Reflective statement

CONCLUSION REFLECTIVE STATEMENT

As stated at the beginning of this report, this project is a speculative design that looked into how we can, as urban designers, develop an urban environment that is more resilient for the future and can accommodate temporary or long term changes, in terms of climate but also socioeconomic factors. This project “West Kowloon Resiliency” provides a framework and detailed design for the West Kowloon peninsula, in the scenario of flooding that is most likely to happen in the future.

The project innovates suggesting a new way of futureproofing our cities, here in Hong Kong, by combining landscaping and architectural components to resolve complex climatic and cultural issues. Bringing together nature and culture is what will allow our city to bounce back from future challenges.

The design developed the three block typologies created within the group masterplan, and proposes different strategies that are unique to each block to tackle resiliency and its various aspects. To adapt and mitigate the flooding situation, the scheme introduced the sponge city concept within west Kowloon, a first in Hong Kong. Overall, the strategies introduced by the project are relatively new and have not been tested yet in the context of Hong Kong. The ambition is therefore to make this project become a prototype, an experiment that could later push other development in the city to innovate and build the city of the future.

However given the scope of the project and large scale of the buildings, in their verticality, I believe more research and exeprimenting is needed, to challenge the proposed design and maybe test it using more quantitative methods.

Fig 36. Aerial view of the West Kowloon (n.d.)