A multi-perspective analysis and strategies development of mitigating the housing problem in Hong Kong through adopting modular integrated construction to build transitional houses

Abstract

Due to the high population density, limited residential land, and low construction productivity, housing issues have long plagued the Hong Kong government and citizens. Though the government has supported many programs to provide accommodations for citizens, the supply is still far from satisfying the public's urgent need for an affordable and decent home. To mitigate the significant housing shortage issue and improve people's livelihood, this study aims to thoroughly investigate the construction and social condition in Hong Kong from multi-angles and establish implementing strategies for an effective emerging housing supply approach, employing Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) to deliver transitional houses. Explicitly, this study has four objectives: (1) to explore the environment and conditions of adopting MiC in public housing programs from the perspectives of the policy environment, technology development, public perception, and practice performance; (2) to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) factors and their influences on adopting MiC to build transitional houses in Hong Kong; (3) to propose the strategies for adopting MiC to build transitional houses in Hong Kong and examine the important priorities of these strategies; (4) to identify implementation strategies and measures for adopting MiC to build transitional houses in Hong Kong to alleviate the urgent housing supply shortage issue. Different text mining methods, comparative case study analysis, SWOT-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis, and Fuzzy-Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (F-TOPSIS) were adopted to analyze the data collected through comprehensive literature reviews, web crawler technology, questionnaire surveys, interviews, focus group meetings, and onsite non-participatory observations to achieve the objectives. Upon completing the multi-perspective analysis, the proposed 58 SWOT factors of employing MiC in Hong Kong from the systematic literature review were narrowed to 48 problem-specific ones and ranked by the AHP. Fourteen strategies, 43 methods, and five design recommendations were established considering the results of multi-perspective analyses, literature review, and SWOT-AHP analysis and assigned implementation priorities by F-TOPSIS. The final implementation strategy and corresponding measures model was proposed based on the validated, prioritized strategies. The results of this study have both theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, the comprehensive review of existing MiC studies identified the SWOT factors of MiC adoption and the strategies of MiC application in housing programs, bridging the research void. Also, the MiC-related policy system analysis provides a reference for industry practice. Moreover, the Hong Kong construction technology development status and trends exploration from labor market demand offers a novel methodology for industry advancement studies and knowledge support to related parties. Practically, the comparative case study reveals the benefits and shortcomings of the pilot MiC project in Hong Kong and provides practical information for subsequent projects and related departments to promote MiC adoption. Besides, the public perception investigation offers a valuable reference, thereby allowing for corresponding actions of the government to facilitate policymaking and strategy determination. Moreover, the specific findings and proposed strategies assist Hong Kong statuary bodies in MiC promotion and housing problems mitigation and other regions with similar characteristics to Hong Kong.