Tete-Beche: Re- examining the public/private in Urban Hong Kong

Why?

Collage from Friedman’s drawings of the “Spatial City”(1958) and the “Bridge over the army channel”(1963)

Thesis Statement

‘If you’re asking people to be content with less private space, then you have to give them more shared space – but it has to be great space, public space that people want to use…’ – Bing Thom

Hong Kong has been a dazzling example of urban density and versatility, yet the resulting congestion and dwindling sizes of housing units are becoming a great concern for its inhabitants. This problem is not unique to Hong Kong but rather a universal phenomenon in 21^st century cities. The question is: how do we keep the vibrancy and density intact, yet improve the livability of cities?

The late 20^th century has been an era for the podium tower typology, which emphasized versatilities and individualities within a finite amount of space. This approach (with its 100% site coverage at low levels) to urbanism successfully increases urban densities and intensities while inevitably sacrifices the quality of public space.

I believe a city is only livable when both the public and private realms of its inhabitants are well thought out.

Therefore, this thesis will start from looking at the fundamental elements of a city: the room, the street and the block.

To rethink the question of housing from the point of view of the room rather than the apartment, the city block rather than the building-object, and the street rather than the master plan means to challenge the default dichotomy of public-private upon which our very idea of dwelling is based.

Once the fundamental elements of the city is re-thought, the thesis will then propose an alternative approach to the design of urban block, in the hope to address and resolve livability issues currently affecting Hong Kong.

What?

Rex’s Proposal for World Trade Center

Description of project intended to test the thesis statement

Only after the above-mentioned is thoroughly investigated can a proposal for Tete-Beche: Re- examining the public/private in Urban Hong Kong be made. The design project is envisioned to be in the form of a mixed use hybrid building block, with designs based on the findings of investigation of the room, the street, the block and lastly the public space. The project is to be a counter proposal to the ubiquitous podium tower phenomenon which plaques our city today.

Annotated Bibliography/ Precedents

1. N.J. Habraken, The structure of the ordinary, 1998
2. Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York,1994
3. Martin Van Schaik, Otakar Macel, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76
4. Hillary French & Yanki Lee, Patterns of living Hong Kong’s High-Rise Communities, 2013
5. Zhang WeiPing, Hong Kong, as a Asian Culture of Congestion, 2009
6. Barrie Shelton, Justyna Karakiewicz, Thomas Kvan, The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric, 2011

How?

Methodological processes/ Outline of Research/ Design Experiment

The thesis will seek to understand first the public-private relationships of Hong Kong in terms of the most common spaces of the city – the room, the street and the block. Using the urban block as a basic module, the thesis will then investigate the characteristics of different urban blocks in Hong Kong and appraise the qualities/ problems of each block.

The thesis will then propose alternative urban block structures which will address the issues found previously in the research.

Supporting Original Visual Materials/ Artifacts

At research phase various city blocks will be studied through axonometrics, sections, and figure ground drawings. At design phase the alternative urban block proposal will be studied through massing models, axonometrics, diagrams, sections and plans as appropriate.