AF.Thesis by Abraham Fung

CITY BETWEENNESS OF AN IN-BETWEEN CITY ABRAHAM FUNG THESIS M.ARCH/15 U N I V E R S I TÄ T F Ü R A N G E W A N D T E K U N S T W I E N

ON APPROACH TO THE IN-BETWEEN BASED ON A TRUE CITY A N AT T E M P T TO N AV I G AT E B E T W E E N T H E P H Y S I C A L C I T Y S C A P E AND THE FLEETING MOMENT WITHIN OUR MINDSCAPE. DRIFTING I N-B E T W E E N T H E P L AC E O F T H E C O N C R E T E C I T Y, T H E S PAC E O F T H E PERCEIVED MINDSCAPE.

Thesis Narrative

In-Between

Liminality

An in-between, of anything, is the formation of a residue resulting from multiples in relation. An in-between exists as a material or temporarily, but as a Place it is the position within physical material dimension and the situation with temporal psychological dimensions.

Liminal (From the latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”). The threshold of the space In-Between.

What if the inbetween is the Place of our cities and also residues (multiples of this space) within our city, a place that we could potentially reach as a destination? If it is a destination then what form would it take? Is this a place that is of enclosure (as in a building), is it a plane on which things exist (as in our ground) or is it a formless void (the infinite off the ground). If it is where we are now at this present moment then what form does it have? As a room, the floor and the sky?

“...liminality is the midpoint of transition in a <morph>-sequence between two positions..”-turner For the city confronted with <urbanistic> change we can say that the city is “at the threshold” between a previous structuring of identity, time, and a new urban quality which the sequence establishes. A city’s liminal state exists between a <starting point> and an <ending point>, and as such it is a temporary state that ends when the <architecture> is assimilated into the <urban context>. There is no way to think the in-between in itself. Its existence is only defined by the parts that define its Edge.

On Approach to the In-Between

What are the Inbetweens as they exist within our city and under what circumstance did these residues come to form? What are these places- Our position within these particular physical dimensions and our situation within these temporal dimensions?

Drifting In-Between Consciousness Body as Archipelago

“What Hudson asks us to consider is a physiological mechanism –the blink- that interrupts the apparent visual continuity of our perceptions.” (Walter Murch) The body is still, the horizontal body upon a horizontal plane, yet at the same instant a body vertical and displaced as it is played within a sequence of non-linear events. This is the body in-between consciousness, drifting in-between the horizontal-vertical displacements of the subconscious mindscape. These are the first moments of drift which is a periodic, patterned and

Archipelago 1: A City InBetween China-Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a city in-between, a city now within a liminal stage. The in-between of the city is defined by its geographical situation, which corresponds to the city’s origin as the gobetween for western cities and China. This origin of the city defined Hong Kings identity and culture, one of two world views and

biologically conditioned occurrence. The threshold of conscious reality is an elastic filament that is the threshold in-between perception and conscious reality, beyond this threshold of In-between is the first moment of the blink of an eye.

In-Between the Internal and External From Within

There is a body that is now within a frame, a frame of the material real it is limitable and dimension-able. It is a frame with a width not much bigger than the horizontal plane upon which the body orients, but long in its facing side towards the exterior which is visible through the strip of transparent filament framed within this long vertical side. This transparency stretches along the entire length at a height of 1.4x above the body’s ground datum. Within this frame there are no materials of opacity in-between the filament, nothing shielding the visibility of that which is beyond the frame

structure. From its colonial past, the division of Hong Kong as “Special Administration Zone” of China, to the present day protest against the Chinese governmentOccupy Central movement, political, cultural and so economic uncertainty and ambiguity is of Hong Kong’s liminality. This characterizes HK as a city in-between, a moment at which continuity of tradition becomes uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted are thrown into doubt.

to within and so, as it is facing the radiant heading, the intensity of light is overbearing. Equal in intensity is the exposure to the gaze of 7.2 xbillion bodies not more than 20x beyond this immediate frame. Visibility through the long strip filament is as hazy as the surrounding environment is polluted and humid, and this environmental fogginess in-between the neighboring frames is the only mechanism of individual secrecy- a natural (or unnaturally modified natural) curtain veiling the otherwise naked body frames. Cutting through the thick haze and passing unobstructed through the filament is the constant and eternal hum of Environment Conditioning. To each neighboring and facing frame is 1) the Filament which seals in and separates the interior from the exterior, 2) an Environment Conditioner, and 3) a shallow platform of no more than 0.4xa horizontal extension beyond the sealed frame projecting out into the exterior environment.

Archipelago 2: KTD

Deep Past, Instant Future Hong Kong is also in a Liminal stage of its urbanity. The former site of the International Airport (from the early 1950s), this liminal stage had begun in 1998 with the decommissioning and closure of the airport.

Every frame must have this platform in-between, yet the sealant formed by the filament is never broken and the platforms are never occupied. The body does not leave the perfectly conditioned space of the fame. These 3 parts compose the field condition of the adjacent and facing frames.

Drifting In-Between Frames within Frames Frame as Archipelago

This is the space in which we live- our living space. A space that was once a space within a greater and vaster one which had since been broken down into these ‘spaces within spaces’ (SWS). We live in these SWS, these frames within frames (FWF). Where there are no spaces left to own, no planes remaining left to construct upon, all that remains is the materialization to higher dimensions where possible, otherwise to multiply the remaining and the inbetween where conceivable. The densities of the SWS-FWF thus correspond to these vertical escalations. This course continues over time as a

Deep Past (Beginning) The Kai Tak Development Area (KTD) has been a vacant site for the past decade and a half. Now with the first developments completed, after these years of dispute and “consultation” regarding the overall development, KTD has moved out of its “permanent liminal” stage and towards the filling of the site. We are now at the early stages of KTD, the threshold between the city’s previous ways of structuring urbanity.

process of subdividing and re-enclosing within the subdivided, escalating in frequency and exponential in density. Further inwards, FWF exist within a container in which these boundaries drift as minor contractions. Appearing motionless within the context of solid stasis the only signal of change to come, and the only expression manifest to the exterior beyond itself, is the extrusion of plastic support that momentarily appear on the outer face of this ‘container of frames within frames’. This is the moment, the only moment, the sealing filament is breached to pave way for changes to its interior self- a continual behavior of spatial cloning. Container Giants These container giants, a.k.a wind stop towers (WST), are the ‘containers of frames within frames’, containing and recontaining continuallyVerticals on to verticals and horizontals upon horizontals. The environment surrounding

Present (Midpoint) The decommissioning in 1998 left a residual urban formation, a void clearly delineated and carved out of the urban fabric. Its edge grew more defined as the city grew around it, pushing against the clear demarcations (scaffoldings forming a perimeter wall), closer and higher but never over and into. The question is, and cause for an initial state of permanent liminality, of how to fill in this void, with what, and by whom.

the field of WST is the place without wind, static and solid spaces indistinguishable and monolithic in its totality- the condition of field array and multiplication within set limits of the ‘development area’. These are the wind stop towers in-between the edges of the development area. Development Area as Archipelago There is but one remaining plane within the limits of this horizon left as vacuum, a tabula rasa cut out of a surrounding that is, and will continue to be, an intricately filling tabula. There is the horizon of the intricate slate which constitutes the outside area, and the cut out blank slate of the inside area delimiting the development area. Beyond the blankness the outside has reproduced to its densest possibility and any plane of this horizon that was unfilled has now been fulfilled by the greed-for and need-of hyper saturation, leaving one territory remaining inside. This

Master plan (End?) Over the past decade and a half the Gov.HK has been developing the masterplan, planning the filling of the KTD Site. Zoning has been defined, densities as well as land use now delineated. At this moment construction is underway to fill in the first outlines of this “phase”. With some works recently completed on the sites periphery KTDs early liminal stages has skipped suddenly towards an end. The future of this urban situation has its projected end, an instant future dictated by a masterplan.

remnant is the last of the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;artificial horizonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; master plan, a series of massive operations that would reclaim the liquid non-planes to relieve the overflow of hyper saturation, hypothetically unbinding all limits of the development area and beyond. Should the procedures of the artificial horizons continued at infinitum the future would have been the endless drifting of a edgeless territory. Protest saw to the halt of such operations and to the decommissioning and abandonment of the final Development Area. Drifts around the Development Area This area remains a blank slate. Massive, unnatural, and somber in its slumber as the outside and around grows ever more solid. Over time the outside evolves around this inside and the edge of this territory becomes sharper- its frame ever higher, its barricading verticals more opaque and left drifting closer but never over and never into the inside. This threshold in-between

Instant Future (The Urban Problematic In-between the city and the former airport, to the now residual space around which the city has grown around there is left a site detached and separated as its surroundings evolved time. Delimited we are left with a Tabula Rasa within a very intricately filled tabula. A master plan for an instant future will leave the KTD unnaturally and permanently separated from its context.

stands as an impasse to those approaching from upon the outside horizon and consequently all trajectories of mobilization are severed, deflected, then redirected. In parallel horizons, the woven networks connecting up above retreat with hastened steps, radiating away from this nonplace. Quickly becoming a body-less place, this peripheral space becomes suitable only for machinic productions and closed operations, a space where ecology can no longer be entertained. Infra-things of structures remain but only as a passage, a nostop zone continually radiating from a very clear line drawn around. The extent of this body-less space becomes increasingly vagueunmeasurable and undefined as a space of which only apparatus of drift transverse the ground above and the ghost of the mass transit apparatus moves below. From the edge in-between inside and outside to beyond is a drift space under tension, continually stretching the filament which defines its undefined outer limits of limitlessness.

In the Near Future

Conjecture for the Possibility of a Deep Future This is one of 2 remaining prime territories for Hong Kong (with such amount of space and along the waterfront), and there needs to be an attempt at a conjecture within the governments â&#x20AC;&#x153;masterplanâ&#x20AC;? for a possibility of a deep future, one in which the KTD site is assimilated with the existing fabric as well as confronts the stasis of the current development of the cities architecture.

Drifts within the Development Area

On Approach to the InBetween

Upon the surface there is no linear axis, no overriding orthogonality which lends to an intelligible grasping of the territory. Here, any differentiation in detail of this area is consumed again by the regimented vertical â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Containers of Frames within Framesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;- the Wind Stop Towers, juxtaposed against a vaguely defined and immense network above and slipped inbetween. These are the second ground datum, the third and the fourth to the tenth, networks uncomforming to (quasi) regularity set out by outmoded mobilization. Unbound by the horizons limits these networks evolve organically according to spatial drift logic.

Kai Tak Development Area should not be a continuation (in the sense of replication) of the city fabric, as if it were a city within a city waiting to be planned the same way in order to continue the city outside to inside. Assimilation is not sameness- this would only yield a shallow likeness, a camouflage which appears to be a part but is only a mascaraed.

New Grounds The additional horizons, new layers of inhabitable networks, are localized subdivisions which emerge spontaneously and wildly in opposition to limits in which they are situated. The space

in-between the horizon and the vastness above are formations of driftstrata, a domain which operates closely to the horizontal domain but existing independently by its own territorial parameters.

Inscriptions onto the Tabula Rasa

Clone Stamp Feature Future Eventually there will come a time where the high walls of barricade come down. By will and pre-determinacy of the plan masters, this will be a moment of unveiling; there will be openings of grandeur, spectacles and paths paved in red. We will be gifted, in the words of the masters, with a brand new cityan instantaneous novel future, and at that moment the city will have reached its final state of metamorphosis, one in which its horizons come to a final stasis memorialized in the form of a wingless concrete butterfly. Growth hormones will be injected to enhance rapid-artificialdensification which lends to the camouflage

operandi. The mission will be for instantaneous hyper-saturation with an objective to reach a point where inside and outside territory become indistinguishable (It is a known fact that difference causes unease and envy within the body). To achieve a realistic look and feel, artificialaging-agents will hasten the deterioration of the Wind Stop Towers and the neatly laid infra-things of structure will be entangled and misdirected with expert craft. Novel LuxuriousStandard-Dimension frames (LSD-frames) of the containers will be desperately subdivided for real-life inhabitation and to alleviate the discrepancies in saturation between outside to inside. Plastic supports will immediately begin extruding as the freshly sealed filaments are cut open to move the state of things into alignment with the old cycles of framing within frames and higher upon higher. As part of the planning masters master plan this is to ensure

KTD is in itself an architecture already embedded (although cut out) within a city and as such the architectures within this architecture should not be subject to the sameness of urbanism outside it. Tracing the evolution and redefinition of the City, Peter Trummer describes the 21st Century as â&#x20AC;&#x153;The City as Aggregated Objectâ&#x20AC;? in which architecture has become the ground for architecture. KTD has to be thought of not as a tabula rasa for a Master Plan, but as a sequence of architectures in-between architectures to be drawn over time.

there is no visibly noticeable differentiation between the old outside and new inside. To the unattentive and indifferent (majority), memory of this once massive tabula rasa, and with it the embedded histories of protest, place and identity, will be replaced by the artificial past of this instant future. The deep past of this place will be filled in then drift into a blank void within our collective mindscapes. * * * Though the high walls which once formed the threshold in-between have fallen away, and the camouflaging artificiality of the inside had come to full fruition, as we now approach the once inbetween a faint line can still be traced. At this threshold we look back, inside, outside, over and under, nostalgic and with regret. Couldn’t there have been something in place of the inbetween, something which could exist only in such liminality? This once tabula rasa, a never to reoccur again occurrence has completely evaporated right before our eyes-

camouflaged with militaryesqe expertise having successfully replicated its surrounding ‘in the style of’ sameness. ‘In the style of’ concrete stasis.

1 H Y P E R C O N T E X T

D R I F T I N G

I N - B E T W E E

Kai Tak International Airport, Hong Kong

Thesis: Masterplan

P R O V O C A T I O N W H AT I S T H E N OT I O N O F A M A S T E R P L A N I N T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U R Y , A N D T H E R O L E O F T E C H N O LO G Y A N D L A N D S C A P E TO A D D R E SS T H E U R B A N S I T U AT I O N O F T H E FO R M E R I N T E R N AT I O N A L A I R P O R T I N H O N G K O N G , D E C O M M I SS I O N E D I N 1 9 9 8 A N D L E F T A V O I D I N T H E U R B A N FA B R I C ( K A I TA K D E V E LO P M E N T A R E A ) . T H E I D E A I S S P E C U L AT E O N T H E ‘ N AT U R A L - M A C H I N E , A N D L I V I N G ’ C O N D I T I O N O F HONG KONG.

City Betweenness of an In-Between City

Thesis: Masterplan

City Betweenness of an In-Between City

Thesis: Masterplan

M A S T E R P L A N A S A N A LT E R N AT I V E T O M A S T E R P L A N A S W E H A V E W I T N E S S E D I N T H E PA S T D E C A D E S , A S A N E N T I T Y T H AT I S S I N G U L A R A N D D E T E R M I N I S T I C , I S P E C U L AT E O N A THEORETICAL POSITION OF BETWEENNESS AS THE OPPOSITION. TO PROPOSE AN A LT E R N AT I V E T O M A S T E R P L A N I S T O S P E C U L AT E O N T H E R O L E O F D U R AT I O N A N D S E Q U E N C I N G , A N D TO W H AT C A N B E D E T E R M I N E D A N D W H AT I S TO B E L E F T A S R E A CT I O N . T H E S E A R E T H E S E Q U E N C E S T H AT M A N I F E S T B E T W E E N E N SS B E T W E E N N E S S TO ACHIEVE BETWEENNESS ONE HAS TO CONSIDER THE NOTION OF BOTH/ A N D - ‘ T H E D O U B L E A R T I C U L AT I O N ’ - W H I C H I S C E N T R A L TO D E L E U Z E A N D G U AT TA R I ’ S T H I N K I N G O F D Y N A M I C A L SY S T E M S ( T H E N E C E SS I T Y O F C H A O S A N D O R D E R , S T R ATA A N D R E - T E R R I TO R I A L I Z AT I O N ) . B E T W E E N N E SS I S T H E P O SS I B I L I T Y O F N E G OT I AT I O N O F ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE AS IT IS THE INCREMENT OF SEQUENCING OVER TIME I N T H E C H A N G I N G O F P H A S E S . I T I S D U R AT I O N . B E T W E E N E SS I M P L I E S C O N F L I CT A N D N E G OT I AT I O N O V E R T I M E A N D T H I S I S T H E Q U A L I T Y R E F U T I N G T H E S TAT I C ‘ M A S T E R P L A N ’ . B E T W E E N N E SS I S T H E B E H AV I O R T H AT O V E R R I D E S T H E M A S T E R P L A N , A N D T H E Q U A L I T Y O F A H Y B R I D T E R R I T O R Y I N T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U R Y.

City Betweenness of an In-Between City

Thesis: Masterplan

H Y B R I D S : N AT U R A L M A C H I N E TO C R E AT E B E T W E E N N E SS I S TO N E G OT I AT E L A N D S C A P E A N D T E C H N O LO G Y H Y B R I D I Z AT I O N . I T I S TO S P E C U L AT E O N T H E T R A N S FO R M AT I O N O F L A N D S C A P E A N D T H E B U I LT D E M A N D S O F T H E C I T Y ( H O U S I N G ) B Y R E C L A I M I N G T H E T E C H N O L O G I C A L R E S I D U E O F T H E FO R M E R A I R P O R T I N H O N G K O N G FO R T H E N AT U R A L , T H AT I S , A S A T E C H N O LO G I C A L N AT U R A L . T E C H N O L O G I C A L

R E S I D U E

T H E K A I TA K D E V E LO P M E N T A R E A I S A S C A R L E F T I N T H E E A S T K O W LO O N C I T Y FA B R I C A S A R E S U LT O F T E C H N O L O G I C A L O B S O L E S C E N C E , T H I S L E F T A V O I D W I T H A L A S T I N G I N D U S T R I A L A U R A T H AT H A D D E F I N E D T H E D I S T R I C T W H I C H G R E W A R O U N D I T. B Y N AT U R E O F D E S I G N T H E A I R P O R T I S AT O N C E A PA R T O F T H E C I T Y B U T S E V E R E D I N I T S D I R E C T C O N N E C T I O N S , A N D T H I S R E S U LT E D I N N O N - I D E A L C O N D I T I O N S F O R I N H A B I TAT I O N , B U T C O N D I T I O N S F O R A N I N D U S T R I A L P E R I P H E R Y.

City Betweenness of an In-Between City

S P E C I F I (C) - C I T Y THIS POST TECHNOLOGICAL CONDITION LEAVES BEHIND A UNIQUE LAND TYPOLOGY A N D O P P O R T U N I T Y F O R A N A LT E R N AT I V E D E V E L O P M E N T F O R H O N G K O N G ’ S F U T U R E - A VACANT TERRITORY WITH THE LINEAR ARTIFICIAL ISLAND (RECLAIMED LAND OF THE RUNWAY IN-BETWEEN THE HARBOR) CHARACTERIZES THIS URBAN CONDITION. G R E E N B E L T

H O U S I N G

T H E G R E E N B E LT P R O T E C T I N G H O N G K O N G ’ S N AT U R A L T E R R I T O R I E S I S C U R R E N T LY B E I N G R E N E G O T I AT E D I N O R D E R T O M E E T H O U S I N G D E M A N D S A N D Q U O TA O F T H E C I T Y. T H I S C Y C L E W I L L P E R P E T U AT E T H E D E C L I N E O F T H E C I T Y ’ S E N V I R O N M E N TA L H E A LT H A N D Q U A L I T Y O F T H E I N H A B I TAT I O N W I T H I N T H E C I T Y.

City Betweenness of an In-Between City

Thesis: Masterplan

Thesis: Architecture

P R O P O S A L : B E T W E E N N E S S - N AT U R A L M A C H I N E L I V I N G AS A REACTION TO THE GOVERNMENT MASTERPLAN AND TO THE ENCROACHING OF G R E E N B E LT T E R R I T O R I E S , T H E P R O P O S A L I S T O C O N S I D E R T H E E N T I R E T E R R I T O R Y A S A H Y B R I D - G R E E N P L I N T H A N D E N V I R O N M E N TA L C O N D I T I O N I N G R E G I O N ( W AT E R F I LT R AT I O N A N D P U R I F I C AT I O N S T R E TC H E D A LO N G T H E A R T I F I C I A L L I N E A R I S L A N D ) . A N D TO P R O P O S E A S E Q U E N C I N G O F H O U S I N G TO W E R S T H AT W O U L D B E G R A F T E D O N TO T H I S G R E E N P L A N E - S P E C U L AT I N G O N T H E I D E A O F L I V I N G A N D W AT E R , N AT U R E A N D M A C H I N E , F O R H O N G K O N G A N D P R O P O S I N G B E T W E E N N E S S A S T H E A LT E R N AT I V E T O T H E CURRENT MASTERPLAN.

An Instance of Betweenness

1 PA R T S R E V E A L I N G T H E S PAC E I N - B E T W E E N

Thesis: Architecture

WHOLE READING THE LINES IN-BETWEEN

An Instance of Betweenness

ABSTRACTIONS OF THINKING ARCHITECTURE

Abraham Fung

T R A N S L AT I O N S THROUGH CONSTRUCTION