Performance of rail village in Hong Kong: urban and building design of Tseung Kwan O line

Abstract

Tseung Kwan O is the latest New Town in Hong Kong. Designed with transitoriented development (TOD) concept, different town centers have been built and expand from the stations and forms a “Rail-Village”. Tseung Kwan O New Town has recorded with 372 000 populations in the 2016 (Town Planning Board, 2016) and having the fastest growth rate in Hong Kong. Tseung Kwan O has distinct similarity in design with Shatin District. Both new towns are following Le Corbusier’s planning ideas, transit-oriented, elevated walkway, largescale open space design, high-density living, well pedestrian walkway network, etc. The most significant gap is that Tseung Kwan O is composed of five rail-villages while Shatin is one-as-a-whole. Tseung Kwan O is a typical “Rail-village”, which is transitoriented development. The Rail-village is self-sufficient, and residents can enjoy all city function within the station 500 m catchment area. The Rail-village theory, however, is not without flaws. The money-oriented private developers distribute the government's planning. The district is sufficient single land use, which is lacking office and commercial land use. The residents are forced to work in other districts, and it has violated Le Corbusier “Athens Charter”, which divided the city into four functions: living, working, recreation and circulation (Corbusier, 1942). The pedestrian circulation is elevated, and it has destroyed tradition Hong Kong open space, which alters human’s behaviour and circulation. In this thesis, both quantitative and architectural analysis will be carried out. Po Lam station and Tseung Kwan O station are selected as case study to evaluate the performance of the Rail-village along the Tseung Kwan O Line.