2017 HKU Landscape Graduate Portfolio

PORTFOLIO University of Hong Kong 2017 Graduate of Landscape Architecture WANG JUNWEN

01

Landscape Planning Studio HKU 2017 Landscape Archtecture Studio 5

To further enlarge its national impact in Asia, in the late 20th century, Myanmar government proposed to establish a Special Economic Zone in Dawei.

With a massive scale, approximately twice as big as Hong Kong island, the planned Dawei Special Economic Zone covers twenty one communities in total. Due to an uneven international investment situation, the project has been postponed for nearly twenty years.

However, without a convincing compensation and resettlement scheme, thousands of affected populations have to squat in that area in fear of being driven out from the lands they have been cultivating for generations any time in the near future. As a result, a huge amount of farmland has been left fallow for years.

The project poses a new community cooperation mechanism by reusing fallow lands with vague land tenure to strengthen the bargaining power of affected villagers for better compensation and resettlement. It critically questions current legal framework acts directly on land property and land grabbing process. Through a careful evaluation on proximity to labour source, length of fallow on existing fallow land and ecological performance of target landscape, including vegetation coverage, local hydrology and soil fertility,fallow lands that no longer owned by individuals with sound quality are re-valued and collaboratively re-defined as potential areas for villagers to input community efforts, named as Village Priority Action Areas.

Associated with four landscape strategies responding to weaknesses of customary agriculture practice, the project provide a flexible tool sets for local communities to take action on a rather unpredictable future spontaneously.

Dawei Special Economic Zone SEZ Occupied: Landscape, Compensation, and Anticipating Development through Village Priority Action Areas Project Location: Dawei Sepcial Economic Zone, Myanmar Project Category: Landscape Planning (Individual Work) Instructors: Ashley Scott Kelly & Ivan Valin

From Eastern Seaboard to Dawei SEZ:

EASTERN Seaboard development project was proposed after the discovery of natural gas resources along the gulf of Thailand in 1970s. A One of the ambition of the project is to decentralized industries located in Bangkok to several provinces within the Eastern Seaboard area, and by doing so, they intended to build up a more comprehensive, efficient infrastructural system around Bangkok.

From a global scale, the establishment of ASEAN in 1961 also enhanced Thailand’s capacity to carry out such a large scale project. With the financial aid from Japan, the World Bank and British government, the project operated smoothly through years. In order to pursue cheap labor resources and further upgrade its economic power, the Thai government eager to transfer some of its highly polluting industries in the ESDP area to Myanmar through the proposal of Dawei Special Economic Zone.

1950s Myanmar Civil War Outbreak ESDP was approved as a part of Discovery of Natural Gas

1961

1973-1977

1981

1961.07.31 ASEAN Estabilshed 1978-1979 Global Energy Crisis

MIT gas pipeline completed

1982 Japanese Started to invest

1984 Investment from IBRD & UK government

1995 Refugee Crisis

the Fifth Five Year Plan East Coast Waterpipe completed

MTP port approved

MTP IE & LC projects restarted

1985 1986

1988

IBRD proposed to postpone Thai government froze all projects for a 45-day period

LCCP Started to Operate

1991

1993 1992 Great Mekong Subregion Project Launched

LC IE Completed

1994

Sr-Lc Railway Completed

1997-1999 Asia Economic Crisis

Land Laws Act on Land Tenure Issues in Myanmar

In the late 20th century, after Myanmar government transform from a militarism government to a civilian government, they began to put economic development as the first priority at State level. To associate with this scheme, they intended to maximize their capacity to manage and control national resources, water, electricity and land. As thus, over 70 official documents act on land property have been launched by then. Through various overlapped land classification standard covers in these documents, although often than not, people do have land title, under current legal framwork, Myanmar government has the capacity to revoke that title if the land is properly compensated. However, many of those standards are controversial to customary land use and agriculture practice.

Offical Proposal On Dawei Special Economic Zone Compensation and Resettlement

In 2008, Myanmar Government granted the largest Thai-based civil engineering firm, ITD, the right to develop Dawei special economic zone. The planned size of the SEZ is approximately twice as big as Hong Kong Island. There are mainly four phases of industry estate and a deep seaport on the west. In phase 1 and two, the target industry is light industry; steel mills and power plants are been zoned in phase 3; while petrochemical and oil and gas industries in phase 4. In ITD’s report, they intend to complete the project in 20 to 25 years. However, the progress is dramatically lagged behind.Proposed SEZ area covers over twenty one communities which have been practicing agriculture in the region for generations. Among all, 6 of them are planned to be relocated to a resettlement site in the north of DSEZ, called Bawai. 480 new houses are built in the Bawar village to host the displaced households. However, electricity and drinking water are not provided for the relocated villagers and only 4 households agreed to relocate. Due to an uneven international investment situation, developer has changed the master plan of SEZ for more than 6 times, and has postponed the project for 15 years or so.

According to article 34 of DSEZ law, the developer shall bear the expenses of transferring and paying compensation of houses, buildings, farms and gardens etc. More over he shall carry out fulfill fundamental needs of persons who transfer so as not to lower their original standard.

However, 480 new houses are built in the Bawar village to host the displaced households.

However, electricity and drinking water are not provided for the relocated villagers and only 4 households agreed to relocate. The compensation scheme proposed by ITD is incredibly ambiguous. From the financial level, the amount of money they compensated is based on the size of crops growing on the land. Through this standard, the calculation of compensation has largely ignored actual loss of farmers. At the same time, villagers are unable to get the size of lands in the resettlement area that are equivalent to farms they have in hand at the moment. Without proper compensation proposal, villagers are squatting in the land they have rely on for decades with no idea how long they would stay there.

Village Priority Action Areas: In this project, I attempts to propose an alternative option for villagersto respond to. The project is scoped in the phase 4 area of DSEZ, for most of population in the region are living there, while they are more likely to stay longer than villagers in other parts of DSEZ.

According to a report by one the strongest civil society organization in Myanmar, Dawei Development Association, DDA, over 83% of villagers have not yet accepted compensation standard proposed by ITD. They are anticipating to get better resettlement. However, without a strong sense of community cooperation, their bargaining power as individual is considerably limited. Moreover, in fear of being driven out from the land any time in the near future, local villagers hesitate to input much effort to their land as before. Hence, a huge amount of farmland has been left fallow for years and the land tenure are becoming vague.

Villagers are gradually losing their income source. In order to deal with current situation, I propose a cooperation mechanism by reusing those fallow lands to guide the villagers to identify where they could strategically allocate resources and how to resist as a community. With careful evaluation of the proximity to labour, length of fallow on existing fallow land and ecological performance of the landscape, which includes, vegetation coverage, local hydrology and soil fertility, fallow lands that no longer owned by individuals with sound quality are re-valued and collaboratively re-defined as potential areas for villagers to input community effort to take action on their future. Based on assessment of irrigation and drainage facility, road infrastructure, as well as crop storage, I categorized these fallow lands into 4 areas, named as Village Priority Action Areas. To visualize possible damage that may be caused by construction works of ITD, I also projected the latest version of ITD master plan on Phase 4 to test out which part of the lands are most likely to be affected. The vulnerability hierarchy is generated based on this.

Landscape Strategy I: Enhance Market Values of Local Crops by Establishing Effective Storage Facilities

Current customary agriculture practice is lack of effective crop storage systems. Due to impacts of Monsoon and heavy flooding in summer, without effective storage facilities, crops cannot be properly preserved in humid season. Thus, establish crop-storage would allow villagers sell their products when market value is ideal.

Storage Facilities should be built in areas with relatively strong resilience on floods, and at the same time, within reasonal proximity to target crops production areas.

Landscape Strategy II: Improve Stability of Current Irrigation System through Small Scale Rain Harvesting Pits Establishment in Dry Season

The irrigation system has limited capacity to store water, which cause the reduction of local production in dry season. In the consideration of local topography, proposed rain harvest pits can be easily built on slopes under 1:5 radiation with 2 ~ 3 labours within 3~5 days. More importantly, the technique of constructing rain harvesting pits would also enhance villagers’ capacity to deal with the situation when traditional irrigation facilities are damaged during future raod construction.

Landscape Strategy III: Increase Agriculture Efficiency through Strategical Inter-cropping

In response to the major weaknesses of current agriculture prac-

tice in study areas, traditional mono-crop culture not only constraint the increasing of yields, it also raises the risk of the outbreak of large scale plant diseases and insects.

Strategically, inter-cropping coconut and cashew, maize and rice, betel and banana would help to elevate the amount of agriculture production, and meanwhile, contribute to ease regional food security tension.

Landscape Strategy IV: Elevate Land Value , and Improve Regional Agriculture Resilience by Introducing New Pollinator-friendly Agriculture Type in Study Areas

Most of local crop production in the region are heavily relied on current weak irrigation system, introducing new agriculture type that may gradually reduce such a dependence is indeed necessary.

Apiculture with low upfront cost and relatively less technical demand is a practical option for affected communities. From another perspective,Farms around apiculture habitat will also benefit from the colonization of native pollinators.

Step I

Step II

Step III

Step IV

Creating a series of wetland habitat along river bunds to upgrade regional resilience on flooding and at the same time, enhance water storage capacity on the landscape

Planting pollinator-favored plants along edges of village tracks and road, link fragmented habitat patches together to create an effective corridor to attract native pollinators and other wildlife.

Increase the plantation of orchards to expand pollinator-colonization, so that villagers may further enlarge the positive impacts of the establishment of Village Priority Areas.

The scale and pattern of the orchards plantations are planted to mimic the future development of DSEZ, giving villagers a sense of the massive scale of development.

Patches Typology Analysis:

Application: Village Priority Action Areas A: As a landscape architect, often, landscape process is the driving factor for us to carry out a planning scheme. In the next section, I would briefly explain how landscape process and those strategies are projected to a specific site.

Based on the comparison of the proximity to labour, length of fallow on existing fallow lands, and ecological performance among the four Village Priority Areas, Area A suggests a better sample to demo the application of the landscape strategies mentioned above.

Area A covers approximately 1 square kilometer with 63% of fallow land fallow for over 5 years. With a clean river running through the site, and various lowland woodland scattered along the bunds, area A provides a rather sound foundation to re-establish agriculture matrix.

Project Outcomes

I am going to summarize my presentation today through three outcomes of my project:

1). By creating a cooperation mechanism, the project enhances

villager’s capacity to resist on the potential development in the region;

2). The establishment of Village Priority Action Areas can largely elevate the actual land value of those fallow land. Therefore, this proposal provides an opportunity for villagers to strengthen their the bargaining power as a community in terms of arguing for better compensation in the future;

3). Proposed strategies set out a flexible tool set for villagers to act on when they feel necessary. Hence, I attempted to maximize the flexibility of the project since the development of DSEZ itself is very unpredictable.

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Urban Design Studio HKU 2016 Landscape Archtecture Studio 3

LIU Yi Kun, a Hong Kong native writer once described Mongkok as a place full of people and packed with vehicles. These two factors, indeed, dominated our impression of the region.

However, Mongkok has been through a lot to get to this point. About a decades ago, huge amount of urban renewable projects were launched by Hong Kong Government. Space originally designed for communities gave in to countless commercial buildings. Mongkok is now losing its identity.

Thus the project aims to rethink about district history and its relationship with people’s memory.

Mongkok, Abandoned Market Reimagined Abandoned Market Place: Collecting Regional Memory and Social Life through Street Pensive Project Location: Mongkok, Hong Kong Project Category: Urban Design (Individual Work) Instructors: Echeverri Natalia, Vincci Mak, Jiang Bin

From Bird Street to Shopping Mall

From Tenement to Hotel

From Port to Market Street

After a series of urban Renewal Project, the previous Bird Street was claimed to be a dirty and unwanted area in Mongkok. It is now replaced by an enormous shopping mall.

Mongkok is famous for its tenement urban fabric. However, with more international capital envolved, lots of tenements have been demolished and been replaced by varying fancy hotels.

During an intense reclaimation period in the last century, the coastal line of Mongkok has been transformed to different market street. It is indeed hard for visitors to imagine the original landscape of Mongkok nowadays.

Circulation

Greenery

Sitting

Business

Stores

Transportation

Urban Strategies and Planning Principles: Before and After Comparison

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Mapping Studio HKU 2016 Landscape Architecture Studio 1

“In this studio we explore the landscape of Hong Kong through the places, nonplaces, boundaries, and mirages of Dung Kai-cheung’s Atlas. Paying particular attention to Kai-cheung’s history of Hong Kong cartography, we will sharpen our representational toolset for mapping territories in time and space. Moving from maritime boundaries to human bodies, we will emphasize the importance of scale to the development of successful projects. Rigorous research will be required, and design proposals will be made only through carefully constructed arguments.

Spatial concepts such as edge, boundary, and place, will be explored to rethink the landscape of what Dung Kai -cheung calls the ‘imaginary city.’ ”

--Studio Brief by Andrew Toland & Seth Denizen

The project is splited into three section. In the first section, I collected and mapped out historical news reporting on cross border activities to understand varing boundaries hidden beyond the ground.

Based on the studies of different types of borders, we then chose Canal Road in Causeway Bay as a target sample to explore how multiple layers (historical, physical, geographical, and social) are connectd togather. A 2m*2m*1.5m* model was made in a group of three to represent our observation.

In the last section, we selected IFC as another sample to experiment the relationship between place and antiplace. A 1m*1m*1m* model was madein a group of two to illustrate our imagenation of how a place could be merged with its antiplace conceptually. Most importantly, what is their boundary?

Boundaries in Hong Kong Things Are Not as They Seems: Boundaries, Conflicts and Places through Layers Project Location: Hong Kong Project Category: Landscape Mapping (Group Work) Members: Dora Ho, Minnie Chu & Nicole Leung Instructors: Andrew Toland & Seth Denizen

Mapping the Boundaries

“A boundary is not juest an imitation of the real world, it is actually a fictional moulding of the real world. In the formulation and implementation of the boundary, the world copies the map.�

Dung Kai-Cheung, Atlas, 20

Layer I

Layer II

Layer III

The upper layer explained the relationship between building and ground. After being splited by former topography mesh, all buildings and grounds were lifted to different height based on Hong Kong B1000 Map.

The second layer records main human activities and social boundaries formed by varing activity flows. To structurally support this layer, I used the main circulation as the surface to showcase diverse social interaction.

The third layer introduced the history of Canal Road, including the old market, demolished bridge, as well as reclaimation lines. Built up in brown, audience can easily capture the transformation of the road.

Place and Antiplace

“A ‘plan’ is a plane figure but also a design, a present visualiza-

tion of future form. On the one hand it does not yet exist and is unreal, but on the other hand it is being designed and will be constructed. A plan is thus a kind of fiction, and the meaning of this fiction is inseparable from the design and blueprint. A fiction is not the same as something completely lacki ng any connection with reality.”

Dung Kai-Cheung, Atlas, 56

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Market for Refugee HKU 2016 Concept Competition

An informal public markets economy thrives in Za’atari in three market streets, but often chaotically, and limiting the hope of upward mobility to marginalized populations, markets can, however, provide a structure that fosters self-efficacy among wider population and a regulatory framework that helps grow small businesses, preserve food safety, and make a more attractive public space for refugee inhabitants.

Growing employment opportunities and stable flows of income generated from the marketplace reduce the dependence syndrome and empower the displaced to reture as responsible people in dignity.

Refugees working in such marketplace would have a living sense of rebuilding their normal lives. With adequate support, the displaced could establish their own thriving economy which, once peace was restored, could return and speed recovery.

The Marketplace in this design serves more than a market structure. Skills and knowledge of refugee inhabitants are to be involved whenever it is possible in the planning, construction and management process. Through creating their own shared public space, refugee inhabitant in Za’atari are reclaiming their right to live with dignity. The marketplace enables the refugees themselves to claim ownership over their own geographic and socail spaces. Grbac from Oxford Refugee Studies Centre pointed out that moving from discourse defined by institutional authority to right-based discourse fosters the capacity of refugees in making changes to their space, and moreover, making changes to their lives.

Dust has being a series environmental problem in study area, However, in thei project, we treated it as an opportunity. By mimicing the formation process of a sand dune, we design a series of planting dune system to create a dust free square, which would attract small stakeholders to gather and gradually and spontaneously facilitate the emergence of a market.

Za’atari Refugee Camp, Jordan Seed the Dust: Spontaneous Emergence of Refugee Market, Landscape and Identity Project Location: Jordan Project Category:Competition (Criss Disciplinary Group Work) Members: Li Kan (Social Studies), Yuan Qichang (Finance), & Li Xingfang (Law)

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Small Scale Intervention Design HKU 2016 Urban Farming Study

According to Gregory Bracken, the hist01y of Shanghai Alleyway house, also called Li Long, can be dated back to nineteenth century as the hybrid composition of traditional Chinese courtyard dwelling and western style townhouse. (Bracken, 2015) Incipiently, Chinese people were prohibited to live in French Concession. Due to the mmpus caused by Taiping Rebellion, the first peasant revolt in modem history of China, thousands of millions citizens broke through the border of Concession and settled there. To deal with such a boom of population explosion, the constJ.uction of Li Long house became inevitable. In consideration of cost and construction complexity, Li Long house at that time was built in wood and was closely lining up. (Bracken, 2015) As a result, not only the space got effectively utilized, the real estate agencies also maximized their profits with limited land volume. (Bracken, 2015)Li Long has a very specific layout. There are four major compo­nents: street - main alley - sub-alley- 2 to 3 floor housing. Orthogonality is the most essential spatial features throughout those components.

From street to house, the architec­tures together with the landscape are multi-level-nested th.rough a strict hierarchy and sequence. Such a systematic typology generate an extremely distinctive atmosphere inside (peaceful) and outside (busy) of the alleyway. (Bracken, 2015) In Bracken’s book, he refened to a term proposed

by Nelson I. Wu, “progressive privacy” to explain the phenom­enon.

Inspired by Bracken, in this project, I want to further explore the physical fabric and the identity of Li Long from a different perspective. By taking the advantage of original composition and existing consciousness of community, the idea is to use food, mostly, plantable vegetables and herbs as the start point to design an intervention to help the community establish a sustained system that allow them share their harvest and joy.

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Physical Process on Landscape: Research HKU 2017 Landscape Archtecture Studio 5

The project investigate the physical process and the impacts of the construction of the Small Port in Dawei Special Economic Zone.

The master plan of Dawei Special Economic Zone has constantly been changed and refined ever since the first zoning proposal was launched in 2008.

With an area almost twice as big as Hong Kong island, the region not only covers various distinctive physical features of the landscape, it has also involves lots of social concerns and negotiation. Unstable investment chain, controversial compensation scheme, as well as continually postponed deadline result in severe conflicts among local people, developer and the Myanmar government. Through series of land grasping process, farmlands owned by villagers can no longer support their daily expense, and gradually get abandoned. Although at certain spots on site, farms are still surprisingly growing at the moment, most villagers started to either relocate their family or finding other ways to seek new live-hood.

At the same time, nevertheless major construction of the project has not yet taken place, by reading through the areal photos before and after 2008, and overlapping them with data collected from Hansen forest data base, deforestation has occurred in the region.

Since the zoning plan occupies an enormous area of mangrove forest and oil plant coverage, these two type of plants, without doubt, became the most affected vegetation specious. Further more, the declining mangrove forest has also exacerbated flooding risk along the related sea shore. Take the small port as an example, after the construction and reclamation of this area, the rate of sediment erosion increased dramatically. Without sufficient protection of mangrove belt, flooding area of that spot has enlarged comparably, especially during high tide period.

Small Port, Dawei Special Economic Zone Physical Process and Impacts: the Construction Process of the Small Port and How it Changes the Physical Landscape on Site Project Location: Dawei Sepcial Economic Zone, Myanmar Project Category: Landscape Research (Individual Work) Instructors: Ashley Scott Kelly & Ivan Valin

LNG - FSU

LNG Tanks

N

C

TS

TB

D

-14

m

A

Ship Yard

B

OA

A

-12

m

An

IE Pier

IAT

-12

m

ch

ora

ge

-7

m

Water Break

Coastal Erosion

Sea Wall

The construction of the Small Port changed the trend of coastal erosion dramatically. Through drawings above generated and calculated in ArcGIS, it is clear to tell the speed and area coverd of erosion has increased a lot.

Fill Technique:Rainbow

Transportation

Dreging & Fill

Transportation

Dreging & Fill

Water Break A

B

Drainage Consolidation Consolidation

D

Compacting

Compacting

C

Level VI

Weather & Climate Rain Fall -> Erosion

Level V

Tide and Mangrove Decreasing Mangrove Increasing Flooding Risk

Level IV

After Port Construction Increasing Pollution Increasing Erosion Fishing -> Shipping Industry Gr

ou

Level III

During Port Construction

nd

Increasing Noise & Pollution Increasing Erosion & Soil Deficit Industrial Transformation

Level II

Before Port Construction Fishing Industry

Level I

Sea-bed Ecology

Sea-bed Ecology

Le

ve

l

07

Planning Investigation HKU 2016 Landscape Planning Research Site Location: Expo, Shanghai Instructor: Tiger Lin

In the research, the project focused on the spatial quality and social ecology of the region from three dimensions: public space, infrastructure, and current / potential users.

Overall, since the planning of Expo was based on the principle of serving huge amount of population in a short period, most of architectures and landscapes designs on site are over scaled. As a result the flexibility of site after the event is not as effective as expected.

Accoring to the study of current urban fabrication, I found the entire site was planned through a linear structure. There are three types of programs along the road system: Houtan Park, Pavilion zone and Residential area. Three zones have across over ten blocks, and varying enormous infrastructure situated in between these areas caused severe spatial and social cuttings, as thus, daily users (residents and migrant workers) are not able to make the best use of this space.

In the project, I re-evaluated nine different public space prototyes. Interesting, I found that spaces claimed to be “public� are ussually under use, while spaces with rather ambiguous program orientation are more populor among audience. The conclusion suggests a necessity of creating high quality spaces with spontaneous development potential. As a landscape architect, rather than design another settled public space on site, it would be more valuable to propose a series of small to medium scale interventions to further encourage users to explore the space by themselves.

Overscaled Site: Architectures & Celebration Plaza

Studies and Comparison on Nine Public Space Prototypes

Infrasctructure and Three Linear Cuttings: the Collapse of an After Event Landscape

Migrant Workers’ Accommodation & Temporary Community

Anticipating the Future Urban Fabrication on Expo Site: Structure & Density

Potential & Current Users Gathering Gradients Analysis

Layer I

Layer II

Layer III

Layer IV

The first drawings indicates the gradient of potention gathering of migrant workers within five minutes walking distance from their temporary accommodation to working areas.

The second gradient drawings describes the potention gathering pattern of office workers within fiver minutes walking distance from their office to other public spaces on site.

The third drawings aims to show the gradient of potential meeting area of both communities (office, and migrant worker) within five minutes walking distance from their office/ accomodation.

The last drawings explained the gradient of potential meeting area of both communities within five minutes walking distance from construction area / public spaces.

Project Outcomes

I am going to summarize my presentation today through three outcomes of my project:

1). Challenging the previous planning proposal of former Expo Site of Shanghai;

2). Setting a series of criterias to evaluate the spatial quality of a typical after Event Landscape;

3). Re-defining the position of landscape architect in projects at this scale. We should not design something ‘new’, but rather pro pose effective interventions to help our audience further explore the space by themselves. As thus, they may gradually find the most effective way to utilize the space we create.

WANG Junwen Position of Interest: Landscape Designer | Strategic Landscape Planner junwenxt@gmail.com