DESIGN FOR TENANT FITOUT - A CRITICAL-REVIEW OF PUBLIC-HOUSING FLAT DESIGN IN HONG-KONG

This paper examines changes of space allocation and use patterns over the past 40 yr in Hong Kong's small public housing flats. It explores the benefits of 'Tenant Fitout', a process which enables individual fa milies to fine tune layouts of their small unfinished flat-'shells'- t o fit their specific needs. The comparison of 'Tenant Fitout' patterns was conducted to provide useful insights into the spatial and activit y needs of families as these insights can be extremely helpful in deve loping new shell designs. Also discussed are the advantages of 'flexib ility of shells' to accommodate several layout options. The paper sugg ests that, because of the many advantages of 'Tenent Fitout', the rece nt trend in Hong Kong towards building 'fixed layout' flats instead of 'Shells for Tenant Fitout' should be reconsidered. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.