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Ms YU Po Mei, Clarice, JP
Chairlady of Jury Panel
Director of Buildings,
Buildings Department, HKSARG

The Quality Building Award recognises the excellent work of our building practitioners
and helps advance the quality of our built environment. It is therefore my great honour
and pleasure to be the Chairman of the Jury Panel for the prestigious Quality Building
Award 2024, which has introduced for the first time in the history of the award a new
sub-category for Buildings in Greater Bay Area.

As the theme of QBA 2024 is “Empowering Innovation | Sustaining Green | Generating
Wellness”, I am delighted to see that the awardees have excelled in adopting smart
ideas, providing green solutions, and showing care in the design, construction and use
of these buildings. We at the Buildings Department share the same goals and are
committed to empowering innovation, promoting green buildings, and generating
wellness for our community. For instance, we introduced a pre-acceptance mechanism
for innovative building materials and technologies to facilitate their trial and adoption.
We also launched the Electronic Submission Hub to support paperless submission to
simplify the submission process and reduce time and paper use. To further promote
wellness, we implemented a new gross floor area concession mechanism with the
introduction of specific standards on a quality built environment, including elements on
“health and well-being”. We are also reviewing our Design Manual: Barrier Free Access
to incorporate universal design and accessibility principles more comprehensively to
promote elderly-friendly building designs.

I highly commend the vision of the organisers for this esteemed award and the splendid
efforts to raise the overall standards of buildings for our community. I also wish to
extend my warmest congratulations to all the awardees and look forward to seeing
more quality buildings in Hong Kong.

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