Completed 50 years ago in 1968, Wah On House is part of the larger Wah Fu Estate, a public housing development near Aberdeen, on the south-west coast of Hong Kong Island. The first of its kind, the estate was conceived as a New Town project for low-income families, and was designed to foster a sense of community, with integrated services such as schools, a market, banks, restaurants and a public library. This panorama shows the remarkably high-density nature of Hong Kong’s public housing, as well as some of the facilities still available today, such as convenience stores, grocers, an electrical goods shop, and an off-site betting branch of The Hong Kong Jockey Club.

In recent years the ageing estate has fallen into disrepair and many of its residents have been waiting for the government’s help to move to newer and better homes. In 2014, it was announced in the Chief Executive’s policy address that Wah Fu Estate would be redeveloped, and that the 26,000 remaining residents would be rehoused in new public housing developments nearby.