The Art of Engineering: Sculpting a Golfing Masterpiece at Plover Cove
Below are excerpts from an article that originally appeared in Golf Course Architecture.
Another current project that represents the architects’ greatest challenge is the Plover Cove course in Hong Kong, which is under construction and designed by the team of Dana Fry and Jason Straka. The fourth-most densely populated region on Earth, Hong Kong is obviously a phenomenally difficult place to find land for and build golf; Plover Cove is only happening because the course is being constructed on top of the Shuen Wan landfill site, which was used to dispose of the territory’s waste for many years until it was closed in 1995.
A number of courses have previously been constructed on closed landfill sites, such as the Ferry Point course in New York and Harborside in Chicago. As those two locations might suggest, the difficulty and expense of building on such sites is likely only to be worthwhile in highly populated areas where other sites are simply not available. Straka says: “We’ve worked on restored landfill sites before and, generally, we don’t recommend golf courses to be placed on them simply because it is extraordinarily complex and expensive. However, in Hong Kong, where there is little land available that is not earmarked for development or preservation, it can make sense.
“There are literally dozens upon dozens of restrictions and challenges when building on a landfill, even one as old as this. The site is small to begin with at around 130 acres. Couple that with very steep side slopes (think of it as a big dome) and it was a work of art and engineering to simply fit a golf course on the property.
“There is a soil cap over the trash which cannot be cut into. So, in a few spots we had perhaps a metre of cut that we were allowed to make, but in most areas we could only fill. The fill is being brought in over time from building excavations around the city. To create flattish fairways, we can only fill the low side of the holes, recalling that we cannot cut and fill on any hole to make the necessary cross-slopes for the golf holes.
“Every significant fill had to be analysed for compression of the trash under it. So, to meet the elevations we were seeking, compression tests were required so that we could overfill the areas to meet the grades we needed. That means that careful pre-analysis needed to occur with minimal field changes permissible so as not to change the compression factor one way or the other.
“There are kilometres of piping, both for drainage of the landfill and to convey methane, that had to be accounted for. All of these come to the surface in some fashion or another and are locally called ‘expressions’. Much of this pipe has to be relocated and all of the expressions relocated so they can be brought to the new surface and hidden within landscape areas of the golf course. Unlike landfills in many to have trees. Many of the trees are protected, further limiting the routing of the golf holes. One section, which is about a hectare in size, is a roosting area for a protected species of birds and could not be touched. Additionally, there were several heritage trees that could not touched and/or had to be relocated and not removed.”
Straka further explained that no surface water can run off-site and into the adjoining Tolo Harbour, so the course’s design captures all the runoff, in every situation except for a major typhoon. The water is then used for irrigation.
“Plover Cove is a wholly created landscape,” he says. “It will sit well once we are done with it, but we are creating something magical out of literally nothing, other than the striking off-site views of the harbour, cityscape and mountains beyond. Very fortunately, and unlike landfills in other countries, we are permitted, and even required, to re-landscape the site. Thousands upon thousands of trees, shrubs, ground covers and other plants will be brought into the site. It is going to be a magnificent transformation.”
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