Underground may be the way to go in solving Hong Kong's housing woes
It worked for HKU, which freed up space for campus by moving reservoirs into caverns
For six or seven years, local universities have been expanding their campuses to accommodate the increasing number of undergraduate students due to the curriculum changing from three to four years.
Some universities chose to construct new buildings on their existing campuses.
But for the University of Hong Kong, this was not possible - its existing campus, located in a built-up area, was already crowded. So the university came up with an innovative solution: it got approval to relocate three service reservoirs into underground caverns, and used the space freed up from the relocation to construct three new buildings.
The three buildings, housing the arts, social sciences and law faculties, make up HKU's new Centennial Campus.
And much to the surprise of many, the campus actually looks nice and green, complete with an array of environmentally friendly facilities.
But the point to note here is that HKU managed to create space to solve its land shortage problem by moving three service reservoirs into rock caverns excavated in the adjacent hillside.
