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Commendation

Urban Living Transition: Vanishing Heritage of Hong Kong Residence

Part 1 Project 2014
Ho Yeung (Howell) Tsang
University of Hong Kong | China
Being the largest housing estate in the world, MEI FOO SUN CHUEN obtains the biggest numbers of blocks within an estate, which spreads around the whole Mei Foo district. By conducting analysis of different scales, the rules of locating towers are reviewed and the relationship across districts is obtained. By comparing the programs that happen with other district nearby, the possibility of introducing mix-use of residential and working studio is spotted. As developing through process of massing, units and façade, features of the demolished Kowloon Walled City is traced, which is famous for its high intensity, irregularity and varying living conditions. The issue of reviving this “heritage” is questioned.

Walled city is famous for its spatial experience, yet it was demolished for several reasons. Some of the defect of it is that the intensive building density didn’t provide sufficient amount of light. Another problem would be in the hygienic aspect. Yet, there is no doubt that Kowloon walled city created a really strong community, by the architecture itself as well as the users within the city.

As a matter of fact that there is so much relation between the 2 city, the project aims to revive some of the key elements on Mei Foo Sun Chuen phase 7 with reference to the wall city. Yet this is also an experiment to resolve what has been unsolved in the wall city. Most importantly, the main famous is to rebuild a community, with the help of spatial moment, with respect to the users in Mei Foo especially.

The end result is that through phase to phase in the project, a combination of different massing scheme, units type and arrangement and façade system is used. The idea is to create a sense of changes, which is transition. It may include connection and separation in terms of space. Yet, the most important thing is that it includes change of experience and time, which is the focus of the project so that it would be site adaptable and specific to Mei Foo Users, in order to create new experience in each phase.

Ho Yeung (Howell) Tsang

Tutor(s)

2014
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