Architecture and Sustainable Development

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) Integrated Information Database · Campus Module 05 (Supplementary)

The architectural language of the HKU campus spans a full century, from the Edwardian Baroque red brick of 1912 to the modular (MiC) student residence at Wong Chuk Hang, completed in 2023. At the same time, as an institution wedged into a hillside and squeezed for space, HKU has over the past two decades tied expansion tightly to sustainability — the Centennial Campus (2012) was the first cluster of HKU buildings to earn Platinum certification under LEED/BEAM, and the Pokfield Campus, now under construction and set to open in phases from 2027, is the latest chapter in that lineage. This article follows four threads: the evolution of architectural styles, the green campus and carbon targets, the history of the Centennial Campus expansion, and the Pokfield Campus: the next westward expansion.

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# 1. Three eras of architectural style

# 1.1 Edwardian red brick (1910s–1930s): colonial classicism

HKU's oldest buildings speak the language of Edwardian colonial classicism.

• The Main Building (1912): according to Wikipedia, the Main Building is of Edwardian Baroque / neo-Renaissance style, in red brick with granite^※; per the Antiquities and Monuments Office, it is a three-storey red-brick building supported on granite columns of the Ionic order, symmetrically arranged around a central clock tower^※(per Main Building · Wikipedia, AMO · Main Building). Its designer was Alfred Bryer of Leigh & Orange^※(per Main Building · Wikipedia).
• Hung Hing Ying Building / Tang Chi Ngong Building (1914/1915): per the Antiquities and Monuments Office, the two buildings are three-storey red-brick structures embodying "the Edwardian fascination with classicism"^※(per AMO · HKU Heritage).
• Tang King Po Building (1919): per the Antiquities and Monuments Office, this is neoclassical, with red brick plus timber trusses, distinguished by a central dome^※(per AMO · HKU Heritage).

These red-brick buildings share a common vocabulary — red brick + granite + classical orders + symmetrical layouts — and form the core of HKU's standing as "examples of British colonial architecture". According to the Estates Office, they are also among the few surviving British colonial buildings in Hong Kong^※(per HKU Estates · Our Campuses). Architectural historians note that the Main Building makes extensive use of fair-faced red brick, echoing Britain's own "red-brick university" tradition — red brick, as a comparatively humble material, carried a certain implication, as against dressed stone, of these colleges being "affordable and open to all" rather than purely aristocratic stone monuments. For the naming and details of each building, see〈Iconic Buildings & Landmarks〉.

# 1.2 A Chinese interlude with Shanghai plaster (1930s): Fung Ping Shan Building

The Fung Ping Shan Building (1931) of the 1930s speaks a different language: per the Antiquities and Monuments Office, it is a three-storey flat-roofed building finished in Shanghai plaster, blending classicism with Art Deco^※(per AMO · HKU Heritage). As the dedicated building for the School of Chinese, it sets up a deliberate contrast in material and temperament with the Main Building's red brick — an episode of "East-meets-West" within HKU's architectural vocabulary.

# 1.3 Postwar concrete and contemporary landmarks (1970s–2010s)

In the postwar era, HKU's teaching and research buildings moved into the concrete age, with the Knowles Building (1973) as a signature example. Per HKU Giving, the building has a different floor plan on every level, using a grid of white sun-shading grilles (brise-soleil) to balance the structural mass, with two basement levels that are frameless and wall-less to create a "floating" visual effect^※(per HKU Giving · Knowles Building) — an approach that emphasises exposed structure and sun-shading grilles, squarely in the lineage of postwar modernism and brutalism. In the same period, architect Szeto Wai's Robert Black College (1966) took a different path — using modern construction techniques to reinterpret the understated courtyard-house vernacular of Chinese dwellings; see〈Directory of Buildings & Places〉.

# 1.4 How to "read" the red brick: heritage trails and guided tours

HKU has turned the history of these red-brick buildings into several public-facing ways of visiting. Per the Antiquities and Monuments Office and HKU materials, HKU runs an audio-guide programme, the "HKU Heritage Sights and Sites" heritage trail, where visitors scan QR codes or listen online at their own pace to learn the campus's history^※; the University also offers heritage trail tours led by "Scholastic Tour Leaders", giving the public (especially younger generations) a deeper look at the architectural and cultural history of HKU and Hong Kong. Per HKU materials, the standard one-hour campus tour, led by "Green Gown Guides", covers Fung Ping Shan Building, Tang King Po Building, the Main Building, the bronze statue of Dr Sun Yat-sen beside the Lotus Pool, and Hung Hing Ying Building^※ — a route that conveniently strings together in one physical walk several declared monuments described in this article and in〈Iconic Buildings & Landmarks〉.

Moving into the contemporary era, HKU's most technologically ground-breaking project is the student residence at 4 Police School Road, Wong Chuk Hang, on the south side of Hong Kong Island (2023). Per the Estates Office, the residence was built using the Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) method, making it one of Hong Kong's pioneering projects of this kind^※; it comprises two 17-storey modular towers plus a three-storey podium of non-residential uses, providing about 1,200 student places^※ at a cost of roughly HK$1.2 billion. Works began in 2019 and the residence opened in September 2023; the 952 modular units came in just five module sizes, prefabricated and pre-finished in mainland China factories before being shipped to the Wong Chuk Hang site for hoisting into place^※, sharply compressing construction time and cost. The residence is also equipped with a mobile app that allows remote control of doors, air-conditioning and lighting, booking of communal facilities and monitoring of energy use — in direct lineage with the Centennial Campus's "interactive energy display screens", and the latest instance of HKU folding "smart" features into residence design. The project has received a BEAM Plus Provisional Platinum rating from the Hong Kong Green Building Council^※, and has since won an "Outstanding MiC Project Award" (2022) plus several Gold Seal awards (2023) for promoting MiC adoption, safe construction and environmentally friendly building.

If the Main Building's red brick marks the starting point of HKU's architectural history, the prefabricated modular towers of the Wong Chuk Hang student residence are, for now, its most recent full stop — separated by more than a century, the two make the most vivid pairing for "reading" generational change in HKU's built environment: from a heritage monument hand-laid by craftsmen, to a modular high-rise prefabricated in a factory and hoisted on site.

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# 2. The green campus and carbon targets

# 2.1 Carbon-neutrality commitments

Per the Sustainability Office, HKU is committed to supporting the Hong Kong government's climate targets — carbon neutrality by 2050, with an interim goal of cutting emissions by 50% against 2005 levels by 2035^※(per HKU Sustainability · Green Buildings). This commitment folds campus buildings, energy use and retrofits into a single decarbonisation framework. Per the latest campus overview from the Estates Office, as at June 2024 HKU held roughly 54.8 hectares of land in total (17.7 ha main campus, 9.6 ha Kadoorie Centre, 4.2 ha medical campus, 23.3 ha other Pokfulam land), with a total floor area of about 729,000 square metres^※(per the HKU Annual Report 2024) — and this scale of continuous growth has made "green from day one" the default standard for HKU's expansion projects over the past two decades.

# 2.2 The Centennial Campus: a LEED/BEAM Platinum green cluster

The flagship of HKU's green building effort is the Centennial Campus. Per the Estates Office, the Centennial Campus "is certified Platinum under both the LEED and BEAM new-building rating schemes"^※(per HKU Estates · Centennial Campus); an HKU press release likewise confirms the campus received LEED Platinum certification as a high-performance green building^※(per HKU Press · Centennial Campus LEED Platinum).

Per the Sustainability Office, the green design features of the Centennial Campus include:

• rooftop solar panels and building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) sun-shading fins on the south-facing facade of the Jockey Club Tower^※(per HKU Sustainability · Green Buildings);
• optimised natural daylighting, ventilation and rainwater-runoff capture, together with renewable-energy installations and high-efficiency building systems^※(per HKU Sustainability · Green Buildings);
• interactive displays showing real-time energy, water, waste and recycling data for the Centennial Campus^※(per HKU Sustainability · Green Buildings).

The full engineering narrative of the Centennial Campus — the slope cutting and cavern schemes — is told in the dedicated article〈The Centennial Campus〉.

# 2.3 Retrofitting the existing stock

Carbon targets rest not only on new green buildings but on retrofitting old ones. Per the Sustainability Office, HKU is replacing thousands of fluorescent tubes in older buildings with energy-efficient, mercury-free LED lamps, and installing new window films that reduce heat gain, ultraviolet and glare^※(per HKU Sustainability · Green Buildings). On a compact urban campus with limited land and limited buildings, "retrofitting the stock" is a major wing of HKU's decarbonisation effort.

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# 3. A history of expansion: continually adding to an urban hillside

# 3.1 The main campus's incremental additions

HKU's main campus was never built in one go but added to piece by piece. The Main Building itself has been extended: per the caption on the Estates Office's site, it "was extended in 1952 and 1958"^※(per HKU Estates · Main Building); postwar concrete teaching and research blocks followed on the hillside (among them the Knowles Building in 1973, the Haking Wong Building in 1983, the Run Run Shaw Building in 1985 and the Chuang Ming Yuet Building in 1994 — see〈Directory of Buildings & Places〉). This pattern of "adding building by building up the slope" gives the campus a pronounced layering of eras.

# 3.2 The Centennial Campus: cutting into the slope to the west (2009–2012)

HKU's largest expansion before 2012 was the Centennial Campus, carved out of the slope west of the main campus. Per the Estates Office, planning for the project — "to meet the larger student intake under the 334 education reform"^※ — began in 2005, and it opened in September 2012(per HKU Estates · Centennial Campus); per Wikipedia, construction began in late 2009 and finished in 2012^※(per University of Hong Kong · Wikipedia).

The Centennial Campus was built on the slope to the west of the main campus, requiring land to be carved out of steep terrain and different elevations to be connected by elevated decks and footbridges — in keeping with HKU's overall morphology of "scattered across an urban hillside, stitched together by vertical transport" (for geography see〈Campus Geography〉, for vertical transport see〈Transport & Facilities〉). Per the Estates Office, the lead consultants were Wong & Ouyang (Hong Kong) Ltd, with Gammon Construction as main contractor^※(per HKU Estates · Centennial Campus). The full story of the cavern-based reservoir relocation, the three academic towers and "University Street" is told in the dedicated article〈The Centennial Campus〉.

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# 4. The Pokfield Campus: the next westward expansion (phased opening from 2027)

If the Centennial Campus was HKU's largest expansion before 2012, then the Pokfield Campus, now under construction and set to open in phases from 2027, is the newest — and largest — chapter in that expansion story.

# 4.1 Location and scale: the former Ho Sin Hang / Lindsay Ride Sports Centres site

Per the Estates Office, the Pokfield Campus project is located at 111–113 Bonham Road and 13–21 Pokfulam Road^※, replacing the long-serving Ho Sin Hang Sports Centre, Lindsay Ride Sports Centre, Stanley Ho Swimming Pool and Pokfulam Road staff quarters(see〈Directory of Buildings & Places〉and〈Transport & Facilities〉). Per the Pokfield Campus website, the whole project covers approximately 130,000 square metres^※ — dwarfing the Centennial Campus in scale.

# 4.2 Three phases and cost

Per the Estates Office's project file, the Pokfield Campus is proceeding in three phases:

Per the Estates Office, the total project budget is roughly HK$8 billion^※, with P&T Architects & Engineers as overall consultant; Phases 1 and 2 are being built by the Lanon-Able joint venture and Phase 3 by Build King Construction.

# 4.3 Positioning: the Business School's new home, also serving sports, residence and conferences

Per the Pokfield Campus website, the project's vision is to create "a contemporary hub integrating academic excellence, innovation and sustainability", built around the three pillars of education, innovation and outreach, and it will become the new home of the HKU Business School — the second faculty, after Law (which moved into the Cheng Yu Tung Tower on the Centennial Campus in 2012), to gain a dedicated, integrated building(see〈Directory of Buildings & Places〉and〈The Centennial Campus〉). The project sits within walking distance of the Centennial Campus, which makes the Pokfield Campus, in a sense, a geographic and functional extension of it.

Per the Estates Office, the project will rebuild "sports facilities and staff quarters that have served for decades"; the new sports complex will include an indoor heated swimming pool with an adjustable-depth floor and multiple multi-purpose activity rooms(see the account of the Ho Sin Hang Sports Centre's 2023 closure in〈Transport & Facilities〉).

# 4.4 Sustainability and awards: green-building escalation from "meeting standards" to "promoting health"

Per the Pokfield Campus website and an HKU Business School press release, the project is positioned as a "Sustainable, Healthy & Smart Campus"; once complete it will provide more than 9,000 square metres of landscaped green area^※, balancing liveability with energy efficiency. It is also the first HKU campus project to achieve WELL v2™ pre-certification — signalling a new venture by the University into building health standards, going beyond the conventional green-building metrics of energy use and carbon emissions.

Per the Pokfield Campus design pages, the "healthy building" design follows nine foundational criteria under the World Health Organization (WHO) framework — ventilation, water quality, thermal comfort, safety and security, noise control, humidity management, daylighting and views, dust and pest prevention, and air quality. The landscaping adopts a "sponge city" concept of rainwater collection and reuse, with multi-level planted terraces, vertical greening, and green roofs and balconies so that even upper facades carry greenery. The project also pursues dual certification under BEAM Plus and the WELL international standard — the former covering design and construction management, health and well-being, site sustainability, and materials and waste management; the latter measuring the multiple impacts of the built environment on human health (air, water, nutrition, light, fitness, thermal comfort, acoustics, materials, mind, and community connectivity). In construction method, the project employs prefabrication to shorten schedules and cut emissions, non-percussive foundation methods, and Building Information Modelling (BIM) throughout design visualisation and whole-lifecycle management^※ — sitting, alongside the Wong Chuk Hang residence's MiC method (see §1 above), within HKU's recent push for "prefabricated / digitally enabled construction".

Per the HKU Business School press release, the Pokfield Campus won a Gold award in the "Best New Development" category at the 2025 MIPIM Asia Awards^※ — MIPIM Asia, founded in 2007, is one of the more influential award programmes in the Asian property industry. From the Centennial Campus's LEED/BEAM Platinum, to the Wong Chuk Hang residence's provisional BEAM Plus Platinum, to the Pokfield Campus's WELL pre-certification, HKU's green-building ambitions trace a clear upward trajectory: from "meeting standards" to "promoting health" — no longer content with quantified energy and carbon metrics alone, but putting occupants' physical and mental well-being at the core of building design.

# 4.5 Quality concerns during construction (2023)

Large projects occasionally attract quality disputes during construction, and the Pokfield Campus (then referred to as the West Wing Redevelopment at Pokfulam Road) was no exception. In June 2023, according to media reports, the head of an engineering-inspection body publicly questioned on social media the appearance of "honeycomb" voids and exposed rebar on concrete beams and columns in the lower ground and second floor levels, suggesting possible structural defects such as "hollow columns" and criticising the workmanship as unsatisfactory; HKU responded that it always attaches great importance to construction quality on campus and would follow up seriously with the contractor on the defects. This item rests on contemporaneous reporting from a single news source; no formal findings by HKU or an independent engineering body have since been published. This article records, in good faith, that a dispute existed, without drawing conclusions on its merits. Confidence: single source.

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# 4a. Four eras side by side: a complete history of construction methods

Stepping back across the four sections of this article, HKU's architectural history can be read as a history of construction methods as much as of styles:

From "hand-laid masonry" to "in-situ pouring" to "factory prefabrication with on-site hoisting", HKU's construction methods are themselves a miniature history of Hong Kong's building industry; and the rating standards have moved from the colonial era of "no ratings at all", through the LEED/BEAM age of "good enough to comply", to today's WELL standard that pursues "occupant physical and mental well-being". This evolutionary line may tell us more about how the HKU campus has changed over the past century than any single building's stylistic description.

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# 5. Not found / to be verified

• The exact site area, gross floor area and construction cost of the Centennial Campus: the Estates Office's public pages and the sources retrieved for this article do not fully disclose the figures → marked "not found"; no speculation offered.
• Full contract details of the modular-unit supplier for the Wong Chuk Hang student residence: the Estates Office page names the main consultants, contractor and MiC supplier, but item-by-item subcontract details are not fully disclosed; this article states only what has been publicly stated.
• Whether the Pokfield Campus's final total investment will be adjusted as works progress: the project file of the Estates Office cited here records approximately HK$8 billion as the budget at the time of disclosure; the actual cost awaits official settlement upon completion.

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