Here is my 3rd submission to @aaronli 's A city a story weekly contest
Photo taken with iphone 5SE
In West side Hong Kong Island housed a lot of primer office. And due to the limited land size in Hong Kong, it is packed with over 7800 high rised building. Among which 1300 were over 100m tall (the requirements for it to be call as skyscrapers)
This building is call the Grand Millennium Plaza II, standing 123m tall. The special thing about this building was the area outside where it is relatively spacious, not directly standing next to another cluster of building. This area not just provided a good resting area for busy HK office people an escape from the packed office. But also served an important role in providing a better air circulation, created by the high density of tall buildings, blocking the wind circulation and thereby causing the "Wall Effect".
Furthermore the tight concrete building packing nearby each other will create the "Urban Heat Island problem", as the concrete used for the buildings have much higher heat capacity when compare to vegetations in rural area. This along with other human activities such as high vehicle density will further increase the different between the temperature in an urban region when compare to the rural area. A studies did in 2007 with NASA's satellies showed there was at least 4'C difference between the coolest area of the island and rural area.
But as Hong Kong has limited land, what could we possibly do?
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_of_Hong_Kong#"Wall_effect"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island