“Keep Wanchai …”

Related Staff : Vincci MAK

Assistant: Saw Yu Nwe Sandra

This project took Wanchai public space as a study ground, to explore the roles and designs of urban landscapes in Hong Kong. Wanchai is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Hong Kong. Its developments and transformations through the years provoke new challenges to what it means by public space in Wanchai, and who it is meant for. This studio started with an exercise to study public spaces in Wanchai, to learn about their history, users’ patterns, modes of development/operation, and space networks. The exercise also aimed to give students some contextual understanding of Wanchai. Secondly, we introduced the design task and its site. At this stage, students were asked to learn about the stakeholders at the site and their interests to the space there. Students observed and analyzed stakeholders’ ways of using the space, and to develop a “design toolkit” for future use. Then, in the third exercise, students came up with a concept site plan, referencing the “design toolkit” they generated in the second exercise, to represent one stakeholder’s interest and expectation at site. In the fourth exercise, students first fine-tuned their concept site plan by incorporating another stakeholder’s expectations to the concept site plan, then developed a site design for the project. To connect back to the initial exploration of Wanchai’s public space, the final exercise required students to tie their project site back to the Wanchai public space network, and to project/derive/speculate a future Wanchai public space masterplan with considerations of development and redevelopment that may happen to the neighborhood in the near future. In conclusion, this studio hoped to introduce site design, masterplanning, programming, and community engagement to students.