DENCITY

Characteristic of Four

Hongkong Urban development regulations.

Rules of the public space and its typology.

Four chosen districts were transformed into a character module.

Sham Shui Poo.

Mongkok.

Sheung wan.

Wan Chai

THE WASTE CASE - MONG KOK, HONG KONG

Mong kok, a case study area for municipal solid waste management in Hong Kong. With 130,000 people per square kilometre and 26,000 households, Mong kok produces over 60,000 kg of waste per day. At present most of the waste get dumped at the landfill. With Hong Kong consumption rate, it has been forecasted that landfill will be exhausted by 2018. Without formal recycling program in the country, how does Hong Kong cope with this problem? This is why I started a deeper research on city waste management by using Mong kok,a very dense community that contains high variety of building typology, as a focused area.

Above: diagram showing population and waste consumption data of Mong kok.

Below: Waste travel diagram, studying how waste travel from inside the city to the land fill, along with economical aspect in each step.

Furthermore, I study row of waste disposal in the city, involve identifying waste management facilities and more informal recycling program that exist in the city.

The diagram also shows the investigation of behaviour of individual dispose in public space.

Looking at waste management facilities from the smallest scale. Public refuse center appears to be a result of unusual mix of program which consist of waste collecting spot, 24 hours public toilet and small park. In compare to Municipal building which hold the similarity in stacking of different activities. These analysis shows that in dense city, normal logic had lost its effect. The hybridisation and coexist now base on efficiency and benefit.

The next three diagrams are meant to understand the system of waste management facilities in terms of process and by product.

Throughout the research, I had found a negative aspects of moving waste out of the city that effects both economy and ecology. In the same time seeing a positive aspects and potential of having waste in the city and use as energy resource. Therefore, I see that instead of being an open loop, the future waste management in dens city shall be a decentralising close loop within urban area.

Photographs:

waste disposal in small alley way in Mong Kok

Informal waste collecting system

Public refuse center on Nelson Street

Informal recycling program

waste containerising system

Qualities of the city

Looking back to the development of Hong Kong building.

Wondering that "Is it important to preserve building in Hong Kong?"

Issue of population growth

Finding the characteristic of the site.

Temporal analysis

In this phase I started project with the interested in the idea of 'sharing' that I got from the 1st phase where 2 taxi drivers share same car and same room but in different period of time.

Above: The idea of 'share' in a conceptual way easy to be understood.
Below: The diagram of the taxi driver case.

From this idea I then look and define the problem of Hong Kong

With the problem of being overpopulated, bad living condition, and limited space. I believe that the 'sharing idea can be brought to the extreme where it would do more than just simple sharing room, but a new way of a system.

From this before going to the analysis, I questioned myself and then realise that with the idea of sharing, there is always the concern about the boundaries of each of the event that is happening inside the space so during my time in Hong Kong, I chose to investigate on there issues. The spot that I took are: Lockhart Municiple building, Ladies market, Elevated walkway, and The transform market.

Lockhart Municipal Building:

Photo of the list of all the events inside this building.

Lockhart Municipal building got a very high varieties of the event happening inside the building. It was a shocked when I saw a library popping out on the 4th floor over the fresh market and the restaurant. Then above is a full sports complex with swimming pool on the top floor. Even though each of these event happens inside one building, but each of these still are separated by the architectural boundary which is a room, which makes the event very isolated from each other.

Ladies Market:

The condition of Ladies Market when the are setting up the space.

With Ladies Market, you can see that the condition condition of the spaces is originally similar to Lockhart Municipal building, but when the market arrived, the architectural boundary of the space got destroy and the event starts to be connect to each other making it into one big event on the ground floor. The market also need s special kind of installation where the government will provide the hole on the ground for the sellers to stick the pipe in to create a structure of the shop.

This situation is very similar to the Folding Market in Thailand where the event which is the market can move in and out depending whether the train is coming or not.

From this part, I came to think that factors that play a good role in determining the boundary of the event is time and provided installation.

Elevated Walkway:

Is a condition where the space on the walkway got taken by the domestic worker, which is quite common in Hong Kong.

With the condition of this elevated walkway, I can point out that the boundary of the pathway got subdivided by the people that settling inside the space create this invincible border that separate each event from each other. The key factor that play a decent role here is the circulation of the people in one space that gives the boundary of the program.

Transformed Market:

A situation where a little change in the architecture can completely modify the whole space.

I this area, with the transformed market booth open up during the day, it completely change the whole space by connecting the restaurant on the ground floor, to the walkway in front, to the road and also to the market itself. The key factor that plays it's role here is the ability to extend itself in the space.

From above, I found out that the factor that plays in the analysis are time, provided installation, circulation, and the extended space. The next phase of the project is to fully understand a potential that can be created with these key factors. Then carry on to making a highly density living condition with the idea of temporal city. All of the analysis I found are something that were done to the public space, but what if it is a private space? Will these idea be modify, or how much of the constraints will be put to the program? Or how architecture can form itself creating this new paradigm of sharing? That will be the next phase, what I'm interested in.