Visit King Yin Lei ( 景賢里) With the kind invitation of the Development Bureau, I took the opportunity to visit this 70 years old building on 20 April 2011 with some HKIS members. While entering King Yin Lei's exterior gateway, I was totally impressed by its mixed Chinese and Western architectural design, the so-called "Chinese Renaissance" (中國文藝復興式) as described by its introduction pamphlet. This inspires me writing a short article to share my feeling of this building. I would suggest members should not miss any opportunity to visit this monument in the future. By reviewing the layout of the whole development, it is noted that this renowned mansion was built on a triangular-shaped plot of land with its courtyard, key windows and balcony facing south whereas building main entrance facing north. Since the land is situated at the mid-level of Happy Valley, it captures the best Victoria Harbour view on the north. Such orientation appears to be the most popular Chinese north-south (坐北向南)house design. Alongside the footpath between the exterior and interior gateway, I noticed there are a swimming pool on the right hand side and a Chinese style pavilion on the left shaded by a number of huge trees. The pool and pavilion were both constructed inside the rear garden of the development which I suppose it was the leisure and recreation area in the former times. One could immediately imagine how luxury this mansion be some 70 years ago when it was built. In about 50 metres ahead of the exterior gate, there is an interior arched gateway bounded and separated the main building from the rear garden. The main building was designed as a somewhat trapezium layout with an open courtyard in the centre. While bypassing the building’s main entrance and drop-off area on the northern side, I was attracted by the beautiful Victoria Harbour scenery. I stayed there for a while before visiting a subsidiary building on the northwestern corner of the site currently used as an exhibition room for showcasing the history of the mansion. There is a garage adjoining the subsidiary building where I enjoyed a short video broadcasting the historic development of King Yin Lei. Next to the garage there is an annex block, and surprisingly a pet area. I presume this was the back of house area for the servant and for keeping of dogs and livestock in the former times. King Yin Lei was built in 1937 and was originally named as "Hei Lo" (禧廬). It had undergone altogether 3 ownerships since its completion. It was only renamed as King Yin Lei in 1978 when "Hei Lo" was sold to the Yeo family, the second owner. The incident of King Yin Lei gave rise to public debate only when its third owner, who bought it in year 2007, intended to carry out demolition works. Members of public noticed that the glazed roof tiles and other architectural features, which possess significant historical value, were being stripped off such that inspiring widespread concern and demanding proper preservation. It was declared as a proposed monument at a special meeting of the Antiquities Advisory Board on 14 September 2007. After five months negotiations, the government reached an in-principle agreement with the owner on a non-in-situ land exchange, whereby the owner was granted a man-made slope adjacent to King Yin Lei. In July 2008, King Yin Lei officially became a Declared Monument. With the assistance of Professor Tang Guohua of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Guangzhou University, an expert assessment on the heritage value was carried out followed with a restoration proposal. Restoration works was carried out in two phases. Phase I being restoration of glazed roof tiles took about eight months between September 2008 to April 2009. Phase II being the restoration of the mansion itself which took more than one and half year between April 2009 and December 2010. It was noted that the restoration works covered a wide range of building materials and special construction technique as well as precise workmanship, including glazed roof tile, plaster moulding, mosaic floor tile, cement tile and terrazzo. It was perceived as a large-scale historic building restoration work rarely found in Hong Kong. As described by the introductory video, the restoration team had to carry out numerous try-and-errors before reaching the prescribed quality of finish matching the existing. Team members had to travel to Fujian Province to source a suitable manufacturer of compatible cement floor tiles. Following the completion of restoration works, the government intends to find out a proper long term use of King Yin Lei in the future purpose to balance between sustainable heritage conservation and public accessibility. Members of HKIS are encouraged to offer proposal to the government for the adaptive re-use of King Yin Lei. As a surveyor looking from facility management perspective, the successful preservation of King Yin Lei awakes me not of its historic value and architectural design, but the importance of life-cycle cost consideration. The costs of constructing King Yin Lei in some 70 years ago would definitely be an astronomical figure relative to the construction costs of other contemporary residential building alike. By disregarding the government or public buildings, could any member suggests other private residential building of similar age still being found in Hong Kong, in such a condition and quality? It was a good example of using costly reinforced concrete structure at pre war time whilst considering the benefit of sustainability. Despite using reinforced concrete as the structural framing, majority of the external wall areas were clad with traditional red brick. Comparing with most buildings in Hong Kong which were usually built for maximizing immediate return on investment, hence building materials were selected with heavy focus on cost effectiveness. The common phenomenon of strata-titled residential buildings resulting utmost difficulty and probably disincentive of gathering collective decision of proper building care and maintenance, building dilapidation remains a problem which attributes to the proposed legislation of Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme. Aged buildings nowadays were usually demolished prematurely and self initiative of building care remains only an agenda of public education. If every building owner could integrate foresight building design with sustainable and good quality building materials (although may have cost more initially) together with proper maintenance (or restoration) like King Yin Lei, building could be a sustainable structure that may stand from one generation to another.