House of stories

Students are impressed with the aesthetically pleasing colours and symmetry of Nam Shan Estate.
(Photo credit: Falk Aritomo Hettwer)

The Office of Academic Links hosted a housing tour for incoming exchange students in November. Led by Dr. Man Han of the School of Architecture, the tour took students to Kowloon and Fo Tan to study and compare the architectural features and styles of different types of housing.

The tour was kick-started with a leisure hike at Garden Hill, taking students to the hilltop to have an aerial view of government public housing built in the 1970s, pre-war buildings (Tong Lau), and private residential buildings. The group then went to Mei Ho House, a heritage transformed into a youth hostel and museum from one of the earliest public housing estates in Hong Kong. They also visited Nam Shan Estate for an instagrammable photo. The tour ended with a visit to Sui Wo Court, where the students were briefed on Hong Kong’s Home Ownership Scheme.

Participating students were amazed by the variety of homes of different generations in Hong Kong. Mustafa Harun Bala from the Copenhagen Business School found that the tour was very interesting, allowing him to gain insight on people’s lives in the city. Jing Hng Chin from the National University of Singapore grasped the opportunity to interact with other exchange students to learn more about the housing policies in other places. As an architecture student, Falk Aritomo Hettwer from Stuttgart University of Applied Science enjoyed seeing different estates and housing options which are not found in his home country.