Re-Imagining Flyovers
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1.0 THESIS STATEMENT This thesis explores the potential of building WITH flyovers, and seeks to propose a megaform as a prototype that hybridizes flyovers, buildings and landscape. It is a response to the current disjunctions created by flyovers within high-density cities. This thesis re-imagines flyovers as an active urban spine with an intrinsic place-creating character that can propagate further urban developments and establish a more integrated urban environment. 2.0 WHAT? Highways, particularly flyovers, knit cities together as much as they tear them apart. Cities and neighbourhoods, consequently, are left in dis-junctions and fragmentations – physically, functionally and socially. “If architectural design could get into the act somehow, it could help resolve ‘the insoluble problem of the modern city’… In the guise of ‘urban design’, the exercise of architecture on a very large scale might bridge the gap between the single building and its dis-integrating urban context. At that point of resolution and despair, the ‘city as a single building’ became a re-thinkable concept and mega-structure was its appointed form.” – Reyner Banham This thesis thus positions itself with the belief that the boundary between highways, buildings and landscape must dissolve to achieve a more integrated urban environment. A hybridized relationship shall be established and manifested in a new mega-structural form that rethinks the form, structure, tectonics, scale, programmes, space and events of the three as a holistic entity. With changing modes of transportation in near future and thus the need of such infrastructure to accommodate flexibility, this thesis shall project itself into the next 10-20 years. Highways, instead of being just a traffic carrier, are re-envisaged as an active urban spine that not only organizes programmes and the total form but also capable of giving drama, possibilities, form and a sense of place to the city. 3.0 WHY? “A city exists, not for the constant passage of motorcars, but for the care and culture of men.” – Lewis Mumford Highways were developed in the early 1920s as a response to the increasing use of the automobile. While it has been widely acknowledged and celebrated in the media for its efficiency and urban connectivity, it brings with it pollution, street sleepers, dark undersides, crimes as well as an incompatible scale. With its sole concern for the automobile, highway infrastructure may be a magical space for drivers and passengers but it certainly creates an undesirable urban environment for pedestrians and inhabitants. The contemporary architectural practice of dis-engaging buildings from highways is unsustainable since the results have been and will continue to be a saturated landscape of countless windowless boxes, blank walls and sound barriers lining the way. Highways have always been thought of only as traffic carriers. With its scale, network and structural capacity, they shall have more to offer. In addition, with rapid technological advancements, new transportation means are expected in near future, implying a possible reform of transportation infrastructural system. How can highways respond to the future filled with emerging innovations like electric cars, self-driving cars and even a car-sharing network? How can it regenerate itself when traditional cars become obsolete one day? At a time when the singularity of highways and buildings fails to match with the progressiveness and multiplicities of urban living, when architecture and infrastructure are felt to be drifting away from people and dissolving the sense of a city, it becomes crucial and urgent for us architects to devise a new urban strategy regarding the relationship between buildings, highways and landscape.
4.0 HOW? This thesis proposes a megaform as a prototype that hybridizes flyovers, buildings and landscape. Apart from retaining existing programmes, it also proposes new ones that can potentially be brought about. While highways are constructed in sections and city spaces are also experienced through sections in both vehicular and pedestrian motions, the megaform shall also be conceived primarily in sections, and composed of a series of sectional prototypes. The methodology of the study shall revolve around a sectional exploration in form, space, tectonics and programmatic distribution of the hybrid prototype through modelling. It will focus on 2 to 3 key sections based on site context. 4.1 RESEARCH
4.2. DESIGN
4,3 Test Site – Central Kowloon Route (from Yau Ma Tei to Kai Tak) Central Kowloon Route (CKR) is a proposed road in Central Kowloon linking Yau Ma Tei in West Kowloon with Kai Tak and Kowloon Bay in East Kowloon. Considering minimal demolition and minimal impacts on the visual, traffic, land use and environment, it has been proposed to be a tunnel for the majority portion instead of a flyover. By adopting this site, the thesis shall propose a counter-proposal of an elevating approach as opposed to the current digging strategy. It envisions a phase-by-phase sectional redevelopment of the various districts with the insertion of the flyover. 3 typical sections along the route shall be studied in detail and developed further.
5.0 REFERENCE PROJECTS / PRECEDENTS
6.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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