ALTERED ESTATES | COMMON GROUND
The need for cost-effective public rental housing in Hong Kong is an issue that brings together social, economic, political and architectural interests. The current deficiency of affordable housing supply taxes the city’s collective resources. The need to conserve land and habitat, to make use of existing housing estates and sites, and the limited supply of places that are both affordable and desirable for young families and singletons provides an opportunity to extend the systems that support living in the city. Working with our Team Partners on issues of extending and augmenting the collective spaces and collective infrastructures of our city, Altered estates | Common grounds presents a quartet of research-based speculative projects. Each piece examines strategies for altering and extending public housing at the scale of the block, the estate, the site, and the territory. Each model is presented in a dynamic perspectival-diorama style within one quadrant of the Team’s proposed 2.7m x 1.7m window. Our models, increasing in scale and urban scope, describe nested architectural and landscape/urban strategies for extending public space, extending water economy, extending the ecology of the ground, and, finally, of extending infrastructural networks. Working with students and researchers from two universities, the project ultimately speculates on how increased density and environmental performance standards can trigger new architectures, new landscapes, and new modes of “living together” productively in Hong Kong.
Client
La Biennale di Venezia
Collaborators
The University of Hong Kong, David Erdman (Pratt Institute)
Status
To be exhibited
TYPE
Exhibition
Size
2.7m x 1.7m
materials
Wood, paper, plaster, multimedia
LOCATION
Venice, Italy
YEAR
2020