INTERSTITIAL HONG KONG EXHIBITIONS
EXAMINING PUBLIC OPEN SPACE IN THE HIGH-DENSITY CITY: INTERSTITIAL HONG KONG
an ontology of small urban spaces in hong kong
Hong Kong has more than 500 Sitting-out Areas and Rest Gardens throughout its urbanized territory. Ranging from 50 – 7,000 sqm, these compact public open spaces are the smallest features of the city’s official network of public open-space amenities. Though cumulatively they account for a significant proportion of Hong Kong’s open space, Sitting-out Areas and Rest Gardens can be hard to find and difficult to access, and they are generally overshadowed by the city’s larger and better-maintained parks. Their ubiquity and uniformity however, allow them to make a tangible impact, not only for their adjacent communities but also within the larger system of political, economic and environmental relationships. The etymology of the term “Sitting-out Area” is a product of Hong Kong’s particular historical context as a British colony. The term can be traced back to late nineteenth century British English, where it is found in the popular press of that time. The Oxford English Dictionary made “Sitting-out Area” an official term in 2016, where it appears as a term designating “a place for sitting outdoors” and “specifically (chiefly Hong Kong English) a small public space with seating in a built-up urban area”. In Cantonese, the name for these spaces is perhaps the most descriptive: known as saam kok see hang (三角屎坑) or “three-cornered shit-pit”, the term is a tacit recognition of their marginal status among the open spaces in the city. Parks and greenbelts replicate nature in the city and have long been recognized as providing an essential buffer to the ills of urban life. Nature vs. City is an intuitive and practical dichotomy in the modern, industrializing world that has long formed the backbone of theory and practice in urban and regional planning. But in recent decades, a wide range of disciplines, from hard sciences to post-modern philosophy, have contributed to an expanded notion of nature. Likewise, our understanding of the metropolis has become more nuanced as social scientists and urban theorists have complicated notions of space and publicness in the modern city. The result is a growing discourse on the city as an ecology in which urban and natural systems overlap, cooperate and hybridize. Ideas of openness and publicness are far from concrete, but are relative and negotiable. It is in this context that the practice of creating small-scale, opportunistically-achieved, networked open spaces has emerged. And it is in this context that Hong Kong’s Sitting-out Areas and Rest Gardens must be cast. Many cities have recently initiated projects to build pocket parks, micro-parks and parklets as a strategy to provide adequate and accessible public open space in densely developed districts. City planners and managers have embraced this new class of green space for its environmental, economic and health benefits. These small spaces, especially when measured together, can be shown to reduce the urban heat island effect and to measurably improve a city’s environmental impact through their ecological services. Seen individually, these projects are quick, visible projects – miniature commitments to public welfare at the scale of the street. They have a measurable impact on property values, walkability, and social well-being. Residents often benefit when small parks can repurpose underutilized or undevelopable sites. But small public open-space interventions can also be tools of urban renewal, diverting public space and investment for private benefit while erasing its pre-existing ecological or social value. Hong Kong’s Sitting-out Areas can be evaluated and critiqued along any one of these dimensions. They can be seen as a legitimate practice of space-making and landscape planning, with the potential to create meaningful benefits for individual sites and for the overall urban system. But unlike the coherently planned and managed micropark programs in San Francisco, Philadelphia or London; Hong Kong’s Sitting-out Areas are the products of an ad-hoc bureaucratic process. Though each Sitting-out Area and Rest Garden contributes to a fulfillment of the city’s overall green-space allocation guidelines, there are no clear expectations at the level of the site. This leaves the outcomes related to community, geology, ecology or history, ultimately, undefined.
dissemination & awards
This project is a finalist for a 2019 RIBA President’s Award for Research. (Confidential) The project was disseminated within a public realm. Exhibit openings and discussions were held at each of the three exhibitions, and were aimed at a body of professionals and academics in the field. The version of the exhibition held in Guangzhou was curated by a well-regarded art institution (the Fei Museum) and was reviewed in local press. In addition to exhibitions, the research appeared in conference papers, talks, and journal articles as listed below.
The research was published by the authors in 2017 as journal article: “Interstitial Hong Kong” in Landscape Architecture Frontiers 5
The project was shared in a paper “From Miniature to Synchronizer: An ontology of small urban spaces in Hong Kong” delivered at the 2018 Great Asian Street Symposium in Singapore.
In Hong Kong, we were invited by the Civic Exchange to lecture on our findings to professionals, academics, and student groups.
The research work was documented in the exhibition, Sparkle! Journal of a City Foot Soldier, curated by Sara Wong at Hong Kong’s Oi! Gallery.
links to EXHIBITION details
28.10.2017 – 05.01.2018 Shanghai
function
Case Study Research
curator
Ivan Valin, Xiaoxuan Lu, Susanne Trumpf
Status
Ended
TYPE
Public Exhibitions & Interactive Workshops
LOCATION
Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai
YEAR
2017-2018