High-rises and hard truths – HKICM’s mission for safer and smarter construction

張貼於： 2025-11-24

By Linda Serck

Hong Kong can construct towers on hillsides and build typhoon-resilient high-rises – but, says the Hong Kong Institute of Construction Managers President Cr Alfred Tang, there are many more challenges to face: creating a safety-first mindset, what to do with ageing buildings, and how to launch a technology-led rebrand to convince new, young talent to join the construction management workforce.

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Hong Kong is a city that lives upwards. For those not familiar with the special administrative region of China, it houses 7.5 million residents in a 1,114-square-kilometre (430.11-square-mile) territory, making it the fourth most densely populated region in the world.

“Hong Kong’s extreme urban density is both a marvel and a minefield,” said Cr Alfred Tang, President of the Hong Kong Institute of Construction Managers (HKICM).

It is a marvel because much of the metropolis consists of high-rises – 9,000 in fact, with more than 4,000 skyscrapers taller than 100 metres. That makes it the city with the most skyscrapers in the world, surpassing even New York and Shanghai.

The minefield aspect is that Hong Kong’s 41,000-plus private buildings are built on hillside terrain and are subject to typhoons, heavy rain, and land slips.

Building technology in Hong Kong is “critical”

Cr Tang highlights that because of these challenges, getting construction right is absolutely crucial: “Our building technology here is very critical,” he said, “because we have to build all the high rises on different types of land and different types of geographical conditions.”

Hong Kong’s terrain is steep and mountainous – much of the city sits on hillsides with limited flat land – so projects often need deep foundations, extensive slope stabilisation and careful retaining-wall design. A lot of development is also on reclaimed shoreline with soft marine clays and a high water table, which raises settlement and dewatering challenges.

From that challenge arises both innovation and pressure.

Cr Tang emphasises that Hong Kong has mastered complex engineering and computer-mechanics systems to deal with its geography and climate. Yet serious challenges persist: high construction costs, a shortage of construction workers, and how to attract young people to construction management. The latter, he said, “is one of the toughest problems we are facing right now”.

“Dirty and dangerous” construction industry

Much of Cr Tang’s energy goes into the question of how to make a career in construction management attractive if the younger generations view the role as unappealing:

He said: “In Hong Kong, the construction industry is still being considered as dirty and dangerous…and these kind of image issues really discourage our young people to join us, especially on the contractor side.”

To counter this, HKICM intends to rebrand construction management: promote its professionalism, raise awareness of what construction managers do, and harness technology.

“Right now, we do a lot of robotics on site to carry out some of the works and we also use a lot of remote control machinery to do the heavy works,” Cr Tang said.

“Those kind of things will be attractive to young people. Using the computer or some other remote control devices to do the work instead of standing under the sun in the dirty environment.”

The “hot issue” of construction safety

Safety, he says, is another urgent concern. “Construction safety is a very hot issue in Hong Kong right now,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we did have several high-profile construction-related accidents happen in the past few years. The general public, the society, they do have great concern on how to improve the construction safety in Hong Kong.”

What are the most common failings? Cr Tang believes many incidents result from “silly mistakes” that are often preventable – poor planning, miscommunication, or oversight.

He said: “I think the solution to tackle the problem is to have a complete revolution in the construction industry in terms of the culture and also the behaviour of every single person involved – starting from the owners, the designers, the contractors, all the way down to the foreman and workers.

“Everyone has to take one step forward to make it a safer industry.”

High-rise buildings in Hong Kong “a time bomb”

Cr Tang sees the built environment’s ever-present sustainability challenge and the need for construction managers not just to build new buildings but also to care for the older ones.

He said: “In Hong Kong, we have so many high rises, and if those high rises are not properly maintained, they will be sort of like a time bomb.

“We put in a lot of effort and resources to take good care of the old buildings. This kind of work requires many construction managers to lead and also manage the maintenance and improvement projects.”

What HKICM will do

So, in all, HKICM under Cr Tang plans to spotlight the important role of construction management to develop a culture of safety and to integrate new technology – not only for efficiency but to boost the construction management image.

He said: “We have to promote and tell people what exactly we do, what our role is, and how we can contribute to society.”

Once this is in place, Hong Kong will be able to tackle its many construction industry challenges head-on.

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Embark on a construction management undergraduate degree with the University of the Built Environment in Hong Kong.