Pattern of Living: Hong Kong’s High-Rise Communities with Professor Hilary French - The book is the result of a one-year study with the research question - “how do citizens in one of ‘the most liveable cities in the world’ actually live?” This book takes readers inside people’s homes capturing a glimpse of their patterns of living through a series of drawings and snapshots of typical interiors in diverse districts of Hong Kong. Almost 50% of Hong Kong’s population, some 3.5 million people, live in public housing. They occupy the high density, high-rise tower blocks, in small apartments that have been standardised, serialised, repeated and refined for efficiency in construction. The research investigated and the book shows for the first time the interiors – the living reality of modernist housing project – and highlights particular type of residence design that housing studies now categorise as ‘indeterminate’: it is offered to tenants as a single room to partition to suit their own demand. Its success offers a model with international significance, controversial especially in rental housing, but potentially a way forward in reducing housing costs and allowing future flexibility. ISBN 978-988012324-4-1
