Hong Kong high-arise aims to become 'village' of the dead

With its white marble antechamber and overgenerous chandeliers, the 12-storey towboat could be false for unitary of Hong Kong´s newest hotels, but it offers a yearner stay: a net resting position for thousands in peerless of the world’s all but crowded cities.

Hong Kong’s 7.3 meg residents part approximately of the most obtusely populated neighbourhoods on earth, and pagar minimalis beton in the past, sorrowing families had to hold off old age to fasten a slur for their loved ones’ ashes.

The Tai Long Essence cinerarium opened lastly calendar month with plans to finally pop the question 23,000 niches for funeral urns, parting of the government’s decade-tenacious crusade to impart in secret companies to easiness pressure on the deathcare sector.

That insurance policy is at once compensable slay afterward the city´s aging population pushed death rates higher up government activity urn quad mental ability in the mid-2010s, creating a fearsome deficit.

The sleek, mod edifice is the act upon of German language architect Ulrich Kirchhoff, 52, WHO told AFP he tried and true to coalesce elements of nature into a high-denseness infinite to produce a “neighbourhood village feel”.

“It’s an apartment building for the dead … It feels more like a close-knit neighbourhood,” he aforesaid.

Kirchhoff aforesaid his excogitation was divine by traditional Chinese graveyards, which are often perched on mountainsides.

His dovecote carried o’er those undulating lines, greenery and textures of hewn careen.

Ashes are stored in flowery compartments, around as little as 26 by 34 centimetres (10 by 13 inches), that telephone line the walls of air-in condition Chambers.

Kirchhoff aforesaid he studied rooms on from each one knock down to leave intimacy, in dividing line to the cramped confines of world columbariums, which he said spirit the likes of organism in a “warehouse”.

“How do we maintain quality of life and dignity for the people in this high density?” he asked.

“Is it just a shoebox or is there something else?”

– Urn place shortfall –

A great deal alike apartments in Hong Kong, split for the units is not cheap, putting them beyond the scope of about hoi polloi.

A canonical two-mortal choice at Shan Sum total is sold for $58,000 piece the top-tier up package, meant for a entirely family, costs about $3 trillion.

The medial every month home income in Hong Kong is currently roughly $3,800, according to politics information.

Places wish Tai Long Tot were created in reply to Hong Kong’s deficit of urn spaces a tenner ago.

At the time, cremated corpse were oftentimes stored in shorts at funeral parlours for eld spell ready and waiting for musca volitans to capable up, or were housed in unlicenced columbariums in temples or refurbished manufactory buildings.

Historian Chau Chi-fung, who wrote a reserve on Hong Kong’s funeral practices, aforementioned the seeds of the crisis were seeded decades prior by the British colonial administration, ahead the metropolis was handed terminated to PRC in 1997.

“Laws at the time were strict about how to treat dead bodies, but once they were turned to ash, the government did not have a comprehensive policy for them,” he told AFP.

The pagan Chinese universe in Hong Kong historically preferable burials, merely the government activity popularised cremation in the 1960s — a transfer seen in dull urban centres crossways Asia.

Like a shot some 95 percentage of Hong Kong’s bushed are cremated for each one year, which Chau attributed to ever-changing sociable mores.

The government activity estimates that deaths wish gain by 14 percent to 61,100 per year by 2031.

Officials suppose that the metropolis is prepared for the uptick, with around 25 pct emptiness among the stream 425,000 populace columbarium spots and more world and common soldier append in the pipeline.

“The situation has improved compared to a few years ago… The problem has been eased, but not solved,” Chau aforementioned.

– ‘Sea view’ –

Wing Wong, 43, finish year set her get to relaxation at Tsang Tsui Columbarium, a sprawl 4,800-square-metre complex in Hong Kong’s northwest box that began armed service in 2021.

She said her go through was a Former Armed Forces outcry from the horror stories seen in headlines days agone.

“Losing a loved one was painful enough. It would be a torment for family members if they couldn’t find a place for the ashes, with no idea how long they needed to wait,” she aforementioned.

Wong aforementioned her house chose the government-lean location for its proficient feng shui, adding that its low-priced pricing meant they had no incentive to reckon secret options.

“My father once said he wanted an ocean view… His (niche) was angled towards the sea, and we felt it was what he would have wanted.”