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Worship: The Stratified Land

Part 1 Project 2004
Anna T K Chow
Irene Klokkari
 Chinese University of Hong Kong | China
The hilly landscape icon on the Hong Kong Island provides a means of human affinity to the ground. The serrated ground introduces space for human activities while the neighbourhood stores bring in their own serrated form that harmonizes with the natural landscape, thus the definition of the ground becomes ambiguous and patchy.

The project was triggered by the basis of the stepped ground. The void area surrounded by compact urban landscape climbing uphill make it an ideal setting for celebrating the ground. The stratified ground is celebrated as terraced landscape, where the earth will be experienced through movement along the sacred path to reach for the womb of the ground. The sacredness of the womb is through the act of getting into the ground and to be part of it.


The scheme looked at the complexity in building a Chapel which can inhabit 150 people within an high density urban site. The strategy focused on embracing the complexity of the site conditions, the constraint of natural light, density and diagonal topography.

The project's sensitivity in articulating the ground as a palimpsest, dealing with the traces of the existing similarly to an archaeological site. What is achieved is a Chapel connected by a series of pathways weaving through a sequence of carved layered sunken spaces, with the Chapel being the most sacred and deepest. As a flip from large to small details, the vertical organization of spaces is reflected in the vertical surfaces through the use of stone layered vertically to simulate strata.

The student achieved a poetic and sensitive design, in contrasting the difficulties faced in such a complex site.
Tutor(s)
2004
Urban section cut through site (Central, Hong Kong)
The serrated land appears as an excavation site
Exploded circulation path through the terraced landscape and go into the ground. The whole site then appears to be a combination of excavation and patchwork.
Ground Level Plan - explores the idea of digging and patchwork.
Basemsent Level Plan - showing the chapels as the womb of the ground.
An unfolded diagramatic section along the sacred path. The section reveals the ground as ambigous, showing the relationship between program above ground and deep inside it.
Approaching the rock garden as one entered from the lower level - the beginning of the sacred path.
As one go through series of steps, one may arrive at this gathering area above the chapel, starting to get into the ground.
An entry point in the gathering area, going along the stratified ground and get into the ground.
View of communal chapel - experiencing the stratified ground where light get through the strata
View of the path leading from communal chapel to private chapel, experiencing the underground tunnel of light.
Perspective view of private chapel - a view looking back into the rock garden, enriched the experience of the sacred path
View showing the underground library - strata extends and creates seatings and desk.
Night view aerial perspective - the contrast between the humble terraced landscape with the compact highrise surrounding it.
The idea of patchwork and digging extends to the level of furniture, where seatings in the chapel is carved out in patches. The ground raised at different heights to fit it uses, again, making it ambigious.
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