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Thursday, November 10, 2022, 13:39
Piling up modules to reach new development height
By William Xu
Thursday, November 10, 2022, 13:39 By William Xu

SHENZHEN – Hong Kong will adopt the Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) method to speed up public housing construction. The message on the use of this unconventional construction method has raised some people's concerns.

To many people, MiC is an obscure architectural term, which can also be misinterpreted as shoddy or even jerry-built projects. However, as a time-saving, safe and sustainable building approach that has been widely adopted at home and abroad, MiC would not only be one of the key factors to address Hong Kong's long-standing public housing shortage, but also provide efficient solutions for the city's future development.

Constructing a building with the MiC method is a bit like assembling a smartphone. The building approach involves many free-standing modules, the way a smartphone consists of various parts including processing chips, batteries, screens etc. The modules could be a residential unit, an office room, or a toilet, are manufactured in a prefabrication factory and later transported to the construction site for installation. Workers will fit them to designated spots via engineering equipment like cranes, just as assembly workers put different parts together to make a smartphone.

Like smartphone components, the MiC modules have standardized designs usually, enabling them to be produced on a large scale. A module with quality problems can also be replaced by a spare one easily.

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By pre-manufacturing different modules in parallel in the factory, MiC projects could save the total construction time by 30 percent on average, according to the Hong Kong Construction Industry Council. Compared with the traditional methods, it could also cut construction costs by 10 percent, according to a written reply from the Development Bureau to the Legislative Council in 2021. 

As many works are done indoors, MiC projects also generate less noise, dust, and waste, and reduce the impact of weather conditions on construction. The method also requires fewer people for on-site construction, especially for those working at heights, thereby lowering the risk of accidents.

MiC has been tested as a worldwide construction solution over the past decade. Singapore’s first MiC high-rise residential development, six 13-story dormitory towers at the Nanyang Technological University, was built in 2016. The Southmoor Primary School in Victoria, Australia was completed in 2018 after six-month MiC construction. The approach has also been utilized in the construction of apartment buildings, hotels, and hospitals in the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea, and many cities on the Chinese mainland.

The success of local MiC projects also underpins the Hong Kong government's confidence in the unconventional method. 

One of the most well-known cases is the Hong Kong Infection Control Center, North Lantau Hospital which opened in January 2021. With assistance from the mainland, the hospital, having eight buildings and nearly 1,000 beds, was completed in four months, much faster than traditional construction could take.

Also, in 2021, the city completed its first MiC high-rise residential project, a married quarters for the Fire Services Department in Tseung Kwan O. Under the MiC approach, about 3,800 concrete modules made up the five-block buildings with 648 units of 50 square meters units.

The government said it takes about five working days to assemble each floor and 30 minutes to install a module. The adoption of MiC helped the project finish construction half a year in advance. 

Shenzhen has applied MiC in school construction. In Futian, the city's central business area, the district government promised to build 10 high-tech MiC primary schools to alleviate the school place shortage. More than half of the MiC schools have been completed in the past two years, and each school's average construction time is two to three months.

MiC approach has also been used to build new campuses of the existing schools in other districts, the Shenzhen government said.

It can also be a focused area in Hong Kong-Shenzhen scientific and innovative cooperation.

Based on the shared goal, scientists and engineers in Hong Kong and Shenzhen can work together and make the Northern Metropolis a pilot area for new MiC technologies.

Though the MiC method reduces the risk of accidents by using fewer workers, it may also lead to some safety problems. In an article published in the Journal of Clean Production in May, scholars from Hong Kong Polytechnic University warned the potential hazards that cranes could bring to on-site workers. They recommended reviewing and improving the crane safety operations as MiC heavily depends on cranes to install modules. 

Besides, Hong Kong still lacks local prefabrication factories and most of the modules for MiC projects need to be imported from the mainland. Long-distance transportation may increase costs and involve the risk of damage to the pre-constructed materials.

If the demand for MiC construction keeps climbing in the future, the government can consider manufacturing modules locally by establishing factories or workshops. This will also create employment and lure new blood to join the understaffed construction industry.

William Xu has been covering political and metro news for China Daily since 2020. He is also keen to discover lifestyles and trends in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and can be reached at williamxu@chinadailyhk.com.

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