SUBVERSIVE URBANISM 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, crowd-driven 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 selfcommunication. 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.
3
3
PROBLEMS
4
West Kowloon land reclamation and expressway
5
THE CITY ADDICTED TO LAND RECLAMATION Hong Kong partly maintains its competitive position in the world by keeping its taxes low, forcing the government to work with land reclamation has been very profitable. In the process of land reclamation, 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. To remain profitable, reclamation was mainly developed with these connections in mind.
COMMERCIALISED GOVERNMENT Hong Kong’s economic model depends on a strong role of the central government in physically shaping the city, resulting in the city operating similarly to a commercial enterprise. The government, so strongly in control of the physical appearance of the city, has ignored many issues. Hong Kong has one of the highest GINI coefficients in the world. Poverty levels are soaring, as are housing prices.
POWER ELITE The three branches of power, media, government and finance, function as a network with finance holding a key role (with the production of goods and services requiring investment to begin and earnings to value output). Power further depends on coordination and regulatory functions of the state and political system and are ultimately exercised through established networks of mass communication.
ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS? Public space 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. Hong Kong’s ‘one country, two systems’ adds another dimension. Massive protests recently marked 15 years of Chinese rule. The city is under pressure from two sides.
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Recent urban developments unveil Hong Kong’s current ideal
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CONCEPT
10
Occupy Hong Kong, under the HSBC headquarters
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SUBVERSION In the ideal city, everybody is able to play an active role in the city’s organisation and its development. Subversion has become a cultural pastime in Hong Kong. Protests and other ways of subverting existing practices have brought change and exposure to problems that lack of democratic practices and corruption hav not permitted.
SPONTENEOUS OCCUPATION Crowds of Filipino and Indonesian domestic servants take over public spaces within the city at the weekends. Scraping up large swathes of available spaces in plazas and on skybridges, domestic servants, who aren’t typically afforded spaces for relaxation within their houses, publicly take ownership of the city.
MASS SELF-COMMUNICATION Hong Kong is a city that is addicted to technology. New technologies allow people to post and react to news events increasingly more than traditional media outlets.
PROTESTS Other forms of resistance have been exhibited in the multitude of annual protests that occur throughout the city, such as annual Tiananmen Square Massacre commemorations and protests against religious oppression on the mainland. The Occupy movement quickly garnered support through various forms of mass self-communication and was critical in advocating mass-education about problems plaguing the financial industry.
COMMON ATTRIBUTES Common to these movements are visibility and diffusion of a message. Advertising is non-traditional. Expression is subversive. Ideas are expressed through costume and art. People not directly involved are targeted to attract more attention. Roads, plazas, shops, and public spaces are blocked; everybody in the city is impacted and reacts.
A NEW IDEAL ‘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)
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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. 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 involves entering through a weak spot on the body, where the presence of the parasite is not usually noticed. Many parasites alter the chemical compounds and reactions. By tapping into neural and chemical reactors within the host, the parasite can control and change its host. Entering the host
WEB WASP
CUCKOO TRICKERY
13
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
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
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
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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
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
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CERCARIAE
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
1
Sacculina Barnacle 1
3
2 XY
.25µm
XX
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.
5
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.
4
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.
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SOCIAL/URBAN REVOLUTION
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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).
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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 host’s nutrients, manages to reprogramme the host’s behaviour for the sacculina’s own benefit
XY
21
XX
1
NORMAL TIMES
Normal Times is 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. The trigger event became the global financial crisis which hit Hong Kong in October 2007.
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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.
23
2
PROVE FAILURE OF INSTITUTIONS
Goals Hong Kong is currently in Stage 2. Small groups have begun to organise to bring attention to the problems existing within Hong Kong’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 - Occupation - Protests
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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.
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3
RIPENING CONDITIONS
Goals Stage 3 involves quietly establishment a movement within the framework of the host of Hong Kong. The goal of Stage 3 is to get people organised along different lines than standard geographical and socioeconomic divisions. Stage 3 introduces new forms of interaction between different people within the city, promoting chance encounters and exchanges between groups of people that don’t normally interact.
Strategies - Use weak spots for local nonviolent actions and events - Spread tentacles for promotion
26
Isolated developments
Highways
Land Reclamations
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WEAK SPOTS Current development promotes the construction of exclusive housing and retail developments to attract wealthy foreign tourists to exclusive shopping centres and residential estates. An extensive highway network has been set up to facilitate rapid transit. These massive highway infrastructures leave many empty areas around, under and over highway constructions, not suitable for traditional development. Many are loosely regulated and already see use as impermanent settlements, such as fruit storage and markets. A development strategy being employed in Hong Kong is the act of land reclamation for easy real estate development. Since much development is geared towards largescale developments, small pockets are overlooked. Sections can be targeted where Stage 3 movements can originate.
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Proximity to problems
Program with potential for subversion
Unattractive land for power triangle
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AGENTS FOR SUBVERSION Subversion can only be accomplished by fostering the strength of agents of subversion when located near existing problems within the city (at left: pink/red). In Hong Kong, there are a profusion of small-scale educational facilities, such as daycare centres, schools, universities, technical schools, and continuing education centres (at left: green). In addition, there are cultural establishments promoting 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 mostly been 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. The large scale of developments in Hong Kong leaves many pockets within the city (at left: grey) that don’t contain the scale of developable land and connections desired by real estate investors. Central areas within Hong Kong and available for parasitisation due to their relative anonymity compared with other, more valuable plots of land within the city.
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N
31
Weak Spots + Agents for subversion
WEAK SPOTS + AGENTS FOR SUBVERSION By analysing the locations of the problems caused by the power triangle with potential agents for subversion, sections of the city where these qualities overlap become clear, with the project focusing on the Yau Ma Tei neighbourhood and the West Kowloon reclamation.
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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
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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
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N
Waterloo Road, with the Wholesale Fruit Market on the right, at 3am
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36
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SCHOOL CHILDREN
YAU MA TEI BOAT PEOPLE
WEALTHY CHINESE TOURIST
BUSINESSMAN
Cast of Characters
ICC TOWER
UNION SQUARE
LE
MP
TE
ET
RE
ST
M M C UN EN IT TR Y E
O
EET
ET
TRE
STR
C
AI
DS
FRUIT MARKET
AN
GH
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
RTL
AN
SH
PRIMARY SCHOOLS
PO
YAU MA TEI TYPHOON SHELTER
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INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS
PROSTIT UTES
SHOP OWNERS
FRUIT MARKET EMPLOYEES
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
SENIOR CITIZENS
EVENTS Stage 3 organises people across different socio-economic and cultural strata through various events so common goals and objectives can be formed. The area under the West Kowloon Corridor is currently used as a temporary waystation for fruit pallets being unloaded from lorries and carted to different stalls every night. The area is located within a mix of trucks, lorries, carts and pallets and easily overlooked by city regulators. An open-source website to learn about new events and find ways of contributing or participating creates a network where event organisers, financial contributers and patrons link together. Emphasis is on variety, allowing each event to be ephemeral, lasting a night. Community members access the portal and participate, sponsor, or create new events.
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Event website
Event app
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CINEMA
With Hong Kong’s long and rich history of filmmaking, experimenting with new ways of showing film will draw many fans of film to the area. The Cinema is modeled off Folly for a Flyover, an installation in Hackney Wick, London (below). Like Folly for a Flyover, the Secret Cinema is a pop-up cinema located in the unused underbelly of the highway. It’s 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
FOLLY FOR A FLYOVER, HACKNEY 41
ART GALLERY
Hong Kong is currently readying itself for the development of the M+ Cultural Centre, to be housed in the Sir Normal Fosterdesigned West Kowloon Cultural District development. Since M+ currently does not have a physical home, they are holding a series of pop-up art exhibitions on the streets of Hong Kong (below). Continuing the initiatives already started, a pop-up exhibition will be set up under the highway.
MOBILE M+ 42
FASHION SHOW
Hong Kong has recently seen a resurgence of start-up fashion houses in formerly run-down manufacturing zones. Many fashion designers throughout the world have specialised in showcasing their designs in temporary spaces, such as the Party Dress (below), a dress worn by 5 women that expands to form a tent-like structure under which parties can be held in a temporary enclosure. Fashion design, one of the paths of study at the Hong Kong Community College adjacent to the highway, will exhibit new designs under the highway, open to all.
PARTY DRESS 43
FOOD STALL MARKET
Once very common throughout Hong Kong, Dai Pai Dongs were open-air food stalls, quickly and easily mounted and later demounted. In San Francisco, Off The Grid (below) is a consortium of food truck owners that join together to offer food truck markets at varying locations in and around San Francisco. Following the trend of informal food stalls moving from Dai Pai Dongs to food carts as well as the Off The Grid food truck movement, shop owners from Yau Ma Tei will set up a food cart night under the highway. This will compliment the nighttime vending carts set up along touristy Temple Street, three blocks away.
OFF THE GRID FOOD TRUCK NIGHT MARKET 44
STRIP CLUB
Prostitution has developed a unique culture within the city. Many prostitutes operate on an individual basis, running their business out of one-room flats. Most advertise their services on sex141.com, an open-source platform to set up profiles and freely advertise. Portland Street, two blocks from the highway, is home to the majority of Yau Ma Tei’s prostitutes (below). Catering to the Fruit Market employees as well as businessmen, the prostitutes of Portland Street will set up a strip club night to contribute to their advertising on sex141.com.
HONG KONG STRIP CLUB 45
MAHJONG TOURNAMENT
One of Hong Konger’s favourite pasttimes is mahjong. Whenever a group of people have some free time, they will group together to start a game (below). Mahjong tournaments are common and attract much larger crowds than daily mahjong games. Some of the biggest groups to play mahjong, Fruit Market employees and senior citizens, will use the digital platform to organise a nighttime tournament. Much as standard mahjong games always draw a crowd, the tournament will draw many different groups.
MAHJONG IN THE STREETS 46
TENTACLES Crucial to staging successful events under the highway is the ability to pull people away from their normal activities within Yau Ma Tei. A catalog of tentacles subversively draws different groups in to the site. The tentacles are relatively cheap to implement and follow many aspects of advertisement, such as neon lighting, that Hong Kong is famous for.
TENTACLES
WAYS OF SPREADING THROUGH THE CITY
!
s parasite PROJECTORS
GRAFFITI
QR-CODES
Tentacles section TICKETS
FARES
ROUTES
OCTOPUS
CASH
HELP
PARASITES
DEPOSIT PARASITES
MTR TICKET MACHINE
123 456 789
CASH MACHINE
UD4: CHRIS CORNELISSEN, ADAM POINSETT
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15/03/2012
AD VAN/MUSIC
STREET ART
SKYWA
ALK
SUBVERTING MEDIA
35
1231
852-
PHONE NUMBER
LIGHT TRAIL
SLIDE
PEOPLE MOVER
DESIGN PROPOSAL
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The Sacculina grows and matures inside the crab.
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4
TAKE OFF
Goals 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.
Strategies - Use trigger event (financial malaise, pressure from mainland China, etc) to push movement into action - Wiki structures for rapid action
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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, land needs to be illegally occupied. 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 visibility with mass self-communication 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.
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 overnight occupation. 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.’ A structure designed to function in London can be altered to fit Hong Kong’s climate, then ‘printed’ with CNC milling machines. The occupation of land goes beyond putting up tents. For the people of Yau Ma Tei, this offers many possibilities. For prostitutes, a small, one-bedroom flat can be erected with minimal effort. For a shop owner, a cheap, visible shophouse can be customised and built.
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Download...
Building Wiki
F1
F1
F14/G
Edit...
F12/G P15
F13/C
3D Modeling software P33
P23
P22
P21
P26 P4
P4
P32 P24
F11/E
P35
R1/A
P16 P17
P34
P31 F10/D
P25
F13/E
F14/D P27
P7
P/19
P/19
P7
F12/B F14/B
F12/F F11/F
F13/F
F12/D
R1/B
F1
Print... CNC Mill template
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Planning Wiki
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PLANNING 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. Just as the events staged under the highway in Stage 3 utilised a website to serve as an 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 are set up. The platform is a documentation of who lives or operates where, and, in this way, forms the basis of further planning: likeminded people 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, everyone proposes plans, and everyone sees, contributes and questions them.
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Yau Ma Tei’s own crowdfunding website, based on kickstarter.com
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FUNDING Crowd funding, following websites such as www.kickstarter.com, will be incorporated in the construction of buildings that will positively contribute to the city (such as a public plaza). With the help of a digital platform, this form of funding will grow into a powerful, creative and democratic tool for building initiatives.
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5
MOVEMENT IDENTITY CRISIS
Goals After radical moves including the overnight occupation and subsequent exposure of the movement, the step afterwards is more difficult. The initial successful occupation heightens expectations for immediate, successful accomplishment of goals, which is unrealistic at this stage. These problems need to be overcome to increase public support and transition from an opposition movement to a mainstream force.
Strategies - Involve citizens and institutions from a broad perspective
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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 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.
XY
59
XX
6
MAJORITY PUBLIC SUPPORT
Goals The movement changes from being a minority opposition movement to one that fights with the power holders for the mainstream adoption of alternatives developed on a small scale. Large public support forces the power elite to change policies, causing the host to care for the parasite’s offspring. The large support begins to include members of the power elite, who use their power to achieve change from within.
Strategies - Find and use subverted supporters for developments - Use official channels under pressure of public opposition
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PROGRAMME MIX Incorporating a mix of programming maintains local character. Manufacturing finds its way back into the heart of city, in line with the on-site production of Wikihouses. The use diagram (at right) reinterprets the shop owner’s initial structure, with living accomodated above the shop, expanding with spaces for design, and workshops for design testing and digital manufacturing.
THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION After the first Industrial Revolution, 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, the Third Industrial Revoluation envisions production where a product no longer has to go through a difficult assembly process and is 3D printed anywhere. From mass production to mass customisation, products respond almost instantaneously to changing demands. Manufacturing is no longer associated with large, oursourced, polluting factories. This revolution is a clean and silent one.
HONG KONG’S ECONOMIC SECTORS For Hong Kong, the re-introduction of the manufacturing sector in the city solves some of its major crises. Urban development that stimulates a mix of programme and the blurring of boundaries between the service and manufacturing sectors locally roots Hong Kong’s global ambitions.
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6 HONG KONG & THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION DIGITAL MANUFACTURING CUSTOM MASS-PRODUCTION
LIVING
WORKSHOP DE
SIG OF N/ FIC E LIV
ING
RE
TA IL
Programme mix
Hong Kong’s future economy: blurring of sectors, less dependent on (financial) services
Services Construction Utilities Manufacturing Primary sector 1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2006
2007
2050
Hong Kong: Composition of GDP by Sector Source: Hong Kong Census & Statistics department
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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 fertilisation.
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7
SUCCESS
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 Kong’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.
Strategies - Alternative finance - The mass-customised tower
64
ALTERNATIVE FINANCE Programmes and practices in Stage 7 are more ambitious in scope and knit together various sections and sectors of the city. Re-introduced shophouses in Yau Ma Tei reconnect with Typhoon Shelter boat people along the waterfront to export products to nearby cities. Coupled with crowd-sourcing, an alternative economy, such as Bitcoin (at right) will be established to serve the needs of local residents without relying on autocratic decisions that don’t represent citizens’ wishes. This shift in public confidence introduces the possibliy to introduce peer-to-peer lending on a city-wide scale (at right). This action further degrades the role of the current financial system in Hong Kong, leading to a locallyfocused financial system that specifically links individual investors with small start-ups. 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.
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Digital currency
Digital platform for P2P lending (based on zopa.com)
66
Vertical Planning Wiki
67
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 (at left). 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 constructed off 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.
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SPREAD THROUGH THE CITY As public support increases, the number of sites developed with new ideals increases, but the process differs based on the location and people involved. Stages 3 and 4 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 every scale.
Cultural district site: overview
WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT Currently one of Hong Kong’s largest and most exposed developments is the West Kowloon Cultural District, the Cultural District is isolated geographically. The development further assumes that culture can be controlled and planned by master developers. By incorporating 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.
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Cultural district site: provocations at the foot of the ICC
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Cultural District Model
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Waterfront site: overview
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 makes the waterfont running along the typhoon shelter a site to be developed as a centre for locally-based import and export, along with on-site processing of goods through design and manufacturing. The tight-knit community of Yau Ma Tei boat people in the old typhoon shelter, once a vital components of Yau Ma Tei and an important source of income for the whole area, is reinvigorated and reincorporates citizens into Hong Kong’s economy.
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Waterfront site: buiding to house complete production cycle
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Waterfront Model
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Eggs are dispersed and new parasites find new crabs to parasitise. The mother sacculina will remain in the crab to await further fertilisation.
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CONTINUING STRUGGLE
Goals 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 following the ways the initial problem was addressed, but increasingly supported by tools established and developed in earlier stages. Strategies - Reparasatise when needed
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