Beating the heat: Cooling landscape measures for typological outdoor spaces in Hong Kong’s public housing estates

Rising extreme heat events pose significant threats to human health and pedestrian comfort, calling for climate-responsive design to provide heat-resilient spaces. Accommodating over 40% of Hong Kong’s population, cooling public spaces in public housing benefits a substantial portion of the city’s residents. Taking Hong Kong’s public housing as the targeted urban context, this article illustrates the heat stress faced by residents. Based on a review of outdoor cooling measures for subtropical regions, an inventory including ten feasible measures to cool the typological public spaces, i.e., open spaces, semi-outdoor, and vegetated spaces, is proposed. These measures target key microclimate parameters that influence thermal comfort, e.g., reducing solar radiation, enhancing pedestrian level ventilation, etc. We advocate for the integration of these cooling strategies in future public space design to ensure both spatial diversity and improved thermal comfort, enabling residents to better adapt to increasing future extreme heat conditions.

Fig. 2 Typological public spaces in PHEs: Open, vegetated, and semi-outdoor spaces, illustrated with Lai On and Lai Kok Estates, Cheung Sha Wan

Fig. 3 Utilizing building shade and covered walkway in open spaces

Fig. 5 Utilizing water features and mist spraying in open spaces

Fig. 7 Utilizing combined natural and artificial shading and optimize tree and building in vegetated spaces

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