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Synthetic Landscape - Renovation of Kowloon Park

Part 2 Project 2006
Lau Sun Ming, Kenneth
Chinese University of Hong Kong | China
Conventionally speaking, parks contain all the qualities that are opposite to city, and going to park is always regarded as an escape from the city. However, Urban Park presents a very different situation because it is always located in the heart of the city. It becomes interesting to question what qualities an urban park should have.

This thesis begins with a hypothesis that urban park should be hyper-social rather than detached from the city. I want to challenge the conventional condition of parks being just an open green and I believe parks and city could actually become a synthesis.

Lau Sun Ming, Kenneth


The project addresses what the notion of a large centralized park might mean in the hyper-dense situation of Hong Kong (or other Asian cities for that matter). Known for its eclectic combination of programs and adjacent to one of the busiest commercial districts in the world, the unique proposal for the site of Kowloon Park has the potential to re-question the division between commerce and recreation as clearly distinct typologies in the formal organization of a city. The project proposes not only new programs that maintain the hyper-social quality of the surrounding commercial districts in the park, but also proposes a new typology for the park as a ‘slow’ infrastructural network.

2006
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