In the last two posts we looked at semispherical buildings and structures like igloos, so let's move instead today onto something less reassuring and more threatening like skyscrapers and tower blocks via a collateral event from the 16th International Architecture Exhibition (on until 25th November 2018), in Venice.
The event in question - entitled "Vertical Fabric: Density in Landscape" - is Hong Kong's participation, and it is curated by Professor Weijen Wang (Design Director of Wang Weijen Architecture) in collaboration with co-curators Thomas Chung and Thomas Tsang, and managing curator Grace Cheng.
For this project the curatorial team invited 94 local, mainland, Taiwan and overseas architects to design 111 towers in different forms.
The model towers on displays are ideas to re-define the city's tower typology and provide innovative visions of urbanism.
Professor Wang stated in a press release about the project: "Hong Kong is unique for the compactness of its vertical architecture and urban form in high density. The Hong Kong Exhibition is a platform for dialogue with the world, shaping a discourse of Hong Kong's urbanism and vertical architecture."
One of the main inspiration for the project is the book Dal grattacielo al tessuto verticale (From skyscrapers to vertical fabric) by Italian architect Giusi Ciotoli, combined with a work by Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie that explores the history of vertical structures from the the Tower of Babel to church towers passing through Chinese pagodas.
The towers designed for the "Vertical Fabric" event occupy the courtyard of the space exhibition in Campo della Tana (Castello 2126; right in front of the main Arsenale entrance) and some of the rooms on the ground floor, reproducing the density and compactness of Hong Kong's urban form.
The main idea behind this installation is indeed reproducing the vertical view that a person would get looking down on Hong Kong's Central from the Victoria Peak.
The slender towers that can be seen from this view create a wave of structures that spring up from the sloping terrain down to the harbour front, spreading along the water edge as a belt of tightly woven texture.
The towers establish the city's dominating typology, governing the urban skyline and shaping daily urban and architectural experiences.
The tower models recreated for the Hong Kong installation align with the main theme of the Architecture Biennale – "Freespace" – as they incubate visions for vertical public and communal free spaces, trying to tackle issues such as global challenges in technology, environment, society and culture.
Some of the structures are conceptual or fantasy projects, others are actually under construction, all of them are designed to bring together people and create urban microcosms, questioning visitors about life in high-rise apartment blocks.
Most models are based on fixed infrastructures of 360mm square plan extrusion and 2m in height representing the typical Hong Kong tower architecture, but the projects and materials employed to present them are very different.
Each model integrates indeed disparate materials that help architects and designers to re-define the typological, spatial and facade potential while maintaining the constrains of the tower's envelope as a collective urban form.
The internal structure of one tower is divided into Tetris-like pieces ("Tetris Living" by Au Fai), sponges are employed to redefine spaces in another ("Sponge Tower" by Rocco Design Architects), while coloured pencils offer colour and an unusual pattern to another model ("My Freespace Tower" by Chris Law/The Oval Partnership).
In one structure conjoined towers with interconnecting footbridges reminiscent of the concrete branches in Lina Bo Bardi's SESC Pompeia ("Residential Tower HK: Social Incubator" by Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto) offer residents the chance to walk in the sky and bump into neighbours as well.
Some of the models address issues of sustainability suggesting the possibility of covering the tower in photovoltaic cells so it can generate a new life and its own energy ("The Living Tower" by Hong Kong-based architects Sarah Lee and Yutaka Yano); others are made with stacked wooden bird cages and hint instead at architectural imprisonment ("The Sadness Behind Urban Sophistication" by Barrie Ho Architecture Interiors).
Studying the models from close up can offer interesting revelations: one is made with crudely cut grey foam ("Hatching-Density in Density" by Fernando Menis); another is inhabited by belligerent figures waging war on each other ("Conditional Tower" by Peter Ferretto), and a third one is filled with stacked single-family monolith-like grey houses ("Primitive City and Architecture" by Jun Igarashi Architects).
While professional architects will find the projects intriguing for their focus on verticality, creative minds who may not know much about architecture can still go around this forest of towers and get inspired by the materials, space divisions, forms, shapes and colours employed to make them.
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