CONSUMING PLACE in HONG KONG

Thesis Statement

A city is inhabited by collective individuals while a place is defined by their activities in the public realm. With the modernist’s take in defining functional zoning of the city and programs within buildings, activities are restricted and therefore against possible definition of a place. With Rem Koolhaas prosthesesd “Shopping is arguably the last remaining form of public activity”, this thesis will examine the consuming culture in space and time within the shopping paradise,Hong Kong and argues whether it is possible to maintain a sense of place within globalized consumerism and capitalism.

Why

(Arcades Project; City without Ground)

Commodity Consuming Architecture

Modern rational urban planning has been regarded as a totalitarian utopia, segregating the urban dwellers by the efficient mechanical automobile network and dividing urban life into discrete functions. The planning builds on tabula rasa, uprooting the existing culture and fails to adapt the progressive change of society and individual’s choice.

In Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin record and critique the bourgeois experience of Paris in nineteenth-century by focusing on the arcades, glass-roofed rows of shops that were early centers of consumerism.

In the context of Hong Kong, the mixed-used podium-tower corp orating mostly with shopping malls or The Link (government-subsidized private company) are the contemporary models of commodity consuming architecture which intends to maximize the profit by internalizing all the buying activities and homogenized the chain-stores and shore the exchange value of commodity.

City without Ground researched on a lateral view on the phenomenon of the capital-driven three dimensional spatial quality with pedestrian networks joining different programs in Hong Kong. Shopping malls as one the major elements providing the nodes to be connected, are the main source of capital for the pedestrian infrastructure, which constitutes the complex private and public spatial relationship.

Consuming Culture in Hong Kong – Sham Shui Po : The New Consuming Place

My thesis will examine the contemporary consuming culture comes up in different times, specifically in Sham Shui Po, which is one of the most early developed district in Hong Kong, containing the most variations of consuming typologies in Hong Kong :

‘檔’ (hawker-bazaar)
‘墟’ (marketplace)
‘街’ (street)
‘領匯’ (the Link)
‘中心/廣場/城’(centre/plaza/city)
‘樓上’ (upper floor shops)
‘坊’ (art – market within adaptive re-use building)

and suggest a new typology of commodity consumption architecture that link to the place and alter the mode of consumption through understanding the manufacturing process.

What

(Tree & Landscape Map by Development Bureau; Outline Zoning Plan of the site; Site in 1950 & 1970;High Line, New York,2009;Ceramic Market, Tsuyoshi-Kawata, 2010;Santa Caterina Market renovation, Enric Miralles, 2005)

Nam Cheong Street Sitting-out Area

The site is a linear strip of around 750m x 12m in Sham Shui Po consisting of six small rectangular parks that are situated between two carriageways along Nam Cheong Street with buildings no taller than 90m. Under the OZP, it does not fall into any category of function and have the possibility of designing beyond existing sitting out area.

Historical Perspective
The site used to be a stream, but was converted into nullah after land reclamation, then the nullah is covered up to become a market generated people migrated from the Shek Kip Mei Fire and now a sitting-out area.

Current Situation
Regardless of its smallness, it is the public space serving mostly the elderly and domestic helper on Sunday, and major conjunction of the neighboring featured streets selling cloths, leather, accessories, toys and electric appliances, serving the local and the creative community. The park lacks connection with the creative neighborhood fabric, forming a rupture and disconnection of the two communities.

Design
The sitting out area can be the workshop space extended from those old and new material shops and connecting throughout the six plots for the old craftman and younger generation of designer have place to communicate; & marketplace which allows the designers to sell in an open market; & leisure park which is not surrounded by carriageway.

How

(Pixal, Map Office, 2006; Plan as Map, Enric Miralles; La Ville Spatiale, Yona Friedman, 1960; Commune By The Great Wall,  Kengo Kuma, 2002)
01.Caravaggio:
Research on the spatial conditions and mode of consumption of different shopping locations in Sham Shui Po. Spatial conditions include interior/ exterior relationship, circulation, opening hours, types of commodity provided)
(Axonometric Drawing 1:200; Diagrammatic Drawing illustrating the shopping process)
02. Plan as Map:
Develop a key plan drawing addressing how urban context of surrounding streetscape affecting the site and possible functions of the site (Master Layout Plan 1:100)
03. Phrase Development
It would be considered to have minimal distruction to the current usage as the site is partially occupied by the elderly and domestic maid during sunday.
04. Structure Iteration:
Space frame structure using sticks to challenge on the span and minimal footprint (1: 50) and joint systems (1:5/1:10)