A view of some of the newly constructed units at the community isolation facility in Ma Sik Road, Fanling. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
“It is like we’re participating in an ‘Olympic Games of architecture’,” said Ho Wing-yin, director of Architectural Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, as she stood around the fourth community isolation facility constructed with the central government’s support. She described her feeling as “challenging an impossible thing”.
The isolation facility located at Fanling in Hong Kong, covering an area of about 20,000 square meters, was put into operation on Sunday and follows earlier ones in Tsing Yi, San Tin, and on the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities Island of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
It will provide over 350 isolation rooms with more than 1,000 beds in total. Each room is equipped with basic furniture, air conditioning, as well as disinfectant and other supplies.
The whole project was completed in no more than 20 days. Ho, who led the project, said the construction process was like “breaking world records”. Citing the isolation facility project at Tsing Yi as an example, the construction team needed to build the isolation rooms and 3,900 isolation beds within seven days.
Some supplies provided to occupants. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
“It is an unprecedented challenge to accomplish it in such a short time,” said Ho, adding that the Fanling isolation facility was constructed at over 60 times the speed of the Penny’s Bay Quarantine Centre in 2020.
It is the support from the central government that has fueled the pace of construction, Ho said.
“It is a race against time. The most important thing is time; the second one is the quantity; the last one is the team power,” Ho told her team colleagues.
“We have to provide enough beds, so we cannot waste any of the land. We have to find a way to use it up to increase the number of beds,” Ho added.
The four central government-aided community isolation projects have provided about 8,900 emergency beds.
Michael Wong Wai-lun, the secretary for development, said recently that several other projects in Hung Shui Kiu and Tam Mei of Yuen Long, built with the help of the central government, will be handed over to the Hong Kong government and start operating later this month. The six facilities are expected to provide about 20,000 beds in total.
