MIA CASA Apartment, Tenement house in Sham Shui Po District, Hong Kong

MIA CASA Apartment, formerly Wai Kwan Apartment, is a six-storey corner tong lau completed in 1964 at the junction of Nam Cheong Street and the western end of Boundary Street in Sham Shui Po. Its fourth-generation post-war design has a bronze-painted facade from a 2019 renovation, with some balconies, especially the curved corner ones, now sealed.

The site held a two-storey tenement before four more floors were added to create a six-storey apartment block, completed in 1964 as a fourth-generation tong lau on a corner plot at Nam Cheong Street and Boundary Street. Two origin stories circulate: one names wealthy investor Ma Shu-tau, whose syndicate bought the building in 1991 for HK$6 million, while a homeless resident known as Uncle Choi claimed the land as his ancestral property. Vacant for nearly twenty years from the late 1990s, it was bought in 2015 for about HK$34.6 million and renovated in 2019.

Sham Shui Po is one of the oldest residential districts in Hong Kong, where local families and newcomers share the same streets and daily routines. The area around the building is full of street markets, small repair shops, and food stalls that have been part of the neighborhood for decades.

The building sits between Nam Cheong and Sham Shui Po MTR stations, so getting around the city is straightforward from here. Markets, supermarkets, and everyday services are within walking distance, which makes the location convenient for day-to-day needs.

The building's earlier name, Wai Kwan Apartments, survived in red painted slogans on the facade until the 2019 renovation: "hot and cold water, loyal service" and "new-style partitioned rooms, quiet and clean". These advertised the cubicle rooms that housed single men, giving the block its reputation as a so-called "scattered men's hostel".