THE LEFTOVER CITY:

URBANISM\ARCHITECTURE

BI-CITY BIENNALE HK 2013

Fall 2013

Company: RAD (Research Architecture Design)

PROJECT STATEMENT

As a Hong Kong based architectural and interior design office, this is our principal place of research and practice.

Therefore, if we are talking about a city, we choose to talk about Hong Kong.

We think that Hong Kong is not an Ideal City, and that no such city exists, except in our individual minds. The term itself has no meaning to us, it seems simplistic, and hints at sterility.

Instead we take inspiration from the tensions, and the many opposing political, economic and cultural forces that have always shaped and continue to shape Hong Kong.

Looking to the past, we see in Hong Kong a resilient city that is able to rely on its flexible Urban ‘DNA’ to reproduce itself and provide meaningful (and profitable) space at any scale, and everywhere. This is a city that uses all of its ‘edges’.

In Hong Kong any left-over spaces, the ‘edges’, from the early years of the colony to recent times, have been reused again and again, with changing human needs constantly transforming these forgotten or neglected spaces into a lively part of the city. There is no waste here.

Just as we have used the left-over spaces and edges here to exhibit our ideas, we imagine an opportunity to help develop those left-over spaces at the edge of the city. We can define areas and spaces that the global economic machine has not yet co-opted, temporary left over corners where people invent and assign function, forgotten floors ready to be reused, bridges waiting to be occupied.

Perhaps by finding and claiming these places, we can also help to rediscover important forgotten and hidden clues, and to restore some dreams and imagination to this city.

So please enjoy the show, and have fun imagining your own ideas for the ‘Edges’ of this ever changing and surprising city that we hope will never be ‘Ideal’.