Significance of Sky Gardens for Healthy High-Rise Living of Urban Children and Old Adults
A new typology of sky gardens has been driving design of residential high-rises,which aims at offering communal green spaces at high levels for enhancement of social interactions and neighbourhood place-making while improving environmental conditions simultaneously.However,criticisms have been found that these communal green spaces are merely as gimmicky features and of a low occupancy rate.Indeed,children and old adults spend most of their time in residence.Are these gardens designed for their daily living? This paper is an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of these sky gardens contributing to social integration and health development of children and old adults in high-density high-rise contexts.Having reviewed policies,regulations and guidelines in Hong Kong and Singapore,the study investigates the desirable provisions of communal green spaces and amenities in support of a healthy living environment; and co-relates their applicability to the contexts of high-rise residential developments.Case studies of forty residential high-rises in Hong Kong and Singapore map out diverse spatial,functional and landscaping design of sky gardens.Qualitative comparative analysis identifies key design attributes to children and old adults enjoyment and their everyday life.The findings inform that the current designs of sky gardens follow nominal prescriptive requirements of the governments green incentives which emphasize environmental performances,but are less likely deliberated from users perspectives with respect to social and psychological benefits.Seldom of them pay attention to creating children and elderly friendly communal spaces at high levels.Sense of safety and lack of active facilities at existing sky gardens are observed.Recommendations are made to the criteria of the green incentives not only appealing for residential high-rises with nominal amount of green but also qualifying the green to be liveable and enjoyable by daily frequent users comprising children and old adults.
policy and regulation inclusive eco-design sustainable neighbourhood
Tony IP
Ronald Lu & Partners(Hong Kong)Ltd.,Hong Kong SAR
国际会议
2017世界可持续建筑环境大会(the World Sustainable Built Environment Conference)
香港
英文
2299-2306
2017-06-05（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）