ICONDITION_LAB
PUBLICATIONCONFERENCEEXHIBITIONBUILTCONDITION_LABPROJECT
006008040038 ADAPTING VILLAGES GLANCES OF PERPLEXITY034032030028 CONDITION / HONG KONG BY-CITY / REFUGECONDITIONBY-PRODUCTTOWEROFDISQUIET024022020018016014012 BOOK GAOBUTREEBOOK HOUSE CONDITIONPREFACETEAMLIVINGPINGTANMUTATIONBOOKTRACEISLANDHOUSEBOOKHOUSEHERITAGE
CONDITION_LAB
006008 PREFACETEAM
Established in 2018, our primary focus is to improve people’s lives through design. The Lab has switched to social enterprise in 2021, a non-profit business in Hong Kong that seeks to promote culture and heritage in rural communities. By developing architectural prototypes, explorer workshops, and craft products, we aim to preserve local cultural heritage, foster financial self-sufficiency, and provide Hong Kong youths with real-life experience of rural lives.
The Lab’s research resolves around designing socially responsible architectural prototypes. By working hand-in-hand with local partners on real sites, our aim is to develop projects that foster a better sense of community. The prototype acts as a vessel to generate new knowledge about how people inhabit their environment. Our philosophy revolves around the paradox embedded into the word “condition”, as a noun it refers to a context, a circumstance, or a situation, while as a verb it implies change - to condition something based on an original state.
PREFACE Condition_Lab is a Design Research Laboratory based within the School of Architecture at CUHK.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/condition-labLinkedin:https://www.facebook.com/condition.labFacebook:https://www.instagram.com/condition_lab/Instagram:https://condition-lab.com/Website:
TEAM Condition_Lab is a Design Research Laboratory led by Prof. Peter W. Ferretto, formed by PhD students and research assistants within School of Architecture at CUHK. Peter W. Ferretto is an Associate Professor and Director of the Masters of Architecture Programme at the School. He graduated from both Liverpool and Cambridge University, and since 1999 has practised as a registered architect (ARB).
His research focuses on understanding urban/ rural territories through design prototypes. His research subjects include Architectural Urban Typologies of Seoul, Residual Urban Spaces of Hong Kong, Everyday Urban Conditions, Contemporary Background City, Reactivating the Social Spaces of Chinese Ethnic Minority Villages and Prototype Solutions for a Self-build Timber House in Rural China. Over the last decade, the research has given rise to a series of publications, journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, symposia, installations and international exhibitions. In tandem with his academic research, over the last 20 years, he gained considerable professional experience working for several International practices, including Herzog & de Meuron Architects (Basel). Praxis, being his vehicle to develop a systematic inquiry into architectural experimentation, through responding to current issues facing our built environment.
The team also includes 6 PhD students and 2 research assistants, comprising aspects of Research, Design and Teaching. Some of them are based in Hong Kong, mainly working on academic grants and preliminary design works, while some are based in villages in China, responsible in field works and on-site works with local people.
BUILT PROJECT
025020018016014012 BOOK GAOBUTREEBOOK HOUSE PINGTANMUTATIONBOOKTRACEISLANDHOUSEBOOKHOUSE 024 LIVING HERITAGE
Book Tree is a research project in collaboration with the Sham Shui Po District Counsellor Ambrose Cheung. The objective of the project is twofold: to inhabit a lost urban space and simultaneously to create a new type of reading experience for children within the Mei Foo Dueneighbourhood.toitshighdensity
The prototype Book Tree was in collaboration with Sham Shui Po District Council
Completed in July 2018 Mei Foo, Hong Kong
and unique topography, Hong Kong has a high concentration of residual urban spaces, spaces that are not planned and typically occur by accident. These lost spaces have become invisible to local people who usually dismiss them as mundane background places devoid of purpose. Our research starts from the notion that through design, such spaces can be activated and transformed into inhabitable places. Rather than design being a high-end service, the predominant case in Hong Kong, design here becomes a tool to transform a neglected corner beneath a flyover into a real open community space. Libraries are typically associated with quiet and studious spaces. The idea behind the “Book Tree” is to install a structure where children can play while reading, rather than a chore reading books becomes a fun experience. The temporary installation is composed of two elements, an open timber landscape to sit down and a tree structure that holds books. The structure was conceived as a tree where the different branches each house books for different ages. The structure was built from untreated timber as to reconnect children to the warmth of natural materials contrasted to the mineral and hard materiality of the surrounding infrastructure. The manner in which the “Book Tree” operates is unique in Hong Kong. Books are not registered nor borrowed, they are simply donated by the community for the community to take freely. There is no trading, no promise to return, the tree acts as a temporary deposit for the many books Mei Foo households can no longer store.
3.2.1.
BOOK TREE 012 1.-3. Construction details of Book Tree. 4. Book Tree under Kwai Chung Road flyover at Mei Foo Sun Chuen. 4.
3.2.1.
2019
The Gaobu Book House serves the rural community of Gaobu, a Dong minority village of 2,500 people located on the Pingtan River in Tongdao County, Hunan Province. Like many other Chinese villages, Gaobu is challenged by modernization and the so-called “village hollowing” in which the working-age population Mostmigrate.children in Gaobu are raised by their grandparents until the age of 10 when they are forced to leave and study in nearby towns. Due to lack of educational facilities such as libraries, children spend most of their leisure time online and playing games on phones rather than reading. Hence, we came up an idea to offer an educational incubator, a “house” for children to learn through Theplaying.200m²
Completed in December 2018 Gaobu Village, Hunan, China Category Winner (Completed Buildings: Civic & Community) Architecture Festival
World
two-story Gaobu Book House adopts the traditional Dong house “Ganlan” typology as the creative starting point, where local timber is used for the framing. and the timber frame is adapted and reconfigured as to accommodate different programmatic and spatial configurations. This spatial subversion generates a building that at first glance appears traditional, however on closer inspection, new unconventional relationships emerge. By working with-in the system, rather than against the system, materiality and craftsmanship inject new life back into the village. Having witnessed how stairs become a key architectural element in Dong daily life, a place which people usually congregate around and where children love to play, stairs become the generating idea of the building. The central staircase acts both as a means of circulation and as the identity for the building. The ground floor is conceived as a covered open space for public gatherings and local exhibitions, while each internal wall of the house above is made up of 12 bookshelves, each dedicated to a specific educational theme.
GAOBU BOOK HOUSE 014 1. View of front facade from inside. 2. Children reading books at Book House in morning before school. 3. Central staircase connecting public space on ground floor and library space on upper floors. 4. Children with grandparents at Book House. 4.
The prototype Book Island was in collaboration with Kowloon Junior School
1.2.
Books have the power to connect people. In a increasingly digital age, books inspire children to dream, form relationships with elders and most importantly establish bonds between peers. The environment in which children read has unfortunately been overlooked of late and taken for granted. The common assumption being, as long as a library has a good selection of books, the kids should be inspired to read.
The pair of islands create an oneiric landscape within the library, where gentle curves in the form wood contours form seats for children to engage and gather. Below the two small interior hills lie quiet and more intimate hidden spaces conceived as cosy spaces where children can enjoy private experiences.
The “Book Island” collaborative project wishes to challenge this assumption and attempts to puts forward a new concept of how a children’s library can work, an idea founded on the power of design. Rather than think of libraries as quiet, serious and passive places this project injects life, playfulness and fun into the programme. The project has been designed by students for students. A joint collaboration between the School of Architecture of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Kowloon Junior School (KJS). The project was run as an elective class, saw 5 teams (18 students in all) compete against each other to win the final design. The winning scheme was selected via an open design competition where KJS staff and students voted for their preferred team, following which it was further developed into a detail design and eventually fabricated under the supervision of two PhD students. The “Book Island” is a an evolution of an earlier public outdoor library design “Book Tree”, built in 2018 for a residual urban space in Mei Foo. Both projects are entirely built in timber, a material which embodies key characteristics in terms of cost, ease to fabricate and flexibility to adapt.
Completed in December 2019 Kowloon Junior School
BOOK ISLAND 016 1.3. Study model of Book Island during elective course. 2.-3. Installation progress of the prototype at Kowloon Junior School.
50 Wind Drawing Machines are made and installed in different locations to capture the moments and translate it into an abstract form of ink drawings on paper. Each machine is made of a 300mm cube frame in timber sticks (25x25mm), assembled and fixed with aluminium angles at all corners. A flag made of two plastic sheets, crossing each other, is hung and floating above the frame. It is holding a pen/ pencil to leave marks on the paper clipped on an acrylic sheet, attaching to the timber frame by fishing wires and clips. The Wind Drawing Machines are portable and could work as individual modules and groups. While wind flows through, flags move, pen/ pencils draw. They then come up with drawings that traces the moments when and where the machines are placed. They are process drawings that reveal invisible memories. Lines are made by the machines initiated by wind and altered by the surrounding contexts. The human hand is replaced by the hands of nature. Each line captures the ephemeral memory of a specific Drawingsmoment.
The idea of the project is to counter the concept of “Drawing as the Traces and Process”. The machines capture what we sometimes experience but could not be captured by us, such as wind, rain, and most importantly, memory. They are to make visible to human eyes the moments we are experiencing, revealing and tracing our memory.
1.Completed in August 2021
are the slow reveal, the gradual accumulation of marks into an image, following Richard Serra’s “Drawing is a Verb”, pushing the conventions of drawing towards a phenomenological experience of movement, time and space, as process instead of product.
TRACE 018 2. 3. 1. Single module of drawing machine. 2. 50 units of drawing machines, testing at interior space. 3. Testing at outdoor space, on rooftop of a building.
Having completed the “Book House” project in the Dong Minority village of Gaobu (Dec 2018), we have witnessed how an educational project can unite and help a community. The project allows the children of Gaobu, roughly 90 students with limited exposure to books, to play and learn in a safe and inspiring environment.
Speaking to the Principal of the School, Mr. Hou Zhimin, he was wondering whether a “Book House” library model could be developed for his school, which now has very basic library. He was very interested in how the Gaobu project design retains the traditional vernacular architectural language that is missing in his campus. The Pingtan Primary School, is a courtyard complex of concrete buildings built around a central courtyard/playground. None of the existing buildings are related to Dong traditional architecture and is generally in a poor state of disrepair. The premise has a vacant plot that today houses a temporary shed that the principle believes would be a good site for small timber library.
The lessons learnt over 1 year designing and building the Gaobu Book House, especially related to social and heritage issues, can now be translated into a new project. Recently we were contacted by the Pingtan primary school, another Dong Minority village further downstream from Gaobu, that serves as the main educational hub for many nearby villages, accommodating close to 400 children between the ages of 3-12.
2.1.
Completed in December 2021 Pingtan Village, Hunan, China Featured at Designboom website and social media
pages
2.
The double helix staircase leading up from ground floor to top floor of Pingtan Book House. While front facade is all made of windows, side facade is of bookshelves. View of Pingtan Book House in evening when schools finish.
3.
PINGTAN BOOK HOUSE 020 1.3.
This proposal, focusing on the Dong Minority community in Hunan, China, investigates the feasibility to build an alternative timber house typology and creates a design template for a self-build dwelling from prefabricated timber components addressing the critical issues currently facing the Dong community. For centuries the Dong communities have been almost entirely self-sufficient, with the environment in which they lived being a measure of their living standard. Yet traditional Dong timber houses will soon no longer be built, replaced by a hybrid concrete pastiche utterly foreign to the territory. Rather than yielding to this trend, this research seeks to propose an alternative solution in the form of a pilot prototype house. Material technology and self-build initiatives could become the catalyst for regenerating the house typology and simultaneously creating an alternative industry as a source of income for the community.
The Future Projects Awards is an award program celebrating excellence in unbuilt or incomplete projects, organised and awarded annually by the MIPIM (Le marché international des professionnels de l’immobilier) in Cannes, France, in cooperation with the monthly international magazine The Architectural Review. New Gaobu Village, Hunan, China MIPIM/ Architectural Review Future Project Awards (Residential Category)
MUTATION HOUSE 022 1. Design panels for entry of MIPIM/ AR Future Project Awards.
Caught between China’s ever-expanding urban centres and marginalized rural villages exists an amalgamated territory that has surprisingly been overlooked and dismissed by the profession and academics. We have coined this diffused landscape “Middle Ground”, a peripheral urban condition distinctive to China. China’s Middle Ground is not planned, it is continuously transforming and characterized by a series of generic buildings typologies: three-story concrete frame houses, corrugated pitch roofed warehouses, brick-clad factories and glass office buildings. Beyond these anonymous buildings, exists a complex network of once-rural historical villages, once the backbone of vital trade routes, that are today disappearing at alarming rates. The future existence and eventual integration of these traditional villages back into the daily life of China’s “Terrain Vague” is the topic of this research. By taking a network of Hakka villages centered around the village of He Xin Wu, Guangdong Province, the proposal seeks to study a dozen traditional Hakka villages along the ancient Yue Gan Trade Route connecting Guangdong and Jiangxi, with the aim to understand and assess their status visà-vis configuration, construction and potential revitalization. The urgency of the research relates to two critical issues: firstly the great majority of these rural settlements are not listed for preservation and hence will soon disappear – demolished and redeveloped. Secondly, the few examples that have been listed have been earmarked as future tourist destinations, a mixed blessing that most probably will act as a temporary solution with the risk of suffocating their existence and preventing a genuinely sustainable recovery. He Xin Wu, Guangdong, China 1.
LIVING HERITAGE 024 1. Village structure of He Xin Wu. 2. Layout plan of proposed mud workshop. 3.-5. Rendering view of proposed mud workshop.2. 5.4.3.
EXHIBITION
034032030028 CONDITION / HONG KONG BY-CITY / REFUGECONDITIONBY-PRODUCTTOWEROFDISQUIET
Hong Kong is a city that has always developed reactively, as a reaction to given conditions, be it political or geographically, in the process generating a unique identity that responds and adapts to Conditionssituations.formthe
backdrop against which we live our daily life; they are the fragments that generate the public/social realm. They represent both the ambiguous line between the city and its citizens and the moment where coexistence between the physical and the meta-physical realms collide. Understanding Hong Kong as a series of conditions allows visitors to question and the same time understand the collective DNA of habitation and start a debate that anticipates rather than assesses, accepts rather than Thepostulates.mostintense
1.2.
More than a city, Hong Kong is a condition, where diverse moments of human habitation collectively generate an un-paralleled urban ecology. This exhibition focuses on challenging preconceived notions of how we see our city, steering away from the prescribed notions of urbanism and architecture as abstract entity, where citizen and professionals are separated by a vast gulf, rather it seeks to re-address and link the city back to Human Habitation.
15.06.2016 - 25.06.2016
The exhibition “Condition / Hong Kong” was presented by Leisure & Cultural Services Department and co-organized by Oi! Street Art Space and School of Architecture CUHK. The exhibition “Condition / Hong Kong” was presented by Leisure & Cultural Services Department and co-organized by Oi! Street Art Space and School of Architecture CUHK.
urban conditions in the planet are found in Hong Kong, “Condition/Hong Kong” seeks to uncover the process behind how the city operates: from the invisible interconnected networks to the adjustable and adaptive systems that HK constantly generates to survive and adapt.
Oi! Street Art Space, North Point
CONDITION / HONG KONG 1. Collective Workshop with community participation during exhibition. 2. Exhibition of 140 urban conditions at Oi! Street Art Space. 3. Exhibition poster of “Condition / Hong Kong”. 3. 028
02.09.2017Dongdaemun05.11.2017DesignPlaza, Seoul 1. The exhibition “By-City / By-Product: Hong Kong, Shenzhen” has been conceived by Peter W. Ferretto and Doreen Heng Liu (Co-curators) in partnership with the School of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Inspired by observations of real urban settings, By-City / By-Product proposes to examine the contemporary city as a series of conditions, no longer under the control of architects, urbanists and planners, but governed by multiple coexisting agents. Hong Kong and Shenzhen will be analyzed not through abstract postulations but by focusing on the present reality of the city, the actual urban every day that stares at us in the face, the urban presence of the here and now. Both cities share a complex interconnected yet detached existence, yet remain connected in their engineered nature, where territory is constantly adapted to mitigate with the changing inhabitation. By product here refers to the leftover city that we inhabit: the interstitial, hidden and marginal. By recreating HK conditions in Seoul and juxtaposing them with time fragments from SZ, visitors will be forced to ask questions and engage with the content of the exhibition that will reveal different facets of these two cities. By product here refers to the leftover city that we inhabit: the interstitial, hidden and marginal. By physical recreating one of these HK conditions in Seoul and juxtaposing it with time fragments from SK visitors will be forced to ask questions and through these questions they will engage with the content of the exhibition that will reveal different facets of these two cities.
BY-CITY / BY-PRODUCT 030 1. Exhibition poster of “By-City / By-Product”. 2.-5. Exhibition at Dongdaemon Design Plaza. 4.2. 5.3.
Hong Kong is a city that is often misunderstood, caught between two ideologies: east and west. Mention Hong Kong and immediately you conjure ideas of density in the skyscrapers. This vertical city, however, is surprisingly rooted to the ground. Streets, alleys, steps, terraces, landings, pavements, any surface becomes a potential site for inhabitation. This appreciation of the ground plane generates a series of conditions: conditions of real life, situations where they live, though adapting and mediating.Urban conditions allow the inhabitants of Hong Kong to calibrate their life within the city. This tower is conceived as a vertical manifestation of Hong Kong’s life. A tower of everyday conditions, from street market stalls to interstitial hidden spaces, each stacked to reveal a showcase of extreme density. The tower becomes the tertiary structure of the city, where each condition, to take the biological analogy further, represents the DNA of Hong Kong. Rather than speculate on form or structure of potential new towers, this tower narrates a series of stories, spaces and buildings that constitute the background of the city highlighting a hybrid design somewhere between an anthropological cross-section of everyday Hong Kong life and an archaeological ruin of ephemeral conditions that will soon disappear.
1. 26.05.2018 - 25.11.2018 Venice, Italy
CONDITION TOWER 032 1. 100 Towers, 100 Architects: Hong Kong Pavilion exploring vertical architecture at Venice Biennale. 2.-3. Condition Tower, conceiving as a vertical manifestation of Hong Kong’s life. 3. 2.
Dongdaemun31.10.2021DesignPlaza, Seoul 1.
“The Refuge of Disquiet”, a collaboration project of students from the MArch studio “Condition / Hong Kong Villages”, has been selected as one of the eight design studios out of more than twenty architecture schools from around the world in the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism Escape2021. and protect, two meanings embodied in the word “refuge” are at the heart of this proposal. Escape from the tyranny of speed that has taken over our urban living, protect our heritage by reinterpreting and making history relevant. This refuge is directly connected with the theme of our studio “Condition / Hong Kong Village”. It aims to translate a traditional rural village temple into an urban artefact where people can experience a dual moment of urban disconnection and rural connection. Rather than being an example of the various schemes from the studio, the refuge has been designed as a synthesis of an idea, where students combined forces to design a single refuge which reflects a way of thinking about how rural villages can remain relevant today. We propose that only via a process of translation, where heritage is reinterpreted, can villages remain relevant. The translation happens through a material transformation. Traditional clay tiles become the creative design generator, forming a patterned wall that shields and articulates the refuge. The proposal generates various forms of social impact: 1) connects visitors to traditional building typologies, 2) reveals new ways of designing with traditional craftmanship and 3) makes people aware of the value of tangible and intangible 16.09.2021culture.
REFUGE OF DISQUIET 034 1. Concept of “see-through”. 2. Testing of “Refuge” on streets of Seoul. 3. Built “Refuge” at Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2021. 2. 3.
PUBLICATIONCONFERENCE
040038 ADAPTING VILLAGES GLANCES OF PERPLEXITY
MakeADAPTsomething suitable for a new use or purpose; modify or become adjusted to new RuralTRANSFORMATIONSconditions.villagesarechanging at an unprecedented rate, the notion of the rural condition is today rife with preconceived ideas that have little in common with actual everyday countryside life. This workshop is interested in exploring “actual” rural conditions, to expose examples of villages that are changing and understand how and why they transform. We wish to expose how villages adapt and calibrate. TheTALKSworkshop is structured over two days, the first day is dedicated to talks, where 12 international experts, academics and professionals will present positions based on first-hand experience. Each talk will fall into three categories: Heritage / Modernization, Economics / Sustainability, and Community / Society. PINGTAN RIVER 坪坦河 designrealmbetterraisesthisOurDesigntocircumstance,thatrealities.“really”toConditionsand3villagesinGaobuhowwhythatconditions,iseverydayideasconditionunprecedentedRuralcanwithmostBythatwithinledThewww.condition-lab.comGaobuCONDITION_LABVillageCondition_LabisadesignresearchlaboratorybyAssociateProfessorPeterW.Ferretto,basedtheSchoolofArchitectureatCUHK.Webelievedesignhasthepowertoimprovepeople’slives.workingwithrealsituations,observing,listingandimportantlyestablishingaprocessofempathythecommunity,wewishtodesignprojectsthatenableabetterfuture.villagesarechangingatanrate,thenotionoftheruralistodayrifewithpreconceivedthathavelittleincommonwithactualcountrysidelife.Thisworkshopinterestedinexploring“actual”ruraltoexposeexamplesofvillagesarechangingandunderstandhowandtheytransform.Wewishtoexposevillagesadaptandcalibrate.isoneofthemostlargelypopulatedDongvillageslocatedTongdaoCounty,HunanProvince,composedof6smallandatotalpopulationof2,500inhabitants,dividedintomajorclans.ItislocatedonPingtanRiver,withallthefieldshousessittingalongthestream.fieldtreeshouses100mdrumtowerwind-and-rainbridgesaxmemorialprototypesGaobuBookHouseallowustochallengeunquestionedassumptions,cultivateadispositionoflookingatthingsforwhattheyare,ratherthanformulatingideasbasedon“assumed”“Condition”isaneverydayword,awordusedbyallhasmultiplemeanings;asanounitreferstoacontext,aorasituation,whileasaverbitimplieschange-conditionsomethingbasedonanoriginalstate./ResearchTeachingareallintegraltoourframework.radicalpositionistohelpcommunitiesthroughdesign,forreasonwehavesetupafundthatprovidesdesignknowledge,fundsandultimatelydelivershealthy,sustainableandenvironments.Toachievethisgoal,ourfocusisthesocialbothurbanandrural,wherebyadaptingandcalibratingwecanconditioneverydaylife. Adapting Villages 1. Conference poster of “Adapting Villages 2019”.08.05.2019 - 09.05.2019 The Chinese University of Hong Kong
ADAPTING VILLAGES 038 Yangtian, Gaobu Village Gaosheng Drum Tower Shangzhai Drum Tower Heshang Drum Tower Wind-and-Rain Bridge in Gaobu 1 5 1510 2 3 8 4 321 Adapting54 Villages GaobuBookPrototypesVillagersVillageHouse136 16 17 18 7 Kids playing in the river Ladies in traditional Dong costume Men are responsible in making festive dinner in Gaobu 876 9 11 12 Prototype Workshop 2016 Furniture Prototype Workshop 2016 River Prototype Workshop 2017 Focal Prototype Workshop 2017 Joint Book House - front view/ main facade Grandpa with grandson in the Book House Overall view of Book House in Gaobu 1:25 Design working model of Book House 1:1000 Site model of Gaobu Village 1:25 Design working model of Book House1817161211109 14151413 PINGTAN RIVER 坪坦河 designrealmbetterraisesthisOurDesigntocircumstance,thatrealities.“really”toConditionsand3villagesinGaobuhowwhythatconditions,iseverydayideasconditionunprecedentedRuralcanwithmostBythatwithinledThewww.condition-lab.comGaobuCONDITION_LABVillageCondition_LabisadesignresearchlaboratorybyAssociateProfessorPeterW.Ferretto,basedtheSchoolofArchitectureatCUHK.Webelievedesignhasthepowertoimprovepeople’slives.workingwithrealsituations,observing,listingandimportantlyestablishingaprocessofempathythecommunity,wewishtodesignprojectsthatenableabetterfuture.villagesarechangingatanrate,thenotionoftheruralistodayrifewithpreconceivedthathavelittleincommonwithactualcountrysidelife.Thisworkshopinterestedinexploring“actual”ruraltoexposeexamplesofvillagesarechangingandunderstandhowandtheytransform.Wewishtoexposevillagesadaptandcalibrate.isoneofthemostlargelypopulatedDongvillageslocatedTongdaoCounty,HunanProvince,composedof6smallandatotalpopulationof2,500inhabitants,dividedintomajorclans.ItislocatedonPingtanRiver,withallthefieldshousessittingalongthestream.fieldtreeshouses100mdrumtowerwind-and-rainbridgesaxmemorialprototypesGaobuBookHouseallowustochallengeunquestionedassumptions,cultivateadispositionoflookingatthingsforwhattheyare,ratherthanformulatingideasbasedon“assumed”“Condition”isaneverydayword,awordusedbyallhasmultiplemeanings;asanounitreferstoacontext,aorasituation,whileasaverbitimplieschange-conditionsomethingbasedonanoriginalstate.Research/Teachingareallintegraltoourframework.radicalpositionistohelpcommunitiesthroughdesign,forreasonwehavesetupafundthatprovidesdesignknowledge,fundsandultimatelydelivershealthy,sustainableandenvironments.Toachievethisgoal,ourfocusisthesocialbothurbanandrural,wherebyadaptingandcalibratingwecanconditioneverydaylife. Adapting Villages
the late artist, critic, poet and radical British thinker wrote profusely about how we as humans look at things. Through looking we comprehend, “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak” is the opening sentence of his 1972 book titled “Way of Seeing” where Berger outlines in 7 essays, the process of seeing: to paraphrase Berger, the way we see is affected by what we know and what we believe. The five walks here presented in this short article, taken through the island of Hong Kong, are an attempt to capture why and how this city stimulates our imagination, through the act of wondering we learn to appreciate the other, and I would argue the “real”, city that is ingrained with fascinating hidden INVISBLEnarratives.
Glances of Perplexity: A Short Walking Manual to Hong Kong’s Hidden JohnWAYSConditionsOFSEEINGBerger(1926-2018)
I have always been fascinated how architects have been inept, compared to film directors, to work with Hong Kong’s background. From a cinematic standpoint, Hong Kong’s background (there are no real architectural icons) serves to generate a context of dynamic intensity, think of recent films such as “Ghost in the Shell” (2017) or Wong Karwai’s 1994 classic “Chungking Express”. 1.1. Magazine cover of Being Hong Kong 003 (2019 Summer). 2.-5. Maps of walking manual to Hong Kong’s hidden conditions on Hong Kong Island.
23.05.2020
URBAN BACKROUND When you live in a city, the quotidian tends to become invisible, we become unable to focus on the mundane experiences that make up our everyday life. The reasons are multiple, from being distracted by our phones to straightforward absent mindedness, however as a result we become immune to perceiving Hong Kong’s unique “background”[1] atmosphere. This “other” city, a parallel Hong Kong embedded with local stories and collective rituals, requires a different state of mind to be noticed: a slower, open and more flexible mindset that challenges assumed preconceptions and allows the “here and now” reality to take over. Once this way of looking has been enabled, Hong Kong transforms into a city of infinite wonders, the antidote to the banality of the generic city.
GLANCES OF PERPLEXITY 040 4.2. 5.3.
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Feb 2022
