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The Conspicuous And The Camouflaged - Ecotourism Complex in Stanley, Hongkong.

Part 1 Project 2003
Wan Kwok Yiu
James Butler
 University of Hong Kong | China
Ecotourism is more than appreciation of nature but also the intrinsic culture of a locality. A sustainable strategy resuscitating the vanished reminiscence of a traditional fishing village. A spiral cohering traces of human, nature and culture.
Ecotourism centre conspicuously emulating organic origin of nature, rejuvenating the land-water threshold antithetical to homogenous interface. A canopy, stemming from the ground spanning into the water, minimizes footprints; enclosing a vast fluid volume where fourth-dimensional spaces abstract and walls, structures sublime. By the influx of water into glass-walls of different curvatures and of the refractive indices of various materials, light, shadows, mirage, reflections and refractions collages.
Resort camouflaged in nature - amalgamation of architecture, heritage and landscape - as a temporal extrapolation and backdrop accentuating the glory of the heritage. Manipulation of ramps/walls reiterates experience of traversing through resort as proliferation of ethereal and corporeal sensation. Rooms with reciprocal plan and section blur the boundary between architecture and landscape.
As a whole, this complex is a delicate conglomeration of scale mediating the vast and the intimate, which provokes a deeper emotion, encountering an eternal nature reaching apex of poetics and eternity.

Wan Kwok Yiu
James Butler

Vincent graduated with First-Class Honours and numerous design awards. I knew him for 2years, and was impressed by his motivation and unchecked energies probing into the true meaning of architecture. Being a perfectionist, a searcher of ideas and a keen learner, he established a self-awareness in the way he learnt, demonstrated by a critical and sensitive mind. He is bold and likes to challenge my views and engages me in intellectual debates on the essence of architecture. Often, such dialect discourse was conducted on the works by contemporary architects.
The Ecotourism Complex is situated on a beach in the urban-countryside threshold of HongKong. His delicate handling of various site forces and skilful manipulation of fitting the architecture into a complicated and controversial site with revered heritages and rare natural resources, with his immense richness of ideas and tectonics, bred a euphemized yet enigmatic resort camouflaged in nature.
Vincent is a lover of abstractism in architecture. In this project, one could discover entanglement in his abstract and imaginative concepts elegantly visualized by computer graphics. Being an adept in it, he experiments with complexities and contradiction in abstract forms and spaces in the ecotourism centre. His obsession in the investigation into light-glass-water-reflections brought architecture into another dimension.
Undoubtedly Vincent's project demonstrated his attempts in the search for an architectural design paradigm that challenges the spiritual mind of the beholder.
Tutor(s)
2003
THE HIDDEN DRAGON / Masterplan of entire eco-tourism complex comprising of a ecotourism centre and a resort. A spiral hidden dragon cohere the various buildings as a whole.
ECO-REVOLUTION / concept diagrams demonstrating a rethink on the definition of ecotourism, relationship between architecture, landscape, culture and history.
THE COMPLETE REFLECTION/ site perspective showing ecotourism visitor centre[left], ecotourism resort [middle], and the bridge[right] linking to the meditation pavilion in the middle of the sea.
THE STRONGEST LINK/ rendering of complex under bridge.A open C-section give a semi-enclosure for protection yet a close contact with nature.Structure allows a curve form spiralling across the sea with landings on different levels with minimum columns.
THE CONSPICUOUS / Elevations of visitor centre
THE CONSPICUOUS / Plans of visitor centre. The siting of this centre rectifies existng planning deficiencies replacing the existing sewage treatment. The plan heals the natural coastline once existed before.
THE ORGANIC DISSECTION / sections and x-ray perspectives of visitor centre
THE VIBRANT RESONANCE/ perspective showing the seaside promenade piazza. As the steps cascade down the water the vigorous water waves splashes onto the shore echoing with the vitality of the events above in the piazza.
THE FLYING DRAGON / perspective of entrance vestibule embraced by a organic canopy
REALM OF MIRAGE/ rendering of lobby. visitors enter into a world of reflections, refractions and illusions, as projected images of marine life superimposed with the light and shadows cast by the canopy with varying transperency throughout day and night.
THE CRISSCROSS + OBLIQUE/ Rendering of exhibition gallery. As the visitors move through the space, the column turns, the visual depths receeds and the gallery glides.
HYDOLYSIS of LAND / rendering of seaside restaurant. Under the protection of the gridshell canopy, visitors can feel, touch and smell the sea and yet protected from the wind, the rain and the sun
WATER CUBICLES / rendering of activity rooms. These capsules by the sea glazed with solar reflective glass provides a intimacy with water. The building and the water integrates into a singularity.
THE CYSTALLIZATION/ images of physical model of ecotourism visitor centre hand-made by molding acrylic into organic shapes.
THE CAMOUFLAGED LABYRINTH / Elevations of resort day and night. Units as a camouflaged within nature. Architecture fsued into the landscape and the nature does not aware the presence of human existence facilitating a zero distance before man and nature.
THE GREEN STRATA / Sectional perspective of the resort as a series of ramps and walls following contour of landscape
CONVOLUTION IN NATURE/ plans of different levels of resort. Linearity response to the heritage as well as the landscape. Each level are designed to generate different spatial experiences.
TREE-MATRIX OF ILLUSION / experience of walking through different spaces in the resort. Use of different trees and plants to provoke dramatic atmospheres.
THE HUMBLE HERMIT/ images of physical model of whole complex. The whole complex harmonizes with each other and the surroundings.
PLAN=SECTION=ELEVATION / design concepts of accommodation units. Plans and sections are reciprocal and continuous. Infinite permutations of living environments attainted with only 3 standardized prefabricated elements.
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