Category Archives: hong kong

Places of Being and Eternal Paths

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Magic Lanes in Hong Kong displays an inspiring community-design project that aims at turning a street into a place for stimulating vibrant urban life, which is rewoven with the present contemporary social fabric. By mapping current use and envisioning potential use of urban space by local residents, the project has set a base for real-life experiments. These experiments highlight the spatial assets people own by nature. In responding to the rapid urbanisation of this early-developed neighbourhood, the project it encourages their participation in the street. Located at Sheung Fung Lane (常豐里), the space used to be an empty concrete urban space characterised by outdoor stairs and blind facades of the neighbouring parking garages, and foremost no people actually staying there. With this project, people have entered a process of place re-making. It seems the essence of what is a ‘li’ (里), because next to its contemporary connotation of ‘lane’, this notion is used more accurate as ‘place’. Yet, also, it is ironically strong because it works with the street name. The notions of ‘sheung’ (常) and ‘fung’ (常) refer resp. to eternal/unchanging and to plenty. As if, magically, a flower pot is always full of living flowers. The project incorporates the ideas of its community members and it facilitates physical changes in this space. If people are present it will be a place again.

一刻 社區設計館，西營盤常豐里2號怡豐閣7號舖
First Community Design Museum;
Shop 7, Yi Fung Court, 2 Sheung Fung Lane, Sai Ying Pun

At the same day earlier, I have also noticed that many streets in Hong Kong are known as ‘toa’ (道). Tao, which has a much longer history, means ‘way’, ‘path’ or ‘route’, and thus is translated simply as ‘road’ today. Philosophically, again de-contextualised, this notion represents the intuitive knowing that life cannot be grasped full-heartedly as just a concept. It relates to the path human beings are on. This path is known nonetheless through the actual living experience of one’s everyday being. This may make the presence of people in space, part of the same endless path we are on, wherever we are.

古之善為士者，微妙玄通，深不可識。
The ancient scholar is virtuous, subtly mysterious, deeply unknown.

or, as we may say at the present:
Once upon a time, those who knew the Way, were a mysterious and subtle people, transient yet profound, tranquil yet utterly unfathomable.
Chapter 15 (第十五章), Dao De Jing (道德經), attributed to Lao Zi (老子)

Made in Hong Kong

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In collaboration with the GSAPP Columbia University, the School of Design’s Environment and Interior Unit organised an interactive colloquium on their ‘Made in Hong Kong’ research portfolio. Great to see the participants presenting challenging endeavours that currently feed into the contemporary urban entrepreneurial attitude. In a chosen 15 by 15 format (15 slides for 15 secs per slide), they introduced a wide variety of topics like the effect of citizens initiatives, community-centric approaches and neighbourhood redevelopment strategies on urban thinking and practice. As such the effect of planned and (to certain extent) unplanned enterprises are highlighted within frames like general entrepreneurship, urban (industrial) culture, social design, and human (inter)actions.

The event linked to the IFOU 2017 conference entitled ‘The Entrepreneurial City‘.

when:
14 December 2017, 19:30-21:30h

where:
PolyU: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
School of Design (Environment and Interior Unit)
Jockey Club Innovation Tower, V1201

The Entrepreneurial City

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‘The Entrepreneurial City’ is the theme for the 10th conference of the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU). Nine conferences have been held in various countries across the world. In face of global and local environmental, social and economic challenges, the conference brings together international planners and designers to deliberate on theories, design and practices related to the entrepreneurial city. The conference will be hosted by the School of Architecture of the Chinese University of Hong Kong on December 14-16, 2017.
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Re-Do New Town

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Chinese University of Hoong Kong and
International Forum on Urbanism at
Shenzhen & Hong Kong
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism | Architecture

Exhibition

Re-Do New Town: Hung Shui Kiu
on invitation of
Hong Kong Institute of Architects
Biennale Foundation Ltd

20th December 2013
23rd February 2014

E220 at Energizing Kowloon East Office (EKEO)
122 Hoi Bun Road, Kwun Tong
Kowloon, Hong Kong

The exhibition takes on the topic of future Hong Kong new towns with a contemporary look at Hung Shui Kiu, an area located in the northwest corner of New Territories, and a future site for a major urban development in Hong Kong. Today a dormant mixture of container yards, small industries and old villages, Hung Shui Kiu neighbors the towering suburb of Tin Shui Wai and looks toward the mainland across the Shenzhen Bay. Surprisingly, far more than the skyscrapers in the business districts, this plain “realness” and rural-like existence is the scene for many critical questions in Hong Kong urbanism today. The future planning of Hung Shui Kiu should challenge the previous attempts for a ready-made ideal communities and urban typologies and re-think the ideal city not as a utopian end-result, but a process allowing for multitude of voices, and even unplanned and unexpected results.

 香港中文大學与
国际城市化论坛基金会
港深城市
建築雙城雙年展

展区

再造新城: 洪水橋
邀请方
香港建築師學會
雙年展基金會有限公司

2013年12月20日
2014年2月23日

E220起動九龍東辦事處
觀塘海濱道122號
九龍, 香港

再造新城: 洪水橋: 這個展覽的話題是用現代的眼光來看待香港未來洪水橋新城的開發。洪水橋坐落於新界西北角，是將來香港的主要城市發展區。洪水橋的未來規劃應帶挑戰之前試圖建成一個現成的理想社區和城市類型的想法，並且重新思考作為一個一個理想的城市，雖然不必是一個烏托邦式結局，但是是一個允許多種聲音參與的過程，是一個甚至沒有特定規劃和預期結果的過程。
 
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The Real is the Ideal

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The Square and the Big Tree in Lo Uk Tsuen Village

On 24 January 2013, I was standing under a big tree on a little square in Lo Uk Tsuen (羅屋村). Its trunk was protected by a small circular stone wall and in front of it, yet still under its crown, incense was burning in a small matching stone censer. A few kids were playing, a lady was doing her laundry, and several persons passed by. It looked like the heart of one of the villages or ‘tsuens’ of Hung Shui Kiu. It also acted as its entrance as it was positioned at its edge. The houses around were extended with all kinds of annexes and extra levels. On the streets, residents appropriated space with pot plants and a variety of other things. The density was clearly quite high and the urban space felt like a living room. An old-school figure ground analyses wouldn’t give us much open space. When I walked beyond the tree, street-like corridors led me to the next tsuen. Here in Tung Tau (東頭村), built structures and urban spaces more or less looked the same, but a small monumental temple place had adopted the communal role. People sitting under a line of trees aside looked at me with questioning eyes. They scanned who I was and why on earth my students and I were making pictures of this space. Walking out again, I faced huge piles of containers, rusty remaining relics of Modern society. At its backcloth the residential high-rise of Tin Shui Wai.

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Hong Kong Biennale 2013

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In its 5th edition, the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture (UABB) has baan the only biennial exhibition in the world to be based exclusively on the themes of urbanism and urbanization. The Biennale has been co-organized by Shenzhen and Hong Kong, two of the most intensely urban cities in the world, where political and economical contexts have shaped unique urban dynamics.

Colin Fournier, chief curator, states:

Beyond the edge of the city we know lies the city we dream of, the city we long for but never reach, the “ideal city”. At the edge, the old rules of the city loose their hold, allowing it to reinvent itself, redefine its values and create new forms. The edge is never far away: the city of our dreams might be here and now, close to us, nesting within the familiar confines of our towns, transforming them from the inside, a city within the city, the boundary between the known and the unknown being conceptual rather than physical. What do we most desire from our cities and from their architecture? What are our current interpretations of the ideal city? Is the question still relevant? Is Hong Kong an ideal city? If not, what would it take to become one? And for whom?

Hong Kong – Shenzhen | Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism Architecture 2013 港深城市|建築雙城雙年展
(2013 UABB*HK)

Re-Do New Town: The Square and the Big Tree in Lo Uk Tsuen Village
Hong Kong Institute of Architects 香港建築師學會