The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, visited the Architectural Services Department (ArchSD) this afternoon (April 11) to gain a first-hand understanding of the Department’s latest development.
Accompanied by the Director of Architectural Services, Mrs Sylvia Lam, Mr Cheung received a briefing on the Department's contribution to public facilities development, the priority projects and the challenges ahead.
Mr Cheung then observed the design and structure services that the Architectural Branch of the Department provided to the building and landscape projects of Government building, particularly on the use of building information modelling (BIM) in project management.
He was pleased to learn that ArchSD received a Hong Kong BIM Award in 2017 for its outstanding application of BIM in the Kai Tak Refuse Collection Point project. BIM is the process of generating three-dimensional, digital representation of building data to enhance communication between the architects, engineers and construction partners working on the same project.
He then received an update by the Property Services Branch on providing efficient and cost-effective professional and project management services to buildings and facilities undergoing maintenance and refurbishment works.
Mr Cheung then visited the Project Management Branch where he was briefed on the application of modular integrated construction (MiC) in project construction and the latest progress of the Hospital Development Plan projects. MiC is a construction method under which free-standing volumetric modules are manufactured off-site and then transported for constructing buildings.
Mr Cheung said that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government had all along encouraged the construction industry to embrace innovation to increase construction productivity, enhance regulation and quality assurance, improve site safety and reduce environmental impacts. MiC could help achieve these targets since it could enable most labour-intensive and time-consuming construction processes to be completed at off-site prefabrication yards. He anticipated that the technique would be applied widely.
Mr Cheung was also given an introduction on how ArchSD could enhance its operational efficiency by applying smart and innovative technologies in the work process through the development of Corporate Intelligence (CO-i). The core of CO-i development is a big data bank with linkage to various application systems to promote “architectural intelligence”, including integrated project management platform, advanced asset information system integrated with BIM, mobile platform for construction site supervision and work flow digitalisation.
During his dialogue with front-line staff, Mr Cheung commended them for their professionalism. He also encouraged them to continue to apply new technologies and innovative building methods to ensure that the development of community facilities would be of high quality, cost-effective and sustainable.
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