Facilities @ Management

2.12 The Development of Facility Management in Hong KongA Personal Reflection

John D. Gilleard

The 1980s – Early days

Visiting the then British territory of Hong Kong for the first time in April 1984 as an academic member of a study group of building and estate management students from the National University of Singapore (where I then worked) proved a memorable trip. Norman Foster’s partially constructed HSBC Main Building, located in Hong Kong’s “eye of the tiger,” was a particular highlight. The site footprint was incredibly tight for such a complex building, with the majority of superstructure and internal systems fabricated off site. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway System (now running several similar systems worldwide) was an eye-opening example of how to move large numbers of people around a highly congested city. Ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a can-do attitude have always prevailed in the local Cantonese/ Chinese culture where the willingness to adapt creatively has played into the historical development of facility management as a profession in the city and its environs.

Before returning to Singapore, I also traveled to (then) Portuguese-controlled Macau on China’s southern coast, 40 miles west of Hong Kong, staying at the recently built Hyatt Regency Hotel – 11 floors in height and apparently unremarkable. However, later I learned that only the hotel’s foundations, ground floor, and external works had been constructed on site. The rest, floors two to eleven, had ...