Shearing of Horizons (Design School in Hong Kong) Part 1 Project 2005 Tat LamAisha Holmes Chinese University of Hong Kong | China My project is created by intertwining, folding, and shearing of urban fabrics to become a design institution in the city. The urban spaces are defined by shearing and confluence of different sections of the streets along the slope. The design institution, as potentially a key urban structure, is eventually formed by the intentionally designed shearing of the urban horizons. Imaging that some of the urban fabrics is initially sheared with other normal fabrics and finally folded and become a school, the design institution then may be recognized as part of the city by the intertwining of the urban fabrics and gives new meaning to the culture of the city. On the other hand, the characters of publicity/privacy and collectivity/distinction of the activities was considered as logic to arrange the spaces of the school on the horizon(s) of the city. By shearing and folding of that horizons, which was initially shapely defined, new and exciting arrangement of intertwining of spaces and programs were created. Lam Tat’s project of a mixed use building with a core design school program was selected for its effortless integration of a complex social agenda with a simple spatial strategy. The sensitive articulation of a program which distinguishes between both public and private as well as solitary and collective space, questions the social positioning of school within the community and within the city. By deleting black and white boundaries of public/private in favor of a gradient of social encounters allows for a building which amplifies the subtleties of public spaces such as the essentially solitary activity which takes place collectively in the reading room of a public library. Aside from its strong tectonic quality, what makes Lam Tat’s project outstanding is that it is in every way a social project, and a truly urban building. Tutor(s)