Subversive Urbanism by Chris Cornelissen

SUBVERSIVE URBANISM

Chris Cornelissen / Adam Poinsett UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture MArch Urban Design 2011-2012 UD 4- Tutors: DaeWha Kang / Monika Bilska 1

We, Chris Cornelissen and Adam Poinsett, confirm that the work presented in this report is our own. Where information has been derived from other sources, we confirm that this has been indicated in the report.

ABSTRACT Hong Kong owes much of its success to its position as the world’s freest economy, maintaining this status through coordinated actions by the power elite of government, finance and media. However, increasing vulnerability to financial turbulence and rising inequalities necessitate a re-evaluation of traditional power within Hong Kong. The project is framed as a social movement to catalyse and organise a process of social, political and economic change, where parasitic analogies and emerging, crowddriven technologies are used to harness the strengths of Hong Kong’s citizens: Starting small and outside legal boundaries with residents organising a series of crowd-driven, “underground” nighttime events, the movement spreads to a sudden occupation of empty lands with demountable structures and a popular appeal for support through mass self-communication. Over time, the movement becomes a mainstream force, where increased involvement and confidence by citizens in their abilities to construct the city encourages further investment in similar developments elsewhere. This re-establishes the city as a platform for politics and decision-making by offering open access to the underlying processes that shape and govern the city. Reparasitisation and alteration continues to align the city towards economic and social sustainability. Ultimately, the project leads to a new form of urban development that encourages citizens to keep constructing their ideal city.

CONTENTS Abstract 5 Introduction 11

Part 1: Problems The city addicted to land reclamation Commercialised government Power elite One country, two systems? A new ideal

Part 2: Concept

15 17 17 19 19 22

Subversion 27 Society for the protection of the harbour 27 Sponteneous Occupation 27 Mass Self-Communication 27 Protests 29 Common attributes 29 Parasites 30

Part 3: Future - Social/Urban Revolution

Timeline 39 1. Normal Times 43 2. Prove failure of institutions 45 Goals 47 Strategies 47 3. Ripening conditions 49 Goals 51 Strategies 51 Weak Spots 53 Agents for subversion 55 Weak spots + Agents for Subversion 57 Cast of Characters 62 Events 68 Tentacles 78 4. Take off 85 Occupation 88 Wikistructures 90 Planning 95 Funding 99 5. Movement identity crisis 103 6. Majority public support 107 Programme mix 108 Third industrial revolution 108 Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic sectors 112 7. Success 117 Alternative finance 122 Mass-Produced to Mass-Customised 125 Spread through the city 130 West Kowloon Cultural District 130 Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter 134 8. Continuing struggle 145 Conclusion 147 Bibliography 154 Images 156

0.1 Project overview 10

INTRODUCTION The Sacculina Barnacle is a parasite that, after burrowing through a joint in a crab and growing ciliary branches to feast on its nutrients, affects its behaviour through neuromodular modification causing the crab to take care of the parasite’s eggs as if they were their own. The premise of Urban Design Unit 4 this year was to look at sustainable systems and natural principles to find new functional and spatial approaches to address the crises of our cities, which led us to focus on social sustainability and study the world of behaviour-altering parasites. Not only did this approach reflect for us what we see happening around us - either with strong political motives, like the Occupy camps, or to make the city a little better, like urban pop up events (cinemas under highway flyovers or shops that disappear after a day) - it is an approach that has a lot of resonance in Hong Kong, the city that for this year’s overall brief was picked for our interpretations on the ideal city. Hong Kong’s history as British colony created the city’s parasitic relationship to both China and the Western world. Now, in the transitional period after the 1997 handover, where the government is increasingly enforcing its power and positioning the city as a global financial centre - seemingly forgetting the majority of its citizens people are finding new ways to instigate change. These changes have been seen in the courts, where the initiative of one lawyer created legislation protecting the Victoria harbour from further reclamation; in the city, where domestic helpers, who’s existence is hardly acknowledged by the government, take over plazas and sky bridges on their day off; or online, where prostitutes are escaping illegality by organising themselves around an open source website instead of traditional brothels. All these initiatives are helped by a technological revolution closely related to these global phenomena, of mass self-communication through new media like Facebook and Wikipedia. This project revolves around a process of change; a social, political and economic revolution in the city, where parasitic analogies and emerging crowd-driven technologies are used to harness strengths of people and subvert the city’s current problematic power elite. It is framed around a timeline, proven to be applicable to successful social movements, that breaks the process up in stages and sets clear goals for each stage, serving as a catalyst and a structuring element. For each stage a set of tools and visions is designed, helping the people successfully complete the revolution. The process begins small, event-based and outside legal boundaries, and ultimately leads to a a new form of urban development that allows citizens to keep constructing their ideal city.

Jiangmen

Macau 0.2 Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong 12

Hong Kong

PART 1: PROBLEMS

1.1 West Kowloon land reclamation and expressway

THE CITY ADDICTED TO LAND RECLAMATION Hong Kong’s strategic location, as a gateway between China and the rest of the world, has made the city a modern hub of international trade and finance, with a highly specialised service economy. Its ever-increasing appeal has put pressure on something its location couldn’t offer: land for urban development. The reclamation of land is common practice here, with the earliest reclamations dating back over 2000 years. Hong Kong partly maintains its competitive position in the world by keeping its taxes low, forcing the government to look to other sources of income. Working with leases, land has always been a major source of income and land reclamation has been discovered as a very profitable scheme, with recent income from reclamations reaching over £85 billion (Chu 2012) with money being made used for additional reclamations in a seemingly endless cycle. In this process, the government has increasingly adopted a commercial attitude. A look at one of the most recent reclamations reveals the government’s focus: the main goal was the construction of a highway and railway connecting Hong Kong Island, financial core of the city, with the newly constructed airport. For this purpose, the Kowloon peninsula was extended west. To achieve its goals, reclamation was mainly been developed with these connections in mind, building for Hong Kong’s elite, global citizens, with a physical manifestation enforcing this ideal: multi-storey podia which effectively turn them into islands within the city, often with better connections to other global cities than their direct surroundings. The fact that a large part of daily life for most citizens of Hong Kong is set just next to this reclamation, in the old districts of Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok, was also overlooked in the development of another connection enforcing Hong Kong’s global presence: a one-stop-to-China high speed railway station.

Global perspective: Neoliberal policies and crisis The developments in West Kowloon can be seen in a series of similar large-scale developments all over the world. From London’s recent series of iconic (and appropriately-nicknamed) skyscrapers to Abu Dhabi’s dreamscape, they all share a main goal to ‘reposition the city as competitive, creative, cosmopolitan and globally connected’ (Swyngedouw 2011, p.24). They are the product of neoliberal policies, increasingly adopted since the 1970s.

These policies are focused on the globalisation of market forces, the deregulation of financial institutions and the privatisation of public services (Boyer 2011, p.7). Major shortcomings of a such a system from an economic perspective were beginning to show in the 2008 debt crisis, where the disastrous outcomes of the speculative behaviour of banks and insurance companies became apparent. The fact that this initially was largely a mortgage and property crisis gave it an urban perspective, showing urbanisation as a vehicle for speculation.

COMMERCIALISED GOVERNMENT Neoliberal ideas of organising a society by having market forces competing as freely as possible were being applied to Hong Kong long before the term was invented. The minimal government presence advocated on the other hand is opposite to Hong Kong’s traditional strong governmental role in the shaping of the city, necessitated by its largely mountainous landscape, resulting in the many carefully planned New Towns. It is when its government started operating as a commercial enterprise, that a new dimension to neoliberalism was created (the ‘Chinese model’). A government so strongly in control of the physical appearance of the city can be held accountable for the disastrous planning examples of the last decades. 17

1.2 Governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s promotion of Hong Kong

1.3 Pro-democracy protests 2012

Apart from questionable spatial integration with the rest of the city, in this development strategy with profit in mind, other pressing issues are ignored. The GINI coefficient, a measure for income inequality, lists Hong Kong as one of the most unequal places in the world. Poverty levels are soaring, as are housing prices (Hong Kong real estate is listed by the Economist (2011) as the most overvalued in the world). Property developments like the ones on the West Kowloon reclamation are vehicles of speculation and directly contribute to this bubble. A recent corruption scandal within one of the world’s biggest and Hong Kong-based property developer, Sun Hung Kai, illustrates the city’s commercial development focus. Sun Hung Kai is one of the few developers (along with a handful of others) that are in control of most of the real estate in Hong Kong. Within their portfolio are many developments on the West Kowloon reclamation, most famously the city’s tallest tower, the 484-metre International Commerce Centre (ICC). They have been accused of having ties that were too close with the government and its two co-chairmen recently have had to report to Hong Kong’s anti-corruption body in a currently on-going investigation.

POWER ELITE The blurring boundaries between government and developers bring into light questions of power structures in the city. At a lecture at the Occupy camp in London (2011), Manuel Castells argued that there currently exists a triangle of power holders, consisting of the media, government and finance. The three entities function as a network where finance holds a key role (with the production of goods and services requiring investment to begin and earnings to value output). They further depend on coordination and regulatory functions of the state and political system and are ultimately exercised through established networks of mass communication. In a neoliberal system where the boundaries of the triangle are eroding, this power structure becomes problematic. This is not only happening in Hong Kong. Worldwide, governments are deregulating financial markets and ties between media tycoons and governments are seen everywhere, from Berlusconi in Italy to Murdoch in England. Harvey (2012, p.23) describes how an urban dimension to this problem has been added by multi-billionaire media tycoon Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. Currently transforming Manhattan into a playground for developers, Bloomberg is essentially transforming the city into a ‘gated community for the rich’.

ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS? Privatisation and elitist power structures have radically changed the public and democratic character of the city. The city from the perspective of the Greek polis as ‘site for public political encounter and democratic negotiation, the spacing of (often radical) dissent, and disagreement, and the place where political subjectivation emerges and literally takes place’ (Swyngedouw 2011, p.23) is being replaced by a highly controlled, privately-owned public realm. In Hong Kong, this is illustrated by the abundance of rules that accompany the public spaces that are required by law to be created by private developments. The existence of these spaces is imposed on them by the government in an attempt to force enterprises to give the city back something physical in return for a ‘physical piece of globalisation’. Space in the city is being appropriated ‘through gentrification, high-end condo construction and Disneyfication’, Harvey (2012, p.35) argues, leaving very little for the rest of the population. Fading boundaries between political and economic power have created an elite that is focused on the consolidation of power and is losing interest in debate. In Hong Kong, the ‘one country, two systems’ adds another dimension. Massive protests recently marked 15 years of Chinese rule, seeing people unhappy with the lack of democracy, with Hong Kong’s new leader seen as being hand-picked by Beijing. The city is under pressure from two sides, and urgently needs to re-evaluate its ideals, or as Harvey (2012) urges us, ‘rebuild the city ... out of the wreckage wrought by neoliberal corporatist urbanization’.

1.4 Recent urban developments unveil Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current ideal

A NEW IDEAL Lefebvre (1996) explains the city as an oeuvre, ‘a work in which all its citizens can participate in the public sphere.’ ‘The right to the city is the right to urban life, to renewed centrality, to places of encounter and exchange, to life rhythms and time uses, enabling the full and the complete usage of moments and places. The right to inhabit, to use value free of exchange value. The right for appropriation beyond ownership, ...’ (Van Toorn 2007, p.271) Establishing this right requires the re-invention of the city as place for political encounter, to address and break up its dominant power structures. Hong Kong’s service industry, with an increasingly dominant financial sector needs to be questioned. If the city is traditionally a hub of trade and creation of surplus value, then the ‘right to the city is constituted by establishing democratic control over the surpluses through urbanisation’ (Harvey 2012, p.23). The city needs new development strategies that aren’t solely based on economic benefit and establishing a global presence, but on collective involvement, social inclusion and political debate. Globalisation can have more than just an elitist presence; only when it’s locally rooted and inclusive of everyone can it be truly global.

1.5 Breaking Hong Kong’s power triangle to create a new ideal

PART 2: CONCEPT

2.1 Occupy Hong Kong, under the HSBC headquarters

SUBVERSION In the ideal city, everybody is able to play an active role in the city’s organisation and its development. This role is not just symbolic or vocal but actually instrumental in the construction of the city. Partial democracy has not resolved the fundamental inequalities and lack of opportunity present in Hong Kong. A city where people can make a real impact on their surroundings will develop stronger communities and foster the development of skills within the city and its citizens that strengthens them and makes cities less vulnerable to external economic factors. As constructing an ideal necessarily involves disagreement, the ideal city embraces continual change, allowing its current ideals to be subverted themselves by future goals. In a city such as Hong Kong, where existing power structures limit the active involvement of the vast majority of the city’s actors in the city’s development, subversion has become a cultural pastime. Vocally expressing disapproval and acting to subvert existing practices has brought change and exposure to problems that lack of democratic practices and corruption has not allowed.

SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE HARBOUR Precedents for subversive political movements have existed throughout Hong Kong’s history. In 1995, a group of citizen activists formed the Society for the Protection of the Harbour, whose aim was to preserve Victoria Harbour for the people of Hong Kong and to keep its very existence from falling victim to continued land reclamation and development. Centred on a small group of activists, the Society for the Protection of the Harbour was guided by Winston Chu, an unlikely advocate, short and soft-spoken. With the support of grass roots society, they forcefully pushed through a series of preservation laws in the 1990s, upon which Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese sovereignty remained dependent. As a result of the dependency of Hong Kong’s handover on laws preserving Victoria Harbour, the government was pressured to accept the citizens’ proposals to facilitate a smooth handover. As Hong Kong’s political elite has continued to push land reclamation as its chief development strategy, the Society for the Protection of the Harbour has had to continually remain active, constantly suing the city for violation of its own laws. Citizens’ vigilance about the actions of the government’s development strategy and their reaction to changing issues has slowed down Hong Kong’s land reclamation and prevented the city from reclaiming further land within Victoria Harbour.

SPONTENEOUS OCCUPATION Another form of subversion within the city is evident with the crowds of Filipino and Indonesian domestic servants that take over public spaces within the city at the weekends. Scraping up large swathes of available spaces in plazas and on skybridges, the domestic servants, who aren’t typically afforded spaces for relaxation within their houses, publicly take ownership of the city. While private owners and city police could technically evict the groups from their temporary occupations, it’s widely accepted that they would merely occupy other spaces, return to existing spaces a short time later, or cause more public relations problems for the police than it would be worth. Consistent occupation and a tight-knit community ensure that Filipino and Indonesian domestic servants can continue to claim various parts of the city as their own.

MASS SELF-COMMUNICATION Hong Kong is a city that is addicted to technology. Mass self-communication is the term that Manuel Castells has termed to define new technologies that allow people to post and react to news events increasingly more than traditional media outlets: 27

2.2 Domestic workers gathering underneath the HSBC building

2.3 Tahrir square occupation

2.4 Different media of mass self-communication 28

In the city, where power is determined by those who control what people think, the increasing ability of anybody to influence people’s opinions is revolutionary in Hong Kong’s power dynamics. As such, many people have turned to technology as a way of exerting power. One example of new-found power can be seen within the prostitute community in Hong Kong. Owing to the illegality of brothels and pimps within Hong Kong, prostitutes have turned to the website sex141.com which serves as an opensource wiki for clients to interact directly with prostitutes instead of having to deal with the illegality of brothels and pimps. This has also led to prostitutes being able to improve their earnings by interacting directly with their clients and opening their clientele to everybody with internet access. sex141.com, along with other tools of mass self-communication, such as twitter and facebook, increasingly allow Hong Kongers to advertise and communicate beyond the limited modes promoted by traditional media.

PROTESTS Other forms of resistance have been exhibited in the multitude of annual protests that occur throughout the city. Common protests include the annual commemoration of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which sees hundreds of thousands of protestors pour into Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island and then march through the streets of Hong Kong until arriving in the heart of the government district in central Hong Kong. Other common protests in Hong Kong relate to religious oppression on the mainland as well as human rights violations caused by multinational corporations. The Occupy movement, started in New York in September 2011, was quickly picked up in Hong Kong shortly thereafter in October 2011. Garnering support through various forms of mass self-communication, the movement made a relatively small physical impact of tents set up under the headquarters of HSBC yet was critical in its popular statement and mass-education of people about the problems that plaguing the financial industry.

COMMON ATTRIBUTES Common to these movements are strategic decisions to make the protest as visible as possible, including the use of resources within the city such as the public plaza under HSBC, public entrances to companies such as Apple and Dolce & Gabbana, the vast expanses of Victoria Park, the highly-transited skybridges throughout the city, and the street outside the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government of China. Advertising the event and the message is also accomplished through non-traditional forms of media. Even methods of expression in events are often subversive. Ideas are often expressed through costume, art, and rapid diffusion of information through twitter. Even people not directly involved in subversive activities are targeted in order to attract more attention. By blocking roads, plazas, shops, and public spaces, everybody in the city is impacted and reacts. 29

PARASITES In nature, parasites are organisms that benefit in some way at the expense of a host. While the power elite of Hong Kong has traditionally benefitted economically and politically at the expense of the majority of Hong Kong’s people, there exists the real possibility to reverse this trend and to have the people of Hong Kong begin to parasitise the institutions that make up Hong Kong. Typically, the degree of damage that parasites are able to cause to their host is, to an extent, proportional to the size of the host. While parasites are able to cause extensive damage to smaller hosts, leading up to death and ecosystem destruction, their power over larger hosts is diminished. Examples of this can be seen in the cordyceps parasite, a parasite that infects ant species and can cause the destruction of entire ecosystems of ants to keep the population of the species in check. On the other end is the liver fluke, a parasite consumed by cattle when they feed on infected ants residing on grass stalks. The liver fluke can cause some organ damage but is limited in the extent that it can damage the cow due to the cow’s liver’s ability to fight off the parasite. Although physical destruction by parasites tends to be limited to smaller hosts, the true role of the parasite in nature tends to be seen more in species control that lie higher on the food chain. Studies have shown that for many hosts that lie low on the food chain, such as plants and small animals, predators are the predominant dangers that are faced. However, animals that lie higher up on the food chain, such as large animals and humans, face many more attacks from parasites, which attack the inherent vulnerabilities in the host (Laffery, Dobson and Kuris, 2006). Considering the size of Hong Kong and the strength of its institutions, it would be naïve to assume that a parasitic approach to subverting the power elite of Hong Kong would be successful at immediately destroying the governmental, financial, and media systems in place. Instead, the role of a parasitic approach towards subverting this elite would be to weaken key components; in effect, damaging the organs of the systems in place. No matter the size of the host, the role of the parasite is to enter, alter, and to usually exit the host after its usefulness has been exhausted. The method of entry into the host can be varied yet usually involves entering through a weak spot on the body, where the presence of the parasite is not usually noticed. Although not every parasite alters the behaviour of their host in order to benefit from it, many do alter the chemical compounds and reactions enough to make it perform acts normally considered uncharacteristic and sometimes even suicidal in tendency. By tapping into neural and chemical reactors within the host, the parasite can cause such behavioural alterations as: • Cause the host to construct a nest for the parasite’s eggs • Lead the host to a physical location where its eggs will be positioned to hatch before it is ultimately killed • Cause the host to care for the young of the parasite instead of its own young • Lead the host to an especially dangerous location where it is likely to be preyed on by another animal, allowing the parasite to enter a new digestive system Within Hong Kong, by altering people’s attitudes towards government, finance, and media standards, those very institutions can begin to be altered or slowly die as they will no longer serve as viable hosts within the city. 30

E. CALIFORNIENSIS

CUCKOO

WEB WASP

CATERPILLAR WASP

SACCULINA

CAT ATTRACTOR

LIVER FLUKE

SUICIDE HAIRWORM

APHID WASP

STREP THROAT

INFLUENZA

LUNG CANCER

2.5 Overview of the different parasites analysed to help devise design strategies CORDYCEPS

COCKROACH WASP

After maturation, the parasite works to exit the host that it had used to mature and either kills it or will operate on its own, apart from the host. While it ultimately doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter whether the power triangle dies or is left free to operate after having been parasitised, it would no longer be a viable force within the city since the parasite would have altered the mindset of the majority of the population. While Hong Kong serves as a powerful reflection of the social vulnerability that arises when a powerful elite diminishes political discourse, it is the rule-breakers that have brought Hong Kong closer to an ideal of equality and the ability to adjust the rules. The way these rule-breakers operate is crucial in striving towards the ideal city. Parasites provide a strong framework from which to judge how to subvert the power structures currently in place in Hong Kong. Since the ideal city embraces the opportunity to constantly recreate itself, it is not enough to merely attempt to tweak and alter broken institutions but completely undermine the podium upon which the power triangle supports itself, crippling its authority and ultimately its legitimacy within society. Hong Kongers are perfect candidates to promote subversive practices as a legitimate strategy to create a new ideal.

Parasite analysis 2.6 Entering the host

WEB WASP

CUCKOO TRICKERY

SUICIDE HAIRWORM

COCKROACH WASP

CAT ATTRACTOR

APHID WASP

THROUGH DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

OVIPOSITING

STREP THROAT

INFLUENZA

CATERPILLAR WASP

CORDYCEPS THROUGH CUTICLE

SACCULINA

THROUGH WEAKNESS IN OUTER SKIN

AIRBORN

2.7 Host behaviour change

APHID WASP

SACCULINA

WEB WASP

COCKROACH WASP ZOMBIE

CORDYCEPS DEATH PREPARATION

CAT ATTRACTOR

STREP THROAT

INFLUENZA

CUCKOO

SUICIDE HAIRWORM

CATERPILLAR WASP PARENTING

EXPOSURE TO DANGER

SUICIDE

LUNG CANCER NONE

2.8 Exiting the host

CUCKOO

WEB WASP

SACCULINA

SUICIDE HAIRWORM

CORDYCEPS SPORES EXPLODED

EXCRETED IN FAECES

EXIT IN WATER

COCKROACH WASP

INFLUENZA

APHID WASP

STREP THROAT

LUNG CANCER

CATERPILLAR WASP CLIMBS OUT

HOST KILLED

MEDICATION

Parasite life cycles

Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhaplorchis_californiensis https://fuschmu.wordpress.com/tag/euhaplorchis-californiensis/ Parasite manipulation of brain monoamines in California killifish ( Fundulus parvipinnis) by the trematode Euhaplorchis californiensis, J.C Shaw, W.J Korzan, R.E Carpenter, A.M Kuris, K.D Lafferty, C.H Summers and Ø Øverli, Proc. R. Soc. B 2009 276, 1137-1146

2.9 E. Californiensis

SHOREBIRD After the killifish is consumed, the parasite lives in the bird’s gut and produces eggs to be released in the stool, which is spread into marshes and ponds.

killifish brain

normal

infected

KILLIFISH The parasite migrates to the brain following blood vessels/nerve tracts. Thousands encyst on the surface of the brain, affecting neurotransmitters, making the fish 10-30 times more likely to be eaten by the bird.

HORN SNAIL The horn snails consume E. californiensis while grazing along the bed of the estuary. Once infected, the parasites castrate their snail host and turn the snail into a parasite-making factory. The parasites develop into cercariae and swim out into the marsh.

Prevelance of E.Californiensis reaches 100% in most localities

CERCARIAE

2.10 Glyptapanteles

The wasp lays up to 80 eggs beneath the cuticle of the caterpillar as well as injecting the polydnavirus.

The wasp larvae hatch and develop beneath the caterpillar s cuticle being sure not to da age any internal organs or touch the central nervous syste . uring the larval stage the wasps release che icals that alter neuro odulators released by the caterpillar.

bout one day before e erging fro the cuticle the larvae secrete co pounds which prevent the caterpillar s ability to feed and ove while the larvae chew their way out of the cuticle.

fter about days the wasps oult fro their cocoons. ince the caterpillar s neuro odulators have prevented it fro foraging for food it eventually dies fro starvation.

euro odular alteration now a es the caterpillar aggressive towards other parasitic ani als that ay try to parasiti e the pupating wasps.

ith the alteration of the host s central nervous syste now co plete the caterpillar spins sil cocoons around the wasp pupa instead of for itself ce enting its own fate towards death.

Sources http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/ppig/documents/parasitic_manipulation.pdf http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002276 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyptapanteles

2.11 Sacculina Barnacle 1

2 XY

.25µm

The Sacculina Barnacle swims through the ocean until it reaches a crab. It releases its own shell and burrows through a joint on the crab. The Sacculina burrows to the crab’s abdomen. From there, it grows ciliary branches through the crab’s body. These are used to feast off the crab and to release chemicals to affect the crab’s neuromodulators.

If the Sacculina infects a male crab, it will reshape the crab’s abdomen to match a female’s. Neuromodulator modification will also convince the male crab to perform actions equal to that of a female. If the Sacculina infects a female crab, it will sterilize it.

Once ready to hatch, the male or female crab will fan its claws to ensure that the newly-hatched Sacculina disperse, much as it would for its own young. The mother Sacculina will remain in the crab to await further fertilization.

Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacculina http://www.springerlink.com/content/l6nhecf68jb192j8/fulltext.pdf http://nucleodecenio.blogspot.com/2008/02/horrid-phenotypic-integration.html

The microsopic male Sacculina will enter through a crevice in the enlarged female to fertilize it. From the site of the female crab’s eggsac or the male’s reshaped abdomen, the crab will brood Sacculina eggs as if they were its own.

PART 3: FUTURE SOCIAL/URBAN REVOLUTION

TIMELINE As the establishment of a new form of urban development will require new attitudes and acceptances, the project takes the form of a social movement. Therefore, following the stages of successful social movements proves crucial in understanding what actions to take and at which stage to act. In his analysis of the process of arriving at desirable outcomes in social movements, Bill Moyer outlines the 8 main stages of successful social movements (1987). The method of successfully achieving social change within society parallels many of the actions of parasites in the specificities of entering a host, altering its behaviour and subsequently exiting the host. The Sacculina barnacle specifically is a parasite that succeeds in conquering a host that is infinitely larger than itself and altering the actions of its host. By altering neural connections and chemical compounds, the parasite is able to make the crab, whether physically male or female, care for the eggs of the Sacculina, as though they were their own. In much the same way, the goal of a successful social movement is to alter the mindset of a society so that it cares for something that it would have ignored or not previously cared for.

3.1 Subversion timeline

SACCULINA For every stage of the movement, parasite analogies are used to devise strategies to achieve its completion. One particular parasite has proven to be particularly suitable: the sacculina barnacle; a parasite that, after feeding off its hostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nutrients, manages to reprogramme the hostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s behaviour for the sacculinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own benefit

NORMAL TIMES

Normal Times is considered the stage before a social movement is considered necessary by the majority of its citizens. A trigger event is necessary to take a movement from Stage 1 to Stage 2. As Hong Kong’s economy expanded over the past century, the overall quality of life tended to improve for the majority of Hong Kong’s citizens. However, the inequalities and economic instability brought about by Hong Kong’s power triangle has brought Hong Kong to a precipice. The trigger event became the global financial crisis which hit Hong Kong in October 2007, sending the Hang Seng Index from an all-time high of 31,958.41 on 30 October 2007 to a loss of over two-thirds of its value in less than one year, closing at 10,676.29 on 27 October 2008. The global financial crisis has been devastating to Hong Kong’s economy and has brought groups of people to begin to question established practices.

The Sacculina barnacle swims through the ocean until it reaches a crab. It releases its own shell and burrows through a joint on the crab.

PROVE FAILURE OF INSTITUTIONS

Goals - Gain attention for problems - Find and connect people - Find space

Strategies - Occupation - Protests

STAGE 2

GOALS Hong Kong currently finds itself in Stage 2 of the process of a successful social movement. Small groups have begun to organise themselves to bring attention to the problems existing within Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s government, financial practices, and media standards. These groups are shedding light on the problems facing Hong Kong and determining which institutions and people are to blame.

STRATEGIES There are currently groups within Hong Kong that are finding strategic places in which to prove the failures of the power elite. Occupations have been set up outside of the headquarters of HSBC and demonstrations have been held throughout central Hong Kong. While the actions may appear small and of little impact upon the greater power structures within Hong Kong, the goal of the actions is to make people aware of the issues being faced and to recognise how traditional power structures are to be blamed for many of the inequalities present within Hong Kong.

The Sacculina burrows to the crab’s abdomen. From there, it grows ciliary branches through the crab’s body. These are used to feast off the crab and to release chemicals to affect the crab’s neuromodulators.

RIPENING CONDITIONS

Goals - Educate people - Prepare for establishment - Organise people

Strategies - Use weak spots for local nonviolent actions and events - Spread tentacles for promotion

STAGE 3

GOALS Stage 3 involves the quiet establishment of a movement within the framework of the host of Hong Kong. While the power elite of Hong Kong currently provides the framework for organising people spatially (neighbourhoods and districts) and economically (socio-economic classes), the goal of Stage 3 is to get people organised along different lines, breaking down traditional networks of affiliation. Stage 3 also aims to introduce new forms of interaction between different people within the city, promoting chance encounters and exchanges between groups of people that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t normally interact.

STRATEGIES After a number of years understanding the failures of institutions that are proven in Stage 2, problems that came to a head in 2007 in Hong Kong, people start to see the issues affecting them on a more local level. By organising in different areas throughout the city, the movement can reach a broader audience. Supporting the emergence to Stage 3 requires supporting parallel movements. Much as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1960s happened at the same time that many African nations were gaining their independence (Moyer, 1987), moving to Stage 3 will require parallel movements in different areas across Hong Kong in addition to worldwide movements. In order to determine ideal places for the movement to ripen, analyses need to be made of weaknesses of the power triangle within the city (where problems are inherently contained) and where potential assets lie.

3.2 Weak spots analysis

Isolated developments

Highways

Land Reclamations 52

WEAK SPOTS One of the development strategies being employed in Hong Kong is the act of land reclamation for easy real estate development. Since much of this development is geared towards large-scale one-off developments, small pockets form that are often overlooked. By extracting areas of land reclamation within Hong Kong it becomes possible to target sections of Hong Kong where Stage 3 movements can originate. In addition, in order to facilitate rapid transit, an extensive highway network was set up, primarily assisting transportation to and from the airport, across sections of the city, and towards mainland China. These massive highway infrastructures leave many empty areas around, under and over highway constructions that are not suitable for traditional development. Many areas are also loosely regulated by authorities and already see use as impermanent settlements, such as fruit storage under the West Kowloon Corridor in Yau Ma Tei and various markets under other sections of highways. In conjunction with highway infrastructure development, current development promotes the construction of exclusive housing and retail developments whose aim is to attract and retain wealthy foreign tourists in exclusive shopping centres and residential estates, promoted and developed by the media and government and benefitting the financial sector. These estates are typically inward-looking, with blank façades facing the city and a choreographed interior network for people to shop and have their money spent in controlled ways. Capitalising on economic growth, real estate development “absorbed, surpluses and then speculated on them” (Harvey and RoblesDurán, 2011), creating a surplus of condominiums built specifically for upper-income residents while contributing little to the local community. As the financial crisis took hold in Hong Kong, there proved to be a surplus of luxury retail and housing. As luxury developments has become increasingly unattainable for large numbers of Hong Kongers, their isolation in pockets of the city has only increased. Growing discontent on the part of Hong Kongers towards the eliteness of the projects and allegations of corruption between government officials and financial backers has begun to make these developments increasingly controversial (Associated Press, 2012). As the operator and 76% financial backer of the MTR public transit system, the Government of Hong Kong has tied its transportation network into its own retail and residential complexes, further removing the majority of people from the retail and transportation services sponsored by government funds. Continuing the trend of developing plots into closed systems, the government of Hong Kong has recently begun to develop educational and cultural facilities in a similar fashion. The new Hong Kong Community College and Sir Norman Foster’s design for the West Kowloon Cultural District are two examples of inward-looking developments that have few connections to existing urban fabrics within the city.

3.3 Agents for subversion analysis

Proximity to problems

Program with potential for subversion

Unattractive land for power triangle 54

AGENTS FOR SUBVERSION In order to achieve any change of the problems associated with bad development practices in Hong Kong, there needs to be a disenfranchised group within physical proximity to where current problems exist with the potential to attack the problem. This group should also possess the skills to foster a subversive approach to countering existing development trends. As the strategy focuses on fostering and developing local communities and supporting a complete economic system within Hong Kong, this can only be accomplished by fostering the strength of existing local centres of education, culture, and manufacturing/industry. Throughout the city there are a profusion of small-scale educational facilities, such as day-care centres, schools, universities, technical schools, and continuing education centres (at left: green). In addition, there are numerous cultural establishments throughout the city that promote cultural expression on a local scale (at left: purple). Prostitutes, agents of subversion through their employment, also occupy sections of the city (at left: yellow), and although manufacturing has nearly been completely relocated to mainland China, pockets of small-scale manufacturing and light industry still exist within Hong Kong (at left: blue). The volatile nature of the financial sector within Hong Kong, combined with dwindling support of government institutions and less reliance on traditional media outlets has begun to affect the stability of the financial, government and media triangle within Hong Kong. This stability will continue to erode over time and, within the next few decades, many of the government institutions (at left: brown) and financial institutions (at left: cream) will lose value and become potential hosts for further subversion. While land reclamations and highway infrastructure developments tend to support government development goals, the scale of developments leaves many pockets in and around highway sections (at left: grey) that don’t contain the scale of developable land and connections desired by Hong Kong’s traditional real estate development backers. Many of these “pockets” of land are ideal for small-scale, local initiatives; areas that are often very central within Hong Kong but available for parasitisation due to their relative anonymity compared with other, more valuable plots of land within the city.

3.4 Weak Spots + Agents for subversion

WEAK SPOTS + AGENTS FOR SUBVERSION By analysing the locations of the problems caused by the power triangle as well as potential agents for subversion, sections of the city where these qualities overlap become clear. Areas where weak spots are combined with potential areas of subversion lie throughout Hong Kong, as evidenced in the proximity of overlapping â&#x20AC;&#x153;weak spotsâ&#x20AC;? and areas ripe for subversion. Located in various spots throughout Hong Kong, such as the Hung Hom section of the Eastern Kowloon Peninsula, the Central Government and Financial District on Hong Kong Island, the newly-developed Olympian City on the Western Kowloon Peninsula, and the undeveloped section of the Western Kowloon Peninsula stretching from Yau Ma Tei to the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter.

3.5 Site

YAU MA TEI & WEST KOWLOON LAND RECLAMATION

AY ADWEQUE BROM AT CINE

GHAI

SHAN ST

LE ST

TEMP

HIGHWAY SITE

XIQU RE THEAT A TEI YAU MTR M N STATIO POR D ST

TLAN

E LESAL WHO ARKET M FRUIT

Y UNIT COMM LLEGE CO

PIA OLYM G IN S HOU

N SHELTER

WORKING AREA

OO YAU MA TEI TYPH PUBLIC CARGO

Y E

Y AN CIT E AT T S E G

Waterloo Road, with the Wholesale Fruit Market on the right, at 3am

CAST OF CHARACTERS Yau Ma Tei proves to be an ideal place to take the third stage of the movement within Hong Kong since it contains pockets of diverse community groups. Located next to (and with high visibility of) exclusive neighbourhoods such as Union Square and Olympian City, residents of Yau Ma Tei are unique in their position to join together compared with more homogenous zones of Hong Kong. While activism remains somewhat smaller in Yau Ma Tei compared to other neighbourhoods of Hong Kong, there exists strong potential. Of particular interest in the third stage of the movement are specific groups that have high representation within Yau Ma Tei, yet do not have equal access to typically highend developments currently being planned and constructed. These specific groups of people have varied needs, abilities and interests. Each group represented in Yau Ma Tei has a set of realities for their living situation within Yau Ma Tei, both positive and negative, which can lead them to participate in subversive activities to different extents. While some people may be more inclined to actively develop and stage subversive activities, others may be less inclined to develop such activities but may be lured in to participate. In adjoining neighbourhoods communities exist upper-class groups, within easy access of Yau Ma Tei. When looking at different groups within Yau Ma Tei, it’s important to know specific realities and potentials for action. Yau Ma Tei Neighbours - The 99% Yau Ma Tei serves as a community that has a broad swathe of lower- and middleincome residents from Hong Kong who aren’t priorities within Hong Kong’s current developments. One of the most visible groups within Hong Kong are the senior citizens. Known as an older section of Hong Kong, Yau Ma Tei contains a substantial group of senior citizens, many of whom have deep roots in the area. Many of the senior citizens maintain close bonds with other seniors through mahjong tournaments, which occur throughout the neighbourhood’s alleyways, markets, and parks. Community bonds are also maintained since many of the senior citizens utilise many of the services in the Yau Ma Tei Community Centre. In contrast to the positive sense of community held amongst the senior citizens of Yau Ma Tei, there is a severe lack of funding to support senior services. The Old Age Allowance, nicknamed the “fruit allowance” since it is seen as a sum that can only buy a few pieces of fruit, is limited to HK$625 per month. By incorporating many of the skills that seniors have, such as gardening/farming or community engagement activities, senior citizens can become a valuable asset within the community. Along with senior citizens, Yau Ma Tei has a number of educational institutions. Although school children receive high quality educations, Hong Kong education emphasises prescribed learning over creative expression and there is a lack of freedom and exploration within the schools. By getting out of the classroom and into outreach programmes run by the community, students would be exposed to alternative ideas and develop crucial analytical tools. A new addition to Yau Ma Tei, the Hong Kong Community College offers degree courses in business, the humanities, social sciences, science and technology, and design. The government offers many incentives to study, such as subsidies and stipends. However, due to the fact that the majority of the students are commuters, there is currently little interaction with the local community in Yau Ma Tei. By taking the education to the street, students could exhibit fashion designs within the community and help set up small-scale events using their business skills.

Although Yau Ma Tei is not known as one of the primary tourist destinations within Hong Kong, many international tourists visit the night markets along Temple Street in the southeastern section of the neighbourhood. Searching out the unique qualities of Yau Ma Tei, these tourists are interested in local cultures and come with money to support their interests. Although many tourists are worried about crime within the city, they can easily be pulled from Temple Street to another section of the city if there is something unique to draw their attention.

One of the most prominent characteristics of Yau Ma Tei is the wholesale fruit market located in the heart of the neighbourhood. Selling imported fruit from all over the world, the market sees its most action between 9:00pm and 11:00pm as imported fruit is unloaded from lorries and into the fruit market by manual labourers, and between 2:00am and 4:00am when buyers from throughout the Kowloon Peninsula come to buy fruit for their restaurants and shops and manual labourers load the fruit into their vans for local delivery. These labourers enjoy long lags in the evenings and early mornings around unloading fruit and loading it onto local delivery vans. Though fruit market labourers work long hours for little compensation theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a wealth of local information since their job is located directly in the heart of Yau Ma Tei. Due to its foundation in 1913, the market for fresh fruit has long since outgrown the established premises of the fruit market. As a result, much of the trading happens in nearby zones, making the labourers a wealth of knowledge of hidden, overlooked areas within the neighbourhood. Shanghai Street, once the main commercial thoroughfare in Yau Ma Tei before the construction of the MTR metro system under Nathan Road, contains many independently-run shops. Many of these shops have had the same owners for 30 years or more. Owing to the longevity of many of the shops along Shanghai Street, there is a vested interest in improving the neighbourhood to ensure continued business. However, as the economic model of Hong Kong no longer values independent retailers and access to cheaper products in China has become more viable, there have been serious issues for the vendors of Shanghai Street. Adding to these fears are the fact that most commerce now happens along Nathan Road and the typhoon shelter - formerly a link between Yau Ma Tei and other areas of Hong Kong - has been severed from the neighbourhood. Portland Street is a long-running strip of prostitution within the city. Since brothels remain illegal in Hong Kong, many of the prostitutes offer their services in one-room flats. By advertising their services on sex141.com - an open-source classifieds website for sex services within Hong Kong - the prostitutes are able to bypass the traditional services of a pimp and connect to clients on their own. However, due to the overvaluation of real estate within Hong Kong, many prostitutes rely on third parties to support their monthly rents, effectively relying on the financial backing of a pimp and offering part of their salary as a result. And to avoid problems with the police, many prostitutes are afraid to join together for fear of being classified as a brothel. Before the reclamation of the West Kowloon Peninsula of the 1990s, the Yau Ma Tei boat people used to inhabit fishing vessels in the typhoon shelter adjacent to central Yau Ma Tei. Fishing and operating unlicensed restaurants and ferry services, they were a vibrant part of the community. Due to the free docking privileges and usage provisions within the newly-relocated typhoon shelter, many of the boat people continue to inhabit the typhoon shelter even while experiencing economic hardship. By reconnecting Yau Ma Tei to its waterfront, directly or indirectly, the Yau Ma Tei boat people

can once again become a vibrant part of the community. Union Square Neighbours - The 1% Owing to its central location within the Kowloon Peninsula, Yau Ma Tei borders many of the exclusive new developments of the West Kowloon reclamation developments. Chief among these is Union Square, a 13.5-hectare development rivaling Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Canary Wharf in size and scope. Within the development lies Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tallest skyscraper, the 484-metre International Commerce Centre (ICC), which houses many financial companies. In addition, 16 high-end residential towers sit atop a 46,000m2 high-end shopping mall podium. Operating within the International Commerce Centre (ICC), businessmen speculate on investment opportunities on a daily basis. Although many people associate Yau Ma Tei as an uncultured and uneducated neighbourhood of Hong Kong, the recent turbulent nature of the speculative market has shifted many investment strategies more locally. Instead of risking huge losses in high-end speculative markets, many investors are looking to local investments, where community members have a much greater interest in making sure that projects succeed. In addition to businessmen, Union Square also attracts many wealthy tourists from mainland China. These tourists come with disposable cash and are easily influenced by media to spend money at high-end shopping mall. Although desiring to stay in high-end shopping districts, other neighbourhoods such as Soho, have successfully redefined themselves as trendy, attracting people from a diverse economic strata.

SCHOOL CHILDREN

YAU MA TEI BOAT PEOPLE

WEALTHY CHINESE TOURIST

BUSINESSMAN

3.6 Cast of Characters

ICC TOWER

UNION SQUARE

M M C UN EN IT TR Y E

EET

TRE

STR

FRUIT MARKET

COMMUNITY COLLEGE

RTL

PRIMARY SCHOOLS

YAU MA TEI TYPHOON SHELTER

INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS

PROSTIT UTES

SHOP OWNERS

FRUIT MARKET EMPLOYEES

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

SENIOR CITIZENS

EVENTS In order to successfully pull together the different characters within and around Yau Ma Tei, the activists present in Stage 2 need to remain active in Stage 3. Stage 3 requires a more analytical approach towards activism: organising people across different socio-economic and cultural strata so that common goals and objectives can be formed. An area within Yau Ma Tei to host these events would need to be established. Without official approval from the government, the area under the West Kowloon Corridor would prove ideal due to its current use as a temporary way-station for pallets of fruit being unloaded from lorries and carted to different fruit market stalls every night. As these pallets occupy the area under the highway as well as other abandoned lots, kerbs, and surrounding streets around the fruit market, the temporary use of an area within this mix of trucks, lorries, carts and pallets would easily be overlooked by city regulators. As long as events remained temporary, city officials would be remiss to act on a public gathering. In addition, the area under the highway, unlike other public spaces within the city, is not controlled by a private corporation, enjoying permission for temporary activities to happen in the space due to its strategic location and use as auxiliary support for the fruit market. Setting up an open-source website for community members to learn about new events and to find ways of contributing or participating would create a network where event organisers, financial contributers and patrons would become linked together. Emphasis would be put on variety, allowing each event to merely be ephemeral, lasting a night or a few nights. Community members would access the portal and sign up to different activities, sponsor them, or create their own ideas for activities to take place under the highway. It would be crucial for each group within the neighbourhood work with people they’re already connected with, such as senior citizens coordinating with other senior citizens, but also to make events visible to wider groups within and around Yau Ma Tei. By advertising events for people to participate in or contribute to allows people to help organise events where people would be able to decide to help coordinate or participate. Also important in Stage 3 is the ability to stage events with relative ease. Over the past 10 years, the concept of pop-up shops has been employed throughout the world and increasingly within Hong Kong, to build consumer interest in things without having to invest large sums of money in long-term leases. Pop-up shops can last anywhere from one night to a few weeks and can host events as well as shops. While the events wouldn’t need to be political in nature, they would establish autonomous local groups that work towards goals that are distinct from those of Hong Kong’s power triangle (Moyer, 1987). Activities would build on the strengths existing within the community (educational, cultural, industrial, etc) that aren’t generally supported by the government. Events would be varied and play off the strengths of the cast of characters within and around Yau Ma Tei.

3.7 Event website

3.8 Event app

3.9 CINEMA

With Hong Kong’s long and rich history of filmmaking, experimenting with new ways of showing film could draw many fans of film to the area. Although the neighbourhood has a small cinema, Hong Konger’s interest in cinema suggests there would be ample interest in a new type of cinema within Yau Ma Tei, the Secret Cinema. The Secret Cinema would be modeled off Folly for a Flyover, an installation in Hackney Wick, London in 2011. Like Folly for a Flyover, the Secret Cinema would be a pop-up cinema located in the unused underbelly of

3.10 FOLLY FOR A FLYOVER, HACKNEY 70

the highway. It would be set up by university students who normally only pass through the area on their way to or from classes. The cinema’s program would include films that would appeal to the existing cast of characters in and around Yau Ma Tei, specifically targeting Fruit Market Employees, International Tourists, School Children, and Shop Owners due to the relative ease with which they could be drawn in to movie nights.

3.11 ART GALLERY

Hong Kong is currently readying itself for the development of the M+ Cultural Centre, to be housed in the Sir Normal Foster-designed West Kowloon Cultural District development. Since Hong Kong has never housed a world-class art museum, the executive director of the future M+, Lars Nittve, is currently searching for ways to promote arts appreciation within Hong Kong. Without a proper home from which to exhibit artworks Nittve is looking for places where the growing collection can be exhibited to allow fundraisers and citizens to become more aware of the collection. From 15 May 2012 until 10 June 2012, M+ held a series of pop-up arts exhibi-

tions on Portland and Shanghai Streets, within the heart of Yau Ma Tei. Continuing the initiatives already started, businessmen backing current M+ pop-up exhibitions would be able to finance a pop-up art gallery under the highway. University students and Fruit Market employees would be able to help with the construction of the art gallery and the set-up of artworks. Artwork would be chosen based on targeted audiences such as wealthy Chinese tourists, international tourists, shop owners, and senior citizens.

3.12 MOBILE M+ 71

3.13 FASHION SHOW

Hong Kong has recently seen a resurgence of start-up fashion houses in the Kwun Tong area of Hong Kong. A formerly run-down area of abandoned manufacturing plants cut off from the rest of Hong Kong by the former Kai Tak Airport, fashion designers were able to create a community of start-ups in an overlooked section of the city. Many fashion designers throughout the world have specialised in showcasing their designs in temporary spaces, such as the Party Dress, designed by Karhaus of Brooklyn, in which a dress worn by 5 women expands to form a tent-like structure under which parties can be held in a temporary enclosure. One of the paths of study at the Hong Kong Community College, adjacent to the highway site in Yau Ma Tei, is

3.14 PARTY DRESS 72

fashion design. Coupling the approach employed by young fashion start-ups in Kwun Tong with the new talent from the Hong Kong Community College, fashion shows could be staged under the highway to showcase the emerging talent from the community college. Shows could be geared towards school assignments or for other members of the area in and around Yau Ma Tei, such as for international tourists, wealthy Chinese tourists, or businessmen as potential investors.

3.15 FOOD STALL MARKET

Once very common throughout Hong Kong, Dai Pai Dongs were open-air food stalls, quickly and easily mounted and later demounted. They were individually owned and operated, and served rice or noodle-based regional cuisines. While traditional Dai Pai Dongs have diminished in recent decades, new forms of food carts have emerged to work around city regulations prohibiting permanently-based informal food stalls with designs that make them truly temporary compared with traditional Dai Pai Dongs, such as incorporating wheels and shutters to allow them to be moved in and out of sites on a daily basis. In San Francisco, Off The Grid is a consortium of food truck owners that join together to offer food truck markets at varying locations in and around San Francisco. Depending on the day, the food trucks gather together

at varying locations to let residents of those areas enjoy the varied cuisine for that day. Following the trend of informal food stalls moving from Dai Pai Dongs to more ephemeral food carts as well as the Off The Grid food truck movement, shop owners from Yau Ma Tei could set up a food cart night under the highway. This would compliment many of the nighttime vending carts that are set up along touristy Temple Street, a mere three blocks away. The food carts set up under the highway could cater to a wide spectrum of people in Yau Ma Tei, from the international tourist frequenting the Temple Street Night Markets to the fruit market employees on their break during the night as well as university students and senior citizens looking for a cheap meal.

3.16 OFF THE GRID FOOD TRUCK NIGHT MARKET 73

3.17 STRIP CLUB

Enjoying legal status within Hong Kong, prostitution has developed a unique culture within the city. While prostitution is legal, brothels and solicitation remain illegal. As a result, prostitutes tend to operate on an individual basis, running their business out of one-room flats. Many have started to advertise their services (which run from massages to sex) on sex141.com, which serves as an open-source platform from which prostitutes can set up their own profile and freely advertise. Portland Street, two blocks away from the highway, is home to majority of the prostitutes of Yau Ma Tei. Catering to the Fruit Market employees as well as busi-

3.18 HONG KONG STRIP CLUB 74

nessmen, the prostitutes of Portland Street could work together to set up a strip club night to contribute to their advertising on sex141.com. Since advertising for sex is completely legal in Hong Kong, advertising for the event could be done through the sex141.com website as well as all other forms of mass self-communication.

3.19 MAHJONG TOURNAMENT

One of Hong Kongerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favourite pasttimes is playing mahjong. Whenever a group of people have some free time, be it day or night, they will group together to start a game of mahjong. These games can occur anywhere that four people can get together with tiles, chairs and a table. As a result, it can be just as likely to find a game of mahjong happening in a living room, alleyway, garage, or kerb as in a plaza or park.

platform to organise a nighttime tournament. Much as standard mahjong games always draw a crowd, a tournament would draw many of the other groups within Yau Ma Tei, such as shop owners, international tourists, and university students.

Mahjong tournaments are common and can attract much larger crowds than daily mahjong games. Some of the biggest groups to play mahjong, Fruit Market employees and senior citizens, could use the digital

3.20 MAHJONG IN THE STREETS 75

3.21 Stage 3: Events Under The Highway

TENTACLES Crucial to staging successful events under the highway is the ability to pull people away from their normal activities within Yau Ma Tei. While it may be relatively easy to attract some groups, such as the Fruit Market labourers that work adjacent to the highway, others typically frequent other sections of Yau Ma Tei and would need to be convinced to be drawn in towards the highway. To achieve this, a catalog of tentacles would be used to subversively draw different groups in to the site. The tentacles would all be relatively cheap to implement and would follow many aspects of advertisement, such as neon lighting, that Hong Kong is famous for. The catalog of tentacles would include: Mini Projectors Mini projectors (which can be as small as a hand or even a finger) to be affixed to existing signs within Hong Kong to project advertisements on building façades within the city. Graffiti Graffiti, such as is commonly found in Sheung Wan, could be implemented within Yau Ma Tei, especially for use in promoting M+ mobile exhibitions. QR-Codes With its love of technology, QR-Codes could be randomly dispersed throughout Yau Ma Tei. Residents would need to scan the codes in order to find out more details of the event. From the pages, they would be able to help with planning or merely find out where and when the event is to participate

TENTACLES

WAYS OF SPREADING THROUGH THE CITY

parasite PROJECTORS

GRAFFITI

QR-CODES

AD VAN/MUSIC

STREET ART

3.22 Tentacles section TICKETS

FARES

ROUTES

OCTOPUS

CASH

HELP

PARASITES

DEPOSIT PARASITES

123 Advertising Van / Music 456 789 Vans could be used to travel though the area, advertising the event, either through words or music. These vans would follow the lead of the Hong Kong’s minibuses, which operate illegally yet are accepted as long as they don’t interfere with established bus networks. The vans could follow carefully established routes through the neighbourhood to make the advertisement as effective as possible.

Street Art Along with graffiti, Sheung Wan is well-known for its subversive street art. Street art could heavily contribute to the events movement, with artwork making political stateUD4: CHRIS CORNELISSEN, ADAM POINSETT 15/03/2012 ments that reinforce the need to participate in subversive activities.

MTR TICKET MACHINE

CASH MACHINE

SKYWA

ALK

SUBVERTING MEDIA

1231

852-

PHONE NUMBER

LIGHT TRAIL

SLIDE

PEOPLE MOVER

DESIGN PROPOSAL 79

Skywalk Hong Kong is crowded with skywalks connecting all corners of the city, serving to alleviate the congestion that occurs at street level. Hong Kongers usually prefer to take a skywalk to reach a destination instead of the street if they have the option. Additional skywalks could be constructed in and around the highway which will increase the likelihood that pedestrians will patronise the area. Phone Number Instead of giving away all the details for an event, posting an unknown phone number on a wall could cause enough curiosity for people to call the number to figure out what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about. Light Trail Lighting could be subtly designed to form a path leading towards the highway. By merely lining a path with a light trail, people would find themselves drifting into the area. Slide By adding a folly within the city, people would come out their way to participate, even if it were adults sliding down a slide in the middle of the city. Escalators As the elevated walkway in the Soho neighbourhood has shown, areas in the immediate adjacency of Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s escalators have experienced much higher footfall than those without escalators (Gold, 2001). This method could be employed in Yau Ma Tei, pulling people along escalators towards highway events. MTR Ticket Machines & Cash Machines Along with options for purchasing tickets, getting information about routes, and other services available at MTR ticket machines, an option could be programmed to allow people to learn about events occurring under the highway. In addition, much as many cash machines in and around Spitalfields in London have been programmed to offer the Cockney accent as a language choice, cash machines within Hong Kong can be programmed to offer highway events schedules and information alongside cash. Coupling different forms of tentacles with events under the highway would draw a large and diverse group of people from Yau Ma Tei to participate in events and then begin to organise events. As Stage 3 became larger, more varied in its activities, and more diverse in the crowd that it attracted, the more it would bring together the cast of characters within Yau Ma Tei and unify them in their desire to have events and development that truly reflects their needs and interests, apart from the narrow range of offerings currently available within Hong Kong.

TICKETS

FARES

ROUTES

OCTOPUS

CASH

HELP

PARASITES

DEPOSIT PARASITES

123 456 789

3.23 MTR Ticket Machine and Cash Machine

3.24 QR Code

3.25 Stage 3 Overview

The Sacculina grows and matures inside the crab.

TAKE OFF

Goals Establish events

Strategies Use weakened host to establish events

STAGE 4

After events have brought together, educated and organised an engaged local community, the social movement can take off and make the big jump of creating an established physical presence in the city. Moyer describes this step being set off by a trigger event, creating the environment in which this take-off can happen and, at the same time, pushing the movement into action. There are many trigger events imaginable and enough pressing issues in Hong Kong, whether political, economic, or other, to give people enough incentive to act, such as: • When financial malaise is addressed by measures that compound inequality • When, under pressure of Hong Kong’s big corporations or China’s tightening grip, the city is further de-democratised • When uneven urban developments lead to increasingly unaffordable housing that doesn’t address the housing crisis • When people are increasingly denied a voice within the city

3.26 Yau Ma Tei aerial photograph

Many references of land appropriation with motives for social and political change come to mind. Copenhagen’s Christiania is an example of appropriation of unattractive land (it was established on a former military site) for the establishment of an alternately-organised society, but has existed more as an alternative to the city; influencing it, but remaining an outsider. Harvey (2012) mentions the Paris Commune, a briefly-successful social uprising that managed to establish governance over the city, before violently being overthrown by the French army, and an ongoing example in El Alto, Bolivia, a city on the plateau above La Paz. Here, a community of rural peasants driven off their land, displaced industrial workers and low income refugees from La Paz, established a movement that forced out two pro-neoliberal Bolivian presidents. Their political organisation is place-bound and sector-based, re-establishing the city as the stage for democracy and ‘creating solidarities based on common citizenship’ (Harvey 2012, p149). Their strategic position, with the capability to disrupt La Paz’s main supply routes, was an important feat in their struggles. 87

OCCUPATION To physically establish the movement, land is required. Given the land scarcity in Hong Kong, and its current problematic policy aimed at a different kind of urbanisation, it is likely that land will need to be illegally occupied. In spite of Hong Kong’s land scarcity, it is the current policy of land reclamation for the benefit of its global citizens that has left a landscape of potential sites, as shown in the weak spot analysis earlier. Next to the highway event site, within the West Kowloon reclamation, lies such a piece of land: an unattractive, yet strategically-located, car park bordering Yau Ma Tei. The illegal nature of the occupation makes it an event that needs to happen overnight. The location, so close to the main streets of the city, ensures its visibility with media coverage making it known across the city. As news of the occupation spreads through the city, so does it’s purpose, setting the example for similar initiatives throughout the city. Activism combined with proximity to some of Hong Kong’s critical infrastructure can further increase the visibility of the occupation and give it extra urgency. The fruit market is part of Hong Kong’s food importing network, which is crucial for a city that is forced to import most of their food. The impact, or even the threat of an action or strike by the fruit market workers, would be big. Similarly, the West Kowloon Corridor, the highway adjacent to the site, and Lai Cheung Road, the road connecting Yau Ma Tei to the West Kowloon highway, are vital parts of Hong Kong’s infrastructure, and disruptions would have far-reaching impact. For the Hong Kong authorities, considering the exposure the movement has immediately following occupation, and the public support it builds during Stage 3, eviction is a potentially dangerous move. If eviction were to take place, the movement would prove its point about elitist power holders unwilling to listen to the public and unwilling to address their problems, and the eviction could potentially draw even more attention and media coverage than the occupation. The nature of the occupation supports this: rather than just a statement, it is mainly a positive move: an unattractive car park is transformed into a destination, an improvement which people would see as progress.

Hong Kong’s history of dealing with these situations also points in the direction of a postponed decision and gradual acceptance of the situation. The infamous Kowloon Walled City, a former Chinese fort officially under Chinese jurisdiction, grew into a hyperdense informal settlement. As Kowloon Walled City initially drew electricity illegally from the city, it became gradually tolerated and later accepted by the Hong Kong government. The same happened with Hong Kong’s still-existing informal rooftop settlements (the Walled City was demolished in the 1990s). Today’s closest existing development to the Walled City is Chungking Mansions. Originally a residential development, the building grew to incorporate a mix of functions and people from all corners of the world - a city within a city - very different from the rest of Hong Kong. Similarly, the old Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter, described earlier, served the city while not being a fully regulated part of it, existing outside most government regulations.

3.27 Kowloon Walled City

3.28 Chungking Mansions

3.29 Old Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter

WIKISTRUCTURES Recent technological and ideological developments, fuelled by the expansion of the internet, and based on free sharing of (technological) information, crowd expertise and cooperation, have enormous potential in facilitating this and further steps in the movement. The concept of open source is mostly known for its application in software, where the source code is open for anyone to edit. Operating systems like Linux and Android (for mobile devices), and browsers like Mozilla Firefox are built upon this idea; the open encyclopaedia Wikipedia is just one example of thousands of Wikis across the web, ranging from educational Wikiversity to controversial Wikileaks. Open source questions traditional forms of ownership and copyright. New copyright licenses based on sharing and common values (‘some rights reserved’ instead of ‘all rights reserved’) are widely used on the internet, mainly by open source projects, with examples including the MIT license (for software) and the Creative Commons license (used by Wikipedia). Now, digital manufacturing techniques increasingly allow people to apply this software concept to hardware. London design practice 00:/ has set up wikihouse.cc, an open source construction set whose ‘aim is to allow anyone to design, download and ‘print’ CNC-milled houses and components, which can be assembled with minimal formal skill or training.’ (Wikihouse 2012) Rapid prototyping techniques allow people to almost effortlessly take the digital into the physical world. When the design of a structure is freely downloadable and customisable, and a structure can be ‘printed’ with the use of a CNC milling machine (which can be printed itself, the internet offers a wide range of open source toolsets for this purpose), the occupation of land can very quickly go beyond putting up tents. Small, demountable structures that can accomodate a vast range of functions but still maintain a temporary character are the first step in allowing people to create their own living environment. It is a new approach to design: building upon a framework, designs evolve in small iterations. A structure originally designed to function in London, can be altered to fit Hong Kong’s climate; a global effort with local application. For the people of Yau Ma Tei this could offer many possibilities. As identified earlier, there are groups of people in the area with enough initiative and incentive to take this step. Most of these groups, underprivileged in Hong Kong’s current social structure, are now offered the opportunity to drastically improve their situation by being able to construct a new living environment. For the independent Shanghai Street shop owner, under pressure from global brands and shopping malls, it offers the opportunity to build their own shop, and with likeminded people start forming a customised (open source) alternative to imported goods. For the prostitutes of Portland Street it is an opportunity to continue their open source revolution, set up by ‘prostitute wiki’ www.sex141.com, and take this individual and pimp-less approach to the profession into individual, customised structures. Yau Ma Tei’s large share of senior citizens can escape their struggle against high rents and lack of activities by setting up or joining activities, or, with a little help, construct something for themselves. For the students and school children in neighbouring ‘ivory tower’ educational buildings, it is an opportunity to get out of the tower, put their education into practice, and make the educational presence in the neighbourhood beneficial to the local community. Even for tourists it can become a hotspot much like Chungking Mansions, a parasitic building in the heart of the city, and home to an overwhelmingly large amount of hostels and guesthouses. Low-budget backpacker tourists are marginalised in this way but can potentially offer a lot of energy and enthusiasm to an area, especially one as upcoming and DIY as Yau Ma Tei.

After the initial shock and gradual acceptance by the government, the occupation and its open source structures can start evolving, step-by-step and in small iterations, into something that becomes a more permanent part of the city, built by local people. A whole range of issues have to be resolved along the way: for very practical ones like the provision of basic services, Kowloon Walled City can serve as an example, starting off illegally and counting on the government to fulfil its humanitarian duty and legitimise the occupation later.

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3.34 Planning Wiki

PLANNING The issue of planning the occupation is a very different situation from Hong Kong’s tradition of top-down big plans. But at the same time, it needs to be recognised that even Kowloon Walled City grew from a carefully-planned Chinese settlement and was mainly restricted by the adjacent airport that prevented it from growing higher. Although the reliance on the wisdom of crowds suggests a complete bottom-up approach and thus absence of planning and control, even initatives that appear to be completely crowd-regulated, such as Linux and Wikipedia have some measure of control that is crucial to their functioning: the Linux Kernel has a strong control mechanism, and Wikipedia has a set of admins that have absolute control: you can add anything but they can remove it instantly. Kelly (2008) describes how complete bottom up is not fast enough: you need an ‘editor’ to speed things up. Just as the events staged under the highway in Stage 3 utilised a website to serve as a organisational platform, the movement is now in need of another platform and a few basic rules to regulate and speed up the city building process: the Planning Wiki. Through this platform, some basic rules can be set up: initially the whole occupied area is public. To prevent it from cluttering, some areas have to be assigned to maintain a public function. At the same time, some strategic axes help create an efficient infrastructure. To be able to grow, other areas are recognised as owned by its occupants, but never in the traditional, ‘absolute’ way, rather as part of a collective effort, in line with new open source licensing. Achieving this would mean leaving room for vertical expansion by other, affiliated, owners. It always remains important to allow the process to start from the beginning: the way the platform is structured (as a collective wiki) ensures there is always room for (re)parasitisation. The platform is a documentation of who lives or operates where, and can, in this way, form the basis of further planning: likeminded people can find each other and team up to initiate the next step in the evolution of their wikistructure. The wiki serves as a feedback loop: within the few rules, anyone - people or groups of people - can propose a plan, and anyone can see, contribute or question it. It can also bring together different experts needed for the design and construction, which becomes increasingly complex as the structures acquires a more permanent character. Building engineering processes are increasingly integrated into the planning wiki through techniques similar to those of Building Information Modeling, creating digital models that become a shared resource to streamlin and facilitate the construction of complex buildings. The Planning Wiki is its open source version, democratising it to link experts and the public. The way the occupation is planned and built also forms the basis for its governance, for which similar principles can be adopted. As Hong Kong continues to lose its character as a place for political debate with the privatisation of public spaces, the occupation, from its inception, is a place to re-introduce this character. The Planning Wiki, with its ownership rules and general guidelines regulating truly public space, ensures it remains such a place: the space reserved for political activity and governance is neither private nor public, but common: nothing is prevented from happening excect appropriation of a permanent character (which would cause the space to disappear). Public spaces are the main place for governance: open, following the character of the Occupy movement’s general assemblies. It is also decentralised, following similar logic for separate groups of people, which can form their own common spaces and sub-assemblies (much like El Alto’s place-bound and sector-based, nested hierarchical government structure).

3.35 Stage 4 Section

3.36 Yau Ma Teiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own crowdfunding website, based on kickstarter.com

FUNDING Another basic issue to be resolved is the funding of the structures. As described earlier, Hong Kong relies on a select few developers to build the city, with the biggest recently involved in a corruption scandal. The minds of the people that invest in these developers need to be changed in order to break up their monopoly, and the power of many, assembled on the internet, can be used to fulfil this purpose. To get this started, money will have to come from a variety of sources. Setting up these platforms and making them broadly used and trustworthy will take time with the initial occupation relying heavily on self-funding and creative solutions next to new, crowd-sourced forms of finance. Crowd funding is an increasingly popular way of funding, though currently used for generally small-scale creative projects. The website www.kickstarter.com is a mainstream, successful example. Ideas for products (ranging from art and design to dance performance and video games) are posted by any registered individual, accompanied by a promotional video or images. A goal for the amount of money needed to produce the product is set, and ‘backers’ can ‘pledge’ a chosen amount of money, for which there is no guarantee of returns. Investing is made attractive by offering rewards, from a small gadget with a small investment, to the actual product plus extras with a big investment. Most successful examples at the moment are the Pebble E-paper Watch (a customisable watch synced with your smartphone), which managed to get $10,266,846 of it’s $100,000 goal, as well as the Ouya game console ($8,596,475 of $950,000 goal), illustrating a powerful economic potential and already finding its way into architecture: an initiative for a public swimming pool off the shores of Manhattan reached its funding goal. Outside Kickstarter, for the Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, the construction of a crowd-funded footbridge has begun, where your name or message will appear on the bridge when you fund. Kickstarting the construction of your own house will probably not appeal to a large public, but buildings that will positively contribute to the city (like the swimming pool) do have this potential. With the help of a digital platform specifically set up for Yau Ma Tei, or (in a later stage) Hong Kong, this form of funding can grow into a powerful, creative and democratic tool for building initiatives, which can only be built when they have enough support from the public. Even traditional forms of money can be challenged with a digital alternative, avoiding uncertainty of financial markets and the volatility of certain currencies. One example is Bitcoin, a decentralised digital currency which avoids the need to go through a bank. Operated through an open source piece of software, it is a way of creating an alternative economy, and the absence of fees or restrictions makes it attractive for small businesses such as those found in the new urban development in Yau Ma Tei.

3.37 Stage 4 Overview

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MOVEMENT IDENTITY CRISIS

Goals - Overcoming problems - Gain public support

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STAGE 5

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After radical moves like an overnight occupation and the subsequent exposure of the movement, the step afterwards has, for previous social movements, proven to be difficult. The initial successful occupation heightens the expectations for possible immediate, successful completion of the movement, which is unrealistic at this stage. Possible reactions are: resorting to negative actions, alienating the public and giving power holders opportunities to discredit the movement. These problems need to be overcome as Stage 5 is about the long process of increasing public support and transitioning from being an opposition movement to being a long term, mainstream force.

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The Sacculina alters hormones and mental makeup of the host. If the Sacculina infects a male crab, it will reshape the crabâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s abdomen to match a femaleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Neuromodulator modification will also convince the male crab to perform actions equal to that of a female. If the Sacculina infects a female crab, it will sterilize it.

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MAJORITY PUBLIC SUPPORT

Goals Complete triangle

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At this point, the movement changes from being a minority opposition movement to one that, due to large public support, can fight with the power holders for the mainstream adoption of alternatives that have been developed on a small scale. Large public support forces the power elite to change their policies, slowly beginning what in parasitic analogy of the crab is a sex change, causing the host to care for the parasite’s offspring. The large support can begin to include members of the power elite, who can use their power to achieve change from within.

STAGE 6

With support and official adoption of alternatives growing, the scale of developments rapidly increases, so that new ways of city-making starts to become a mainstream design, develop, and construction method. In this method there remains room for self-building and temporary structures, but large-scale, permanent construction works can also take place. These developments would be founded on newly developed principles. Investors, developers and constructors can be drawn from a much larger base while adopting subversive urbanism strategies. The planning Wiki still forms the basis, but the number and the size of projects increases.

PROGRAMME MIX By incorporating a mix of programming, funding, design and construction of projects will maintain maintain their local character, enforced by technologies that allow time to draw from a global pool of knowledge about design and production, and to implement this on a local scale. Programmatically, this leads to major changes in the build-up of the city. It asks for a strong integration of different programmatic elements; manufacturing can find its way back in the heart of city, in line with the on-site production of Wikihouses. The use diagram (at right) shows a possible example: the shop owner’s initial structure, where he lived (much like in Hong Kong’s traditional shophouse), above his shop, expands with spaces for design, and a workshop for the immediate testing and manufacturing of the design, which can then be sold in the shop. By re-integrating aspects of the traditional Hong Kong shophouse, complete live/work cycles can be accomplished within a neighbourhood.

THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION These are possible urban implications of a global phenomenon, in what has been called the Third Industrial Revolution (Economist 2012, after the first one, set off in Britain with the mechanisation of the textile industry and the second, set off by Henry Ford’s mastery of the assembly line). A product no longer has to go through a difficult assembly process: it can be 3D printed anywhere. From mass production to mass customisation, products can be produced where the customer is, responding almost in108

6 HONG KONG & THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION DIGITAL MANUFACTURING CUSTOM MASS-PRODUCTION

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stantaneously to their changing demands. Manufacturing will no longer be associated with (outsourced) large, polluting factories. This revolution is also a clean and silent one. In the Hong Kong shophouse, this means the process can even start at the customer, whose wishes are passed on to the designers, and manufactured on the premises. The shop would serve as a guide in the manufacturing process, able to tweak anything. Within manufacturing, open source could also be very powerful. As shown with the Wiki-structures, it allows for the collective adaptation or evolution of a product. A reference project that takes this idea to another level is the Global Village Construction Set, ‘a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that enables fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilisation with modern comforts’. The creators see open source and rapid prototyping technologies as an opportunity to solve environmental crises. They intend to create a toolset that enables the construction of self-sufficient, self-replicable villages and homes, to turn ecological crises ‘into ecological harmony and human productivity’ (Open Source Ecology, 2012).

HONG KONG’S ECONOMIC SECTORS For Hong Kong, the re-introduction of the manufacturing sector in the city has the potential of solving some of its major crises. Chapter 1 called for a critical re-evaluation of Hong Kong’s dominant service industry - in particular the financial sector - and the government’s wish for the city to be seen as global. Urban development that stimulates a mix of programme and the blurring of boundaries between the service and the manufacturing sectors will locally root Hong Kong’s global ambitions, and make it less vulnerable to volatile global financial markets. In fact, Hong Kong has a strong industrial heritage. Its industrialisation accelerated after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and the consequent embargoes placed on that country. The process was unusual in respect that it was accompanied by an increasing number of small- and medium-sized enterprises. In 1975, 96.5% of enterprises employed fewer than one hundred workers (Economic History Association 2010). Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door Policy marked the end of this era, with China attracting industry, and Hong Kong’s economy moving towards the financial sector. But industry, even in times of the assembly line, has found its place in Hong Kong’s dense urban fabric before. And even then it was locally rooted and based on small enterpris, an unusual case and an indicator that Hong Kong could be the city where the third industrial revolution takes off.

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3.40 Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future economy: blurring of sectors, less dependent on (financial) services

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3.41 Stage 6 Overview

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The goals of Stage 7 are the official subversion and overthrow of former standards of government, finance, and media, along with the embrace, by all three, of new forms of urban development within Hong Kong. By having its citizens embrace alternatives to traditional development, trading, and manufacturing, Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional powers are left with little option but to accept alternatives to established practices, or be forced from power by a newly-empowered citizenry. Connections between global and local trade are recreated and enforced, the mass-customised high-rise becomes the standard to replace the mass-produced high-rise, and plans for traditional development blocks are abandoned in favour of collective developments that support alternatives to traditional power.

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After the movement reaches a majority of public support in Stage 6, the opposition movement becomes the popular movement and public approval and embrace necessitates a re-examination of how city mechanisms are functioning. As people begin to pull financing from traditional financial institutions, as protests against government corruption and cronyism increase, and as mass self-communication develops to become the standard method of accessing news and information, the power triangle will lose its validity within society. At this point, there remain three options for the power elite: dramatic showdown, quiet showdown, or attrition (Moyer, 1987). Dramatic Showdown resembles the take-off stage (overnight occupation) but occurs at a pivotal time when average citizens are aware of alternatives and desire change. The Selma Marches of the American Civil Rights Movement occurred at a time when there had been a slow buildup of support within the African American community and amongst other groups over the course of many decades of struggle. The 1965 marches initially began as one march held in protest of Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s segregationist voting laws which prevented African Americans from voting. As government employees resorted to violence to try to suppress the marchers in what later became known as Bloody Sunday, people from outside the movement began to take notice and react, joining in on the struggle. The marches culminated in a cross-cultural march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, with one famous photo showing Martin Luther King Jr. marching hand-in-hand with a nun and two rabbis. It was the cross-sectional acceptance of civil rights that ultimately made the marches a success and overwhelmingly shifted support in favour of the national Voting Rights Act of 1965 (CRMVets, 2011). Like the Selma Marches, there is the option of initiating another â&#x20AC;&#x153;trigger eventâ&#x20AC;?, much like the trigger event needed to initiate Stage 4. This event can be in the form of a march or other event to exhibit the increased public support that Stage 6 accrued. Quiet Showdown is a second available option. Unlike dramatic showdown, quiet showdown requires powerholders to make a sudden about-face on previously held policies. In Hong Kong, Quiet Showdown requires financial institutions to actively and fully divest from corporate holdings and invest in local community initiatives, such as shophouses, CNC manufacturing, and rapid prototyping; it requires the government to actively promote democratisation and decentralisation of power; and requires a fundamental shift in media policies toward promotion and development of mass selfcommunication within society. While technically giving in to popular sentiment, the powerholders proclaim victory, as if they had always been fighting to change their practices (Moyer, 1987). Attrition is the final option available to the power triangle in Stage 7. Attrition is the gradual, yet continual absorption of new practices into urban development schemes as well as a slow, yet continual process of decentralisation of power to people within the community. While the process is slower at adopting change compared with Dramatic Showdown and Quiet Showdown, the process is continual since support has shifted irrevocably towards a process of change.

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3.42 View of the development with the mass-customised tower from the highway The screens are the physical manifestation of the developmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s underlying mechanisms of mass self-communication. Governance and urban developments are directly influenced through these media and screens, which are available to anyone. Clearly visible from the highway, they serve at the same time as a connection to the rest of the city, and at earlier stages as one of the tentacles to pull people to the site and build up public support.

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ALTERNATIVE FINANCE Programmes and practices developed in Stage 7 are more ambitious in scope and knit together various sections and sectors of the city. The newly re-introduced shophouses in Yau Ma Tei re-connect with Typhoon Shelter boat people along the waterfront to export products to nearby cities. A new form of currency replaces the existing, government-controlled Yuan and Hong Kong Dollar to allow trade with a currency that can’t be manipulated by the financial elite (fig.3.43). This currency – free of central bank manipulation and supported by the local community – can be used as an investment tool by since the community would be the holders of the currency, controlling its value and determining its investment potential. The connections established between different groups of people through the under-highway events of Stage 3, coupled with many of the kickstarter fundraising proposals initiated in Stage 4 and developed in Stage 6, create a stronger sense of community within Yau Ma Tei. By developing a stronger sense of trust and commitment to the community than to government powers, people place more trust in their neighbours than in a financial system that doesn’t represent their interests. This shift in public confidence introduces the possibliy to introduce peer-to-peer lending on a city-wide scale (fig.3.44). This action further degrades the role of the current financial system in Hong Kong, leading to a locally-focused financial system that specifically links individual investors with small start-ups and allows smallscale development to be successful within Hong Kong. Regulated by the same regulatory agencies as traditional banks (such as the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States and the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom), peer-to-peer lending offers lower interest rates and borrowing terms to borrowers as well as higher returns-on-investment for investors than terms traditionally offered by banks. Repayment terms and conditions apply and a more personal connection with the applicant has often resulted in projects being initiated that could otherwise not secure funding from a traditional bank. Increased confidence in investment and development on a local scale, along with higher returns on investment, has shown the great potential of peer-to-peer investment. From 2005, with the introduction of peer-topeer lending, to 2010, investment shot from $118 million to $5.8 billion (Hoak, 2008).

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3.43 Digital currency

3.44 Digital platform for P2P lending (based on zopa.com)

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3.45 Vertical Planning Wiki

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MASS-PRODUCED TO MASS-CUSTOMISED In Stage 7, in addition to alternative forms of financing, the Planning Wiki initiated in Stage 4 to offer neighbourhood planning access to Yau Ma Tei’s citizens is developed to incorporate vertical planning (fig.3.45). By divesting financing from government-controlled financial institutions on Hong Kong Island, the financial sector within Hong Kong will either deteriorate or adjust to better-serve the ways that its citizens invest their money. A redefined financial system along with neighbourhood investment in local developments leads to a shift in the built form. Investment by Hong Kong’s citizens as well as institutions further encourages collective development within the city, leading to a paradigm shift in the traditional tower block which Hong Kong is famous for, from the “mass-produced tower” to the “mass-customised tower”. Common cores are constructed to provide access to services such as vertical transportation, electricity, water, and structure. The Planning Wikis facilitate the control and manipulation of design projects that are constructed off of these common cores. Groups of people from within Hong Kong, such as prostitutes from Portland Street, are able to join together to edit a Planning Wiki to design a neighbourhood that caters to their needs. The planning wiki continues to serve as a valuable tool for collaboration, allowing citizen input while also serving as a tool for professional input. The integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the Planning Wiki serves as a valuable tool to combine the needs and desires of citizens with the expertise of professionals, such as engineers, architects, and planners. This collaborative effort at development will have a huge impact on construction projects, mediating the interests of all parties in the project, increasing public ownership of developments and decreasing chances for corruption. With the acceptance and support of open-source development tools, publicly-supported financing measures, and complete production cycles (retail, design, and manufacturing) within the community, the final barriers to development on a large scale are removed. The large-scale adoption of practices started by the neighbours within Yau Ma Tei leads towards a more ideal Hong Kong, where every citizen is able to impact their city. Whether through communication within the city, how people are allowed to support themselves financially and support each other as a community, or how people govern themselves and establish basic standards within the community, the ideal city involves citizens that are able to have an impact on their surroundings. It not only requires people to believe that change and improvement are always possible, but for everybody’s influence to be seen on a large scale. It’s only when new methods of development are developed, which incorporate each citizen’s energy and expertise, that the ideal city emerges. 125

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SPREAD THROUGH THE CITY The site next to the highway and fruit market was an example of one that is particularly suitable, but one of many where subversive urbanism could be practiced. As public support increases, the number of sites developed according to new ideals increases, but the process differs based on the location and people involved. Stages 3 and 4, events and occupation, may be completed faster than in Yau Ma Tei, run simultaneously or not be needed at all. Adequate funding and support can allow developments to happen in more prominent locations within the city, at almost any scale.

3.48 Cultural district site: overview

WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT Currently one of Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest and most exposed developments is the West Kowloon Cultural District, isolated geographically as well as in the method that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being developed. The development further assumes that culture can be controlled and planned by master developers. The planning of the cultural district has been underway for many years, will take many more years of further planning and construction, and is likely to be disrupted by all kinds of external factors, including social movements proposing a different approach to its conception. By incorporating the ideals envisioned in open-source development tools, publicly-supported financing measures, and complete production cycles, the West Kowloon Cultural District will be a true representation of the cultural ideals of Hong Kong. 130

3.49 Cultural district site: provocations at the foot of the ICC

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YAU MA TEI TYPHOON SHELTER The presence of a working public cargo area on the waterfront of the new Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter, and the reinforcement of local trading and manufacturing experienced in Stage 6, make the waterfont running along the typhoon shelter a site to be developed as a centre for import and export, along with the on-site processing of goods through design and manufacturing, supported by housing and transportation links to other sites. The tight community of Yau Ma Tei boat people in the old typhoon shelter, once vital components of Yau Ma Tei and an important source of income for the whole area, is a precedent where living, trade and entertainment were the primary activities on the water.

3.51 Waterfront site: overview

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3.54-3.57 Overview of stages 3-7

139

140

141

3.58 Overview

142

143

Eggs are dispersed and new parasites find new crabs to parasitise. The mother sacculina will remain in the crab to await further fertilisation.

144

CONTINUING STRUGGLE

Goals Sustain paradigm shift Strategies Reparasatise when needed

145

SUICIDE

DEATH

SEXUAL REASSIGNMENT

INFERTILITY

ORGAN DAMAGE

ILLNESS

MINOR

3.59 Parasites: food chain level versus type of natural enemy HOST SIZE The graph shows animalsADAM higher in the food chain become more vulnerable to parasites CHRIS CORNELISSEN, POINSETT 07/12/2011 HOST SIZE VS PHYSICAL EFFECT

FOOD CHAIN LEVEL VS TYPE OF NATURAL ENEMY AVERAGE VULNERABILITY TO ATTACK OF SPECIES [CARPINTERIA SALT MARSH, CALIFORNIA, USA]

AVERAGE NUMBER OF NATURAL ENEMIES

PARASITES PREDATORS 20

0 1

EXAMPLE TROPHIC LEVELS:

TROPHIC (FOOD CHAIN) LEVEL Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/103/30/11211.full.pdf

UD4: CHRIS CORNELISSEN, ADAM POINSETT

146

07/12/2011

PARASITIC ANALYSIS

CONCLUSION Subversive urbanism highlights Hong Kong’s current crises: how the city is controlled by an elitist government that functions closely with (and effectively as a) commercial enterprise, prioritising its global financial status over its citizens’ rights and needs. Subversive urbanism also exhibits Hong Kong’s existing use of subversion, of groups of people already ingeniously finding ways of adapting the city to fit their needs and desires. Structured as a subversive social movement to catalyse and organise social, political and economic change, the movement fosters social sustainability within the city. Following a timeline outlining goals and actions proven to be successful in past social movements, the movement relies heavily on the ideal citizen: a citizen with the tools to actively engage in the city’s design and development. Digital tools maximise the potential of new technologies in the planning process and allow citizens to participate in envisioning their ideal city. Beginning with small events organised outside of normal legal limits, the organisation of a movement is initiated. The construction of a settlement of ‘wikistructures’ and new forms of urban and societal organisation through ‘wikiplanning’ brings together communities, government and developers, re-establishing the city as a platform for politics and decision-making through open access to fundamental processes that shape and govern the city. The nature of this process impacts the functional composition of the city. Locally-rooted development combined with digital manufacturing allows the introduction of complete production cycles in the city, abolishing traditional zoning, blurring economic sectors and enabling the introduction of mass-customised urbanism. As with all social movements there exists a continuing struggle, illustrated as Stage 8 on the timeline of social movements. This stage stresses the dangers of falling back into old patterns and the need to continue with underground movements within the city. As time passes, the parasite becomes the host, but as proven in nature, as bigger hosts are more vulnerable to parasites, there always remains room for reparasitisation: a continuous cycle where anything that becomes too big, undesirable, or falls back in traditional patterns, can be addressed in the same way the initial problem was addressed, but increasingly supported by tools established and developed in earlier stages. Ideologically, the project still proposes a system based on capitalist values, requiring financial input and output. The primary differences lie in the fact that the process is democratised and open to anyone, which gives it, as shown in current events such as the Arab Spring and Occupy movements, the potential to correct a currently failing system. It is still, as a growing number of governments show (even those of seemingly completely open and democratic countries) a very vulnerable system, depending on new kinds of often government-controlled physical infrastructures such as thousands of kilometres of glass fibre cable running on the bottom of the sea. Countries like China and Russia have already created digital walls, fencing off sensitive information, while the United States, in the name of copyright protection, has attempted to limit the internet’s freedom of information by introducing legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would effectively have given US law enforcement the power to shut down entire websites. Here too, subversion in the form of hacktivism and other initatives organised through open source networks, play a crucial role. Protecting internet freedoms, as well as the establishment of a new kind of subversive urbanism, will remain a struggle and unquestionably, new problems will keep arising. But we can generally be very positive. Looking cumulatively at all recent developments, from Tunisia to London to Hong Kong, it seems we are standing at the beginning of a revolution, of a new era where the current powerholders will have to start forfeiting their powers, and which will allow citizens to start realising new ideals. 147

Legend Residential Commercial / Retail Government / Education Open Space Cultural

EXISTING LAND USE 3.60 Existing Land Use

148

Other

PRO

Legend Residential

ail

Commercial / Retail

cation

Education Community / Open Space Cultural

PROPOSED LAND USE

Manufacturing

3.61 Proposed Land Use

149

150

3.62 Top view

151

3.63 Subversive Urbanism: Overview

152

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