work has been recognized at the Royal Town Planning Institute Awards for Research Excellence. It was the basis of the winning project in 2014, and of a commended entry in 2016.