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PMQ Hong Kong

from SUSTAINABLE HERITAGE – Building a Livable Future for Chinatown + People’s Park Complex Singapore

from SUSTAINABLE HERITAGE – Building a Livable Future for Chinatown + People’s Park Complex Singapore, page 148

Open Presentation at ArcLab

The Police Married Quarters (PMQ) in Hong Kong, which was built in 1951, is standing on the footprints of the grounds of the Central School, which was built in 1889 and destroyed in 1941 during the Japanese Occupation. The PMQ was built to increase the recruitment of immigrant Chinese police after the Chinese Civil War, providing housing for officers serving at the Central Police Station until 2000.

After years of neglect, the government decided to conserve and activate the building and designate it as a creative hub in central Hong Kong, in conjunction with the other 7 heritage sites mentioned in the ‘Conserving Central’ Policy Address. Excavation and investigation of the site were done beforehand by the Antiquities and Monument Office (AMO) during 2005 and 2007, and they managed to discover the retaining walls of the Central School. Based on the found evidence and records that support it, the site was listed as a Grade III Historic Building in 2010 and reopened as a creative hub in 2014.

The project was conducted by the government’s Architectural Service Department, in which the two housing blocks, named Stauton and Hollywood, connected with an added bridge-building named ‘CUBE’. The housing units, which are uniquely separated by the rooms and kitchen by a corridor, are transformed to house creative retailers, tenants, and workshops. And as for the found substructures of the Central School, an underground interpretation gallery designed around the rubbles for visitors to roam and discover.