Low-rise vertical neighbourhood

HIGH RISE

VERTICAL NEIGHBOURHOOD

The high rise block forms the tip of the urban mountain. It is a block sized building that reuses the common Kowloon podium typology, a podium with a tower above that is set back from the street. It also connects back to the city, creating a direct elevated link with the podium of Union Square and the ICC tower. That means people can now walk from the train station to the waterfront of West Kowloon without having to cross the street. Rising to 175m high, it grows from the bamboo theatre that composes the podium and the bamboo facade wraps around the tower to become the roof canopy of the bamboo theatre; revealing how a traditional cultural legacy can support the development of a modern neighbourhood. D.O 2 + D.O 3

The body of the tower twists, driven by two concepts. First, to provide natural daylight to most of the apartments and to minimise the number of units facing north, each floor place slightly rotates from one another by 1.8degrees. Then, there will be greenery on balconies or winter gardens along the tower giving the impression of a green spine climbing around the building, using greenery to link all the residents of the tower. D.O 4

Fig 33. Green Spine (UNStudio, 2018)

A podium divided into two elements - a commercial part and a covered area to host cultural events. From the podium a tower grows, with setback allowing ligjt to reach the street and improving the sense of human scale The facade of the tower extends to cover the cultural space and form the roof structure of the new bamboo theatre. The tower is twisted at 90o as a subtle architectural gesture that helps with sun and wind conditions

PRIVATE - PUBLIC - PRIVATE

PUBLIC

Land use, massing and connectivity

UPPER FLOORS

The twisted tower, a high density living building, where public/amenities uses are mixed with the residential, so that people living on the higher floors are not excluded from the city.

Connects to surrounding blocks and especially Union Square and ICC. Co working faciulities and lobby for above tower accessible from this floor.

Cultural and commercial podium - bamboo theatre serves as the base for the high rise development

FIRST FLOOR

GROUND FLOOR

Retail-Commercial

Wet Market Private lobbies

Servicing/core