Alison Tang | Landscape Architecture Portfolio ver. 2020

MAN TANG ALISON

landscape architecture portfolio.

SUMMARY

Passionate landscape architect with focuses on habitat creation, climate resilience and nature-human interaction. Diverse academic and professional background across landscape architecture, graphic design and business development. Interested in developing subversive and meaningful approaches to challenge conventional landscape design.

EDUCATION

10-14

BARTLETT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, UCL | London MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (MLA)

+ Main fields of study focus on provoking social engagement with derelict landscapes in order to achieve active and dynamic landscapes through water resource utilization, topography variation, and natural-cultural forces.

+ Thesis Making intangibles tangible: A chronotopical analysis & implication of Studio Ghibli animation films + Class Distinction

+ Awards The Bartlett MLA Prize 18/19 - Highest Overall Mark The Bartlett MLA Prize 19/20 - Landscape Environment & Technology Prize Landscape Design Prize

THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG | Hong Kong BACHELOR OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE (BECON&FIN) + Award HKU Worldwide Undergraduate Student Exchange Scholarship

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

21-now

LDA DESIGN | London

CONSULTANT LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

18-20 SKILLS

20-21

TOWNSHEND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS | London

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT + Coordinated with wider project teams to prepare technical drawings for residential, commercial and public realm projects. Notable projects include Canada Water Dock (S2), Brent Cross Pavilion (S4) and Tropical Fruit Warehouse (S4)

AECOM ASIA COMPANY LIMITED | Hong Kong SUMMER INTERN | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Contributed ideas for conceptual and schematic design presentations of two commercial projects AECOM ASIA COMPANY LIMITED | Hong Kong

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST

Coordinated with multi-discipline professionals to assist with proposal preparation

Developed close relationship with clients to obtain working opportunities

Managed clients’ enquiries and provided timely solutions and supports

Monitored and updated CRM database and preformed business analysis

THE E-LEARNING DEVELOPMENT LABORATORY, HKU | Hong Kong

RESEARCH ASSISTANT | DESIGN TEAM LEADER & EDITOR + Provided management support to pioneer e-learning project in Hong Kong, EMADS

+ Contribute and prepare deliverables from conceptual to construction stages for a diverse range of projects: from meanwhile public realms to sophisticate mixed-use developments across scales. Notable projects include Bartlett Meanwhile, Olympia London, Oracle Reading, and Jersey Hospital + Conduct Revit/ BIM360 workshops and provide Revit support across the practice + Coordinate with the clients to organise engagement workshops with targeted communities and stakeholders 19 16-18 14-16 13-14

Established an in-house design team for UI/UX and graphic solutions + Organized various promotion and pitching events with marketing team + Initiated and organized workshops for colleagues and interns in using Adobe CS with tailor-made guidelines

HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY | Hong Kong

PART-TIME RESEARCH ASSISTANT | STORYBOARD ARTIST + Worked closely with the director to construct plot and storyboard of the movie

Rhino + Grasshoppper

Enscape

ArcGIS + QGIS

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

The studio theme of last year was “first the forest”.

Through our anthropocentrism, people tend to believe that human beings are the most important entities in the universe and therefore are the main vital force to make any significant impact. However, other non-human participants are playing equally an important role to induce changes.

On one hand, by mapping and researching derelict spaces throughout London, without human intervention, surprisingly, plant communities with high diversity pioneer species were adopted and formed spontaneously in those fragmented relics. On the other hand, inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin and Achille Mbembe, a secondary forest network can be seeded by the citizens of the city through small actions, considered in aggregate through time and space.

As the landscape architect, rather than delivering the 100% designed landscape, would be it a futuristic approach with minimal designed interventions to create spaces that allow both nature and citizens to participate in the construction of their own place?

FOREST ACROSS SCALES

A forest is any green space across scales depending on who you are - it can be as tiny as a moss to a worm, as huge as a nation to a dinosour. 2.

LONDON AS A FOREST

Interestingly United Nations defines London itself as a forest.

SMALL ACTION BIG IMPACT

Participatory subversive citizen action through guerrilla greening on derelict sites across London as a way to facilitate and encourage the wilding of the city.

Three distinctive sites at different scales - small, medium and large - are selected to demonstrate how minimal interventions and guerilla direct actions can be applied by easily and effectively.

North Woolwich Station has been picked as the mediumsized testbed.

LEYTON STADIUM

CENTAURS RUGBY GROUND

ANTI-AIRCRAFT BATTERY

FORMER BISHOPSGATE GOODSYARD CHADWELL HEATH

LIVING LANDFORMS

Building landforms with soil from 1. existing construction waste, 2. dredging sediments, and 3. seedbombs, and growing spontaneous plants to restore the forest.

ROOT HEAVE GARDEN

Cracking of pavement by roof heave encourages the growth of weed and grasses. It then becomes an observable natural beauty on ruins.

DRILLED GARDEN

Re-discovering the underneath relic and allowing plants to recolonized by drilling and cracking the asphalt and concrete car park.

AMPHIBIOUS RAIL

Turning the abandoned sunken railways into an amphibious retention pond during rainy seasons. It would becomes an functional but also instagram-able Urbex urquodis arcana.

COLLABORATIVE CONSTRUCTION.

RESURRECTION OF ARTEFACTS

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

It was a conventional approach that we tend to believe that humans are the most important entities when it comes to making impactful change. However, non-human participants play an equally—if not more so—significant role in the introduction of change in our cities.

This project develops the subversive concept of destructive construction to regenerate post-industrial sites across Sheffield. When trees fall, their trunks and branches decay, providing nutrients to the earth, supporting and accelerating growth of the forest itself. Is it also possible to make our built artefacts support their ecologies, like the fallen tree?

With guided citizen actions through destructive guerrilla greening and the participation of nature force on the imperfect relics, this proposal is an opportunity for citizens to engage in the city-making process for their well-being and sense of belonging. It is also a way to acknowledge and encourage an understanding of our entangled existence with nature, to build up a collaborative effort to develop a biodiverse and climate resilience city.

Eventually, these abandoned spaces with different temporalities will resurrect to make the city bloom with greenery on the skeletons of industrialization, and celebrate the unique history of this Steel City.

RESURRECTION OF ARTEFACTS ?

when trees fall, their trunks and branches decay, providing nutrients to the earth, supporting and accelerating growth of the forest itself.

The second project develops the concept of destructive construction to regenerate postindustrial sites across Sheffield.

When trees fall, their trunks and branches decay, providing nutrients to the earth, supporting and accelerating growth of the forest itself. Is it also possible to make our built artefacts support their ecologies, like the fallen tree?

possible to make our own built artefacts support their ecologies, like the fallen tree?

CONSTRUCTION.

This proposal is an opportunity for citizens to engage in the city-making process for their well-being and sense of belonging.

It is also a way to acknowledge and encourage an understanding of our entangled existence with nature, to build up a collaborative effort to develop a bio-diverse and climate resilience city.

DESIGN

For existing structures and spontaneous plant communities, I propose to preserve and enhance. The existing hoardings would be preserved as a protective barrier; drilled holes would allow people to see through the wall and allow light to penetrate the enclosed forest during the conservation stage.

DESTRUCT

For hard and flat surfaces, I propose partial demolitions. Different destruction methods, drilling, cracking and excavating, are strategically used within the relic foundation to encourage the self inhibition of ecology. Excavation along the river also creates living shoreline to alleviate flooding risk.

CONSTRUCT [ B ]

By constructing living landforms with low-nutrient construction waste and excavated soil, it helps to capture passing plant seeds, grow a more diverse plant community, and ultimately develop a more desirable habitat for animals.

the conventional ‘high tech’ construction solution with ‘low tech’ destruction method. By simply ‘destroying’ strategically on the existing site, for example drilling holes or cracking surface, to provoke and encourage the self inhabitation of ecology.

SILL

#

TIDAL

MARSH

SLOPE STABILIZING WITH PLANTS

SAND BASE MARGINAL PLANTS

GIANT MILLSTONE FRAGMENT <30%

1-2%

~30% recommended maximum value

[ B01 ]

LIVING

SHORELINE

NO REINFORCE REQUIRED

This is applicable to most of the flat areas in the proposed design.

The gradient of the living shoreline is limited up to 30% gradient such that no additional stabilizing device other than vegetation and sills is required. B01

~30%

VEGETATIVE SURFACE

The simplest and minimal way of stabilizing the shallow slope by making use the plant’s ability. This is applicable to most area of water forest.

[ A06 ]

ELEVATED PATHWAY

Walkway system shall be elevated to limit the disruption of the ecosystem below. The permeable steel grating minimizes the influences of sunlight and rainwater to the vegetation below.

Why are people motivated to take direct actions? This comic shows the possible journey of how citizens meet and come to care to take everyday actions or extraordinary ones to interact with the city. Not only do their actions help the city and potentially their well-being, but fundamentally, these kinds of gatherings and meetings can provide an opportunity for social coherence, a sense of belonging that is desperately longed for in the city, especially now, in our post-pandemic era.

CONCEPTUAL PAINTING INTERWEAVING NATURE + THE URBAN.

TOPOGRAPHY

YUEN LONG DISTRICT, HONG KONG

YUENLONG DISTRICT

HONGKONG

Yuen Long District, locating in the northern west of Hong Kong, contains the largest alluvial plain within the city. With an area of 144 km2, most of the area are extremely vulnerable to storm surges by the end of 21 century.

[ 3 ]

INTERWEAVING NATURE + URBAN

COURSE

BARC0118 | Landscape Design 3

PROJECT TYPE

Individual Work

# Urban wetland park

# Habitat creation

PROJECT LOCATION

Yuen Long, Hong Kong PROJECT YEAR 2019

STUDIO

MLA Y1 | Studio #01 Ana Abram + Maj Plemenitas

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Hong Kong is famous of being the “concrete jungle”, a product of rapid and densely urbanisation. The city, however, is also surprisingly rich in biodiversity. The microclimate, coastal areas and mountains created favourable habitats for a diverse spectrum of terrestrial and marine wildlife. However, the precious ecosystem is constantly under the threat brought along by rapid urbanisation in Hong Kong and other cities in close vicinity, as well as global warming.

Yuen Long District, situating at northwestern Hong Kong, plays an important role in preserving biodiversity with its distinct mangrove and fish-pond habitat.

The project objective aims to re-create and enhance existing habitats of Yuen Long for those declining living creatures, such as endangered black-faced spoonbills; and on the other hand to re-bridge the fragmented urban and natural spaces in order to facilitate harmonic co-exultancy between human being and other specious through renaturalizing and revitalizing Shan Pui River. Ultimately, the project envision a strategic eco-network to interweave the nature back into the urban fabric.

YUEN LONG | TOWN CENTRE PHYSICAL MODEL SCALE 1:1,000

SHADE AT 15:00

WETLAND PARK UNDERGROUND CARPARK

SHADE AT 17:00

VERTICAL ECO PARK

DESIGN OVERVIEW

ISOMETRIC BIRD-EYE VIEW

RE=Connecting people & water

OTHER FACILITIES

COURSE

BARC0116 | Landscape Design 1 BARC0117 | Landscape Design 2 BARC0115 | Inhabitation and Environmental Systems

PLANTING & VEGETATION

PROJECT TYPE

Individual Work # Urban wetland park # Habitat creation

PROJECT LOCATION

North Greenwich, London PROJECT YEAR 2018-2019

CIRCULATION // PATHWAY

STUDIO MLA Y1 | Studio #01 Ana Abram Maj Plemenitas

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

LEVEL // LANDFORM

[ 4 ] OVERALL PROPOSED DESIGN

Changing drastically over the past centuries, the River Thames has been recovering from the highly polluted industrial canal. This is a golden timing for restoring habitats along River Thames to alleviate or overcome the extinction crisis. Located in North Greenwich, the target site is currently a 1 km2 brownfield consisting of various industrial firms. Due to the extensive artificial structures and the pollution produced by the firms on site, biodiversity is relatively low compared to other areas along the River. My objective is to create on the one hand habitats by regenerating this area for those declining amphibious species, such as water voles and turtle doves, and on the other hand, to provide a space where humans and other species may co-exist harmoniously.

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY

LEVELS & DRAINAGE

PLANTING STRATEGY

ARTICULATED SHORELINE

ELEVATED WOODLAND WATER SQUARE

ELEVATED WOODLAND GREEN PAVILLION ENTRY PLAZA &

increasing the tidal level.

NORMAL TIDAL LEVEL

HIGH TIDAL LEVEL

By articulating the river edge, the total surface area where land and water contact would at least increase by 5 times.

COURSE

BARC0114 History and Theory

PROJECT TYPE Illustrated essay ~ Individual Work

PROJECT YEAR 2019 TUTOR Tim Waterman

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Similar to other narrative forms, drawing comics and storyboards are means for creators to express connotation and their beliefs to readers.

By arranging those narrated events to form a meaningful plot sophisticatedly, potentially it motivate readers’ imagination and engagement with the story. A successful example is Hayao Miyazaki’s animation, Princess Mononoke (1997).

By exploring the struggle between the gods of a forest and the humans who consume its resources, this animation aims to encourage audiences to rethink about the unbalanced relationship between nature and humanity.

Comic “swallowtail butterfly”

Inspired by the song “swallowtail butterfly”*, this comic aims to bring out the problem caused by urbanisation in Hong Kong. During the handover of Hong Kong from British to China in 1997, there is growing political and economical influence on the development direction of Hong Kong. Some parts of my hometown North District, where is the nearest to the border of China, has been agreed to cede control to China for development. Using swallowtail butterfly as the metaphor of Hong Kong residents, the comic try to encourage them to rethink whether it is worthwhile for our government to sacrifice Hong Kong’s people, wildlife and resources just for ingratiating PRC?

(Story and Comic by author)

Music Video

“Swallowtail Butterfly” by Greenpeace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t17Z7WlU7c

letting buildings stand where flowers once grew,

is this what paradise looks like?

HOUSE MIYABI

PROJECT TYPE

Self-initiative residential project

PROJECT YEAR 2018

COLLABORATORS

Alison Tang (Landscape Design)

Joshua Bigcas (Architectural Design)

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Landscape design is transformative. It is able to alter the experience of space and how we live and feel. In collaboration with Joshua, “Miyabi” is a self-initiated project aiming to bring seasonal colours to the 480m2 Japanese house in a contemporary approach. To echo with the traditional Japanese aesthetic ideals “miyabi”, which refers to the bittersweet awareness of the transience and decline of things, indigenous trees and shrubs representing their corresponding seasons are planted as focal points in spaces and gardens. You can dance with cherry blossoms rain in the spring wind, observe hydrangea changing from blue to violet after each summer rain, pick a lovely maple leaf as a bookmark during autumn, as well as decorate your pine tree with winter snow.

Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter. evergreen

Cherry (Cerasus yedoensis)

Hydrangea macrophylla

Maple (Acer palmatum)

Pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus) Bamboo (Phyllostachys heteroclada)

[ 8

PROJECT EMADS

PROJECT TYPE

E-learning platform and e-textbook development PROJECT YEAR 2014-2015

CLIENT Education Bureau, HKSAR COLLABORATORS

Alison Tang (Lead Designer & Editor), Sui Lam (Graphic Designer), etc.

SCOPE OF WORKS

+ Designed tailor-made design guidelines and framework for interactive e-books learning platform iClass

+ Designed 7 cartoon characters for branding purpose

+ Edited and typeset 36 textbooks and 15 exercise books

+ Organized various promotion events and designed souvenirs targeting pupils

+ Provided management support to the project EMADS

Sample primary mathematics e-book content on iClass platform (2015)

[ 9 ]

MISCELLANEOUS

DUNKIRK (2017)

The Shape Of Voice (2017)

EXPLOSION (2017)

WONDER WOMAN (2017)

CLEAR & CLEAN

COURSE

CCST9004 Technilogies Designed for the Developing World

PROJECT TYPE

Straw Bale Composting Toilet

COLLABORATORS

Alison Tang (Group Leader) Yoyo Yiu Helena Tai

PROJECT LOCATION Tanzania

PROJECT YEAR 2010

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Project “Clear and Clean” aims to address the sanitation and environmental problem in Tanzania. As a developing country, Tanzania is still low in GDP per capita, education level, as well as technological level. Thus, in this project, after considering deeply both technical and social factors in Tanzania, we proposed to establish a new human excreta management system by building easy-build, cost saving, sustainable straw bale composting toilets.

KEY FEATURES OF STRAW BALE COMPOSTING TOILET

TECHNICAL MECHANISMS

Overview of the straw bale composting toilet designed for Tanzania

Mechanism of removable collecting bucket in composting toilet

Mechanism of air circulation using ventilated improved pipe

Straw Bale Toilet Sketchup Model

GLIMPSE OF SKY

COLLABORATORS

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Living in the concrete jungle of Hong Kong, we are surrounded by skyscrapers and can only see the sky by looking up through narrow gaps between buildings. Yet, it would definitely an interesting moment if you could find funny shapes of sky. Imitating the roof gaps on cardboard with sky photos taken inside it, this installation we presented aimed at showing the process of sky searching to audiences.

“Glimpse of Sky” Conceptual Model (2011)

Photos of Sky Gaps between Buildings

COURSE HKU General Education Summer Programme (Hong Kong Cityscape and Architecture) PROJECT TYPE Installation Art PROJECT YEAR 2011

Alison Tang + Philip Chan + Andy Wong