研究生堂

Graduate House is designed by Rocco Yim（嚴迅奇）of Rocco Design Limited, a graduate from the Department of Architecture at HKU, who has established himself as one of the best designers in Hong Kong. The project is a mixed-use academic building which comprises three distinct functions: a dormitory for 210 graduate students, an amenities centre for the whole student body and a conference centre for the public. It is located on a difficult yet beautiful site, where a nullah runs across a picturesque valley dotted with a number of mature trees.

The architect takes advantage of the site challenges by developing a building that connects the main campus through the steep slope to the upper access road of University Drive in a drop of 18m. By skilful manipulation of building levels and orientation, most of the original vegetation on the site is kept, preserving the mature trees and even turning them into a feature of the design. A series of terraces are formed alongside the building, serving as semi-private/public domains for the visual as well as physical expansion of the foyer and circulation spaces inside.

The resulting form of the project follows this cascading idea by evolving into three distinct portions. The lowest and closest to the main campus movement is the conference centre which contains the Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall（王賡武講堂）, four seminar rooms and a multi-purpose room. The middle portion consists of nine floors of student hostels on top of the amenities centre which comprises several multi-purpose rooms, music rooms and study facilities. The highest block, named after Jockey Club, has 18 stories in total, 11 of which are student hostels above the main entrance to the dormitory.

The Jockey Club Building（賽馬會樓）faces south which optimizes exposure to the sun, cross-ventilation of the rooms and view to the mountain with single-loaded corridors. It is connected with the lower residential block by a glass intermediate zone which is developed into double-storied student lounges. The lower tower is skewed in its orientation to the north-east to gain the best prospects of view towards the campus and harbour. The rooms again are arranged with single-loaded corridors. Both walls on the corridor-side of the residential blocks are relatively solid with narrow vertical windows to minimize the heat gain through western solar exposure.

The building is faced externally with coloured ceramic tiles and painted with different shades of grey. The foyer and other internal public spaces feature reconstituted marble tiles with painted concrete. The main stairway is made from solid beech timber. Colour is kept to a minimum with painted doors and balustrades, mostly in shades of grey and blue. The overall ambience of the place is subdued, yet bright and elegant for the functions it houses. As an academic building, it attains an appropriate decorum with its sensitive and intelligent responses to the environment and context and would serve as an example for other campus constructions yet to appear.

Design Statement
(extracted)

"...The design's main aim is to merge the campus into the architecture and to create a green environment both within and without the building envelope. More specifically, the following strategies are adopted:-

The hostel block is orientated to face south and north-east, with narrow, solid facades and circulation elements as buffets to face east and west, thus achieving appropriate solar insulation and respecting the existing campus planning axes.

The footprint of the hostel block is carefully configured to facilitate single-loaded corridors for possible cross-ventilation across all bedrooms as well as maximum view and natural lighting for the double-volume communal lounges.

The existing natural features on site such as the nullah, the valley and the trees are preserved and a more formal landscaped route is created to flank the natural terrain as a green "connector space" for daily commuters from the campus centre to the other campus buildings up the slope.

A contiguous series of semi-private/semi-public spaces are created at the building's base to unite the architecture... spaces are intentionally ambiguous and elastic, serving at once as circulation, lobby, lounge, prefunction and a visual extension of the landscaped terraces outside..."

Jockey Club Building

Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall

Jury's Report "The building is located on a very difficult site: there is a stream course passing through, a number of beautiful and mature trees not to be removed and a great level different across the site. The architect had put different functions (a dormitory, an amenities centre and a conference centre) together in an ingenuous way. The building configuration evolved beautifully from the natural features and also the functional requirements for different uses. The building also redefines the external / semi-external space, and the semi-private / semi-public spaces created at the base of the building that unites the architecture - a series of flowing, meandering spaces cascading down from the top towards the campus centre for a free and liberal ambience of university life."

Extracted from HKIA Newsletter 4/99

人的建築
 
 

"很多外國朋友常常問我，為甚麼香港建築業這樣發達、政府這樣富有，但連一個"國際級"的建築師也培養不到？

通常我都會請他看看嚴迅奇的作品。

香港並不是沒有"國際級"的建築師，只是沒有具視野和文化修養的業主，所以要認真地從事建築設計是一件非常非常痛苦的事。

香港政府只把建築看成管理工具。

香港人和香港的發展商只把建築看成投機工具。

所以香港絕大部份的建築都是"錢的建築"，不是培育人類發展的 "人的建築"。嚴迅奇的作品是屬於"人的建築"。用懷才不遇可能有點過份。香港人的確是浪費了嚴迅奇的設計天份。

嚴迅奇早於八零年代已經獲得巴黎歌劇院設計比賽第一名與及多項國際設計比賽的獎項。但中央圖書館和文化中心這樣重要的文化建築，為甚麼會落在一些九流的設計官僚手上，而不是由像嚴迅奇這樣富天份的人負責？

這是香港社會的文化水平問題。

這是香港政府的視野和政策問題。

香港大學可以做甚麼？

研究生堂就是一個有力的答案，嚴迅奇再次示範了甚麼是低成本的好建築，看到研究生堂，我十分高興。

我十分希望香港大學未來的建築物，每一幢都能達到研究生堂的水平。

提供更多機會，發掘更多像嚴迅奇這樣認真這樣有天份的建築師。

恭喜香港大學，恭喜嚴迅奇。"
 

胡恩威
建築系九二年畢業生, 香港發展策略研究所主席