How Did We Build Hong Kong’s Only Modern Timber Building?

A City and Its “Lost Material”

In cities like Tokyo, Oslo, and even Singapore, timber construction is quietly making a comeback—lightweight, sustainable, and imbued with a warmth that feels almost forgotten.

But in Hong Kong, when you look up at the dense curtain walls and rigid façades, you’ll notice something missing: wood.

Why?

The absence of timber is not just a matter of material choice—it reflects a silenced chapter in the city’s architectural memory.

1. After the Great Fire, Wood Disappeared from the City

Hong Kong once had a deep relationship with timber.

Before the 1950s, wooden houses, bridges, and beams formed the early fabric of the city. But this came to an abrupt halt after the devastating Shek Kip Mei fire.

On a winter night in 1953, flames tore through the wooden shacks of the settlement, destroying the homes of 50,000 residents in a single night. When the fire finally receded, timber became synonymous with “unsafe.”

From then on, the government shifted entirely toward concrete and steel. Timber—the softest and most human of materials—was removed from the skeleton of the city.

Seventy years later, Hong Kong has grown into one of the densest high-rise forests in the world.
But that “breathing” architectural language never returned.

As a Hong Kong design architect working within strict regulations and a unique urban environment, understanding this history is crucial to imagining a more sustainable future.

2. Why Is It So Difficult to Build with Timber in Hong Kong?

It’s not that no one wants to use timber—it's that doing so is extremely difficult.

The first barrier: Regulations

Hong Kong does have timber construction standards, but they are exceptionally strict. According to the Buildings Department, timber is generally limited to non-structural uses—interior partitions, exterior walls under six metres tall, or temporary structures.

A load-bearing or multi-storey timber building? Almost impossible.

Every new timber structural system—such as CLT (cross-laminated timber)—requires extensive individual performance testing. Fire resistance, wind load, seismic performance—all of these must be validated through lengthy test cycles that can take one to two years and cost over a million dollars.

For most firms, including even an experienced Hong Kong architecture firm, this is a “near-impossible” undertaking.

The second barrier: Climate

Hong Kong is humid, rainy, and frequently struck by typhoons.

A timber structure here needs to resist moisture, insects, and decay—and withstand strong lateral wind loads.

As one structural engineer remarked:
“Building a timber house in Hong Kong is like sending wood into a typhoon stress test.”

The third barrier: Psychology

The memory of Shek Kip Mei runs deep.
For many regulators and clients, the instinctive equation remains:

wood = flammable = dangerous

This is not a technical hurdle—it is a cultural shadow. And cultural shifts take time.

3. Other Cities Are Already “Replanting Their Forests”

If global architecture were a forest, Hong Kong’s trees have almost been cleared. Meanwhile, other cities are replanting theirs.

In Japan, CLT is used to build multi-storey residences and schools. Kyoto’s new libraries smell of cedar the moment you step inside.

In Singapore, the government actively supports hybrid structures that use glulam for roofs and façades to reduce carbon emissions.

In Northern Europe, timber is celebrated as a “carbon-storing building material”—constructing a building is likened to planting a forest.

These places are leveraging technology and progressive regulations to bring wood back onto the architectural stage.

Hong Kong, by contrast, remains stuck at the “temporary timber pavilion” level.

4. Where Can Timber Architecture Still Be Found in Hong Kong?

Timber hasn’t disappeared entirely.

Chi Lin Nunnery and Tin Hau Temples still retain timber beams and dougong brackets, though these are preserved as heritage rather than used in contemporary practice.

More recently, the Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre in Tuen Mun—designed by Gehry Partners—included a timber roof structure, though the main building remains steel and concrete.

West Kowloon’s Growing Up Pavilion ↗, however, stands out as one of the few contemporary structures built primarily with timber.

It was approved only because it qualified as a “temporary pavilion,” allowing it to be processed under a more lenient permit pathway.

In other words, its very existence is an exception.

5. Everyone Knows the Advantages of Timber

But in Hong Kong, It Has No Place to Take Root. The benefits of timber are well known:

• renewable and low-carbon
  
  
• lightweight
  
  
• able to sequester carbon
  
  
• warm and human in character
  
  

Its scent, texture, and light interplay create a sense of psychological calm.

In a high-density metropolis, such an architectural language is incredibly valuable.

But Hong Kong’s soil is hard. Regulatory barriers, climatic challenges, psychological fears, and economic realities make what seems like a romantic idea—in practice—nearly impossible.

Even for a seasoned Hong Kong design architect, pushing for timber requires extraordinary persistence and resources.

6. Perhaps the Future of Timber in Hong Kong Is Just Around the Corner

Even so, the story might not be over. Sustainability, carbon neutrality, and circular materials are pushing the world to rethink its approach to construction.

And timber is part of that answer.

On the West Kowloon lawn, the Growing Up Pavilion still stands quietly, unchanged after six years. It proves that timber can survive in Hong Kong—it simply needs to be re-understood.

Perhaps one day, when regulations evolve, technology advances, and old fears are replaced with new knowledge, timber will once again weave itself into Hong Kong’s urban fabric.

On that day, the city of concrete and steel may finally learn to breathe again.

Timber architecture in Hong Kong is not merely a technical challenge. It is a healing process—of memory, safety, and trust.

In a city that has grown vertically for half a century, what it may need most is not taller buildings, but softer materials.