Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities on earth, but it isn’t just houses that are stacked up tall – factories and warehouses are as well.
Towering industry
Kwai Chung is full of twenty storey buildings dedicated to industry.
Divided up into a rabbit warren of storage units and work rooms.
Goods come in and out via a loading dock at ground level, with turntables used to direct trucks into parking bays.
San Po Kong is an older industrial district, but no less dense.
With Kwun Tong being another.
Mixing homes and industry
Industry isn’t just in dedicated areas – districts like Jordan have towering light industrial buildings between the apartment blocks.
And other districts have the ground level of apartment buildings taken over by workshops.
Mechanics.
And recycling depots.
And by the water
The Kwai Tsing Container Terminals are one of the busiest ports in the world.
But with little space, massive multi-storey warehouses have been built to handle cargo.
Loading docks at ground level.
And spiral ramps to allow trucks to access the upper floors.
Similar truck accessible warehouses were built at the former Kai Tak Airport.
Beside Kowloon Bay at Kwun Tong.
And by the wharves in Kennedy Town.
Footnote – public factory estates
Turns out the Hong Kong government didn’t just build public housing towers, but public *factory* blocks. Between 1957 and 1973 eight multi-storey factory estates were built by the Government of Hong Kong Resettlement Department, with another nine built by it’s successor the Hong Kong Housing Authority between 1973 and 1984.
Six of these later estates are still leased to tenants today.
And Horizon Plaza, a converted factory, is an example of one that the public can access! Haven’t visited in a while but it was still quite eerie on a weekday despite its conversion to a shopping mall.
On my recent trip I ended up in an industrial building at Wong Chuk Hang hunting down baked goods, but they were closed for the day. 🙁
https://bakingmaniachk.com/pages/about-us