Opening Remarks by Mrs LAM CHENG Yuet Ngor, Carrie, GBS, JP, Chief Secretary for Administration HKSARG
Group photos
Opening Address and Keynote by Sir Terry Farrell CBE, Principal of Farrells
Presentation Topic: Promoting Design Quality – PLACE Reviews
Keynote by Dr Rocco YIM, Executive Director of Rocco Design Architects Ltd
Presentation Topic: Of Dreams and Reality
Panel Response
Respondent and Moderator : Professor Bernard LIM Wan-fung JP, Immediate Past President of Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design
Panel Members : Mr Laurence Liauw/ Mr Sion Edwards/Sir Terry Farrell CBE/ Mr Rocco S K Yim
Mr Martin Joseph Barry, Founder & Chairman of reSITE
Presentation Topic: reSITE: Collaborative Ideas for Livable, Breathable Cities
Mr Christopher Kin Chung Law, JP, Founding Director of The Oval Partnership Limited
Presentation Topic: Place Making -The Hong Kong Stories
Panel Response
Respondent and Moderator : Mr Vincent Ng, President of The Hong Kong Institute of Architects
Panel Members : Dr Jianxiang Huang/ Dr. Francisco Vizeu Pinheiro/ Mr Martin Joseph Barry/ Mr Christopher Kin Chung Law,JP
Lunch
Professor Zhu Wenyi, Dean, School of Architecture of Tsinghua University
Presentation Topic: Place Marking
Dr Stanley Yip, Professor of School of Urban Planning and Design, Peking University
Presentation Topic: Urban Regeneration : Towards a Low Carbon Approach in Chinese Cities
Mr Ian Brownlee, Managing Director of Masterplan Limited
Presentation Topic: Its not about design, its about changing peoples behavior
Panel Response
Respondent and Moderator : Prof. John NG Cheuk-yee, Director of The Hong Kong Green Building Council
Panel Members : Prof Mee Kam Ng/ Ms Canny Ma/ Professor Zhu Wenyi/ Dr Stanley Yip/ Mr Ian Brownlee
Dr Kim Dovey, Professor of Architecture & Urban Design of Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne
Presentation Topic: Transforming Melbourne’s Urban Waterfront
Mr Lee Siang Tai, Vice Chairman, World Green Building Council Honorary Advisor of Singapore Green Building Council Group
Presentation Topic: Love our Cities
Mr Duncan Pescod, GBS, JP, Chief Executive Officer of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority
Presentation Topic: West Kowloon Cultural District : Place Making in the City
Moderator and Panel Discussion
Respondent and Moderator : Mr Stefan Krummeck, Director of Farrells
Panel Members : Mr Donald Choi / Ms Casey Wang/Mr Kim Dovey/ Mr Lee Siang Tai/ Mr Duncan Pescod
Dr Peter Cookson Smith closed the Conference by summarising the event from notes taken during the day. These are set out below:
First the Keynote Papers
In realising Betterment Initiatives Sir Terry Farrell hit the nail right on the head in his UK national review of architecture and the built environment – in particular the latter, because it concerns the public realm where we should be promoting high standards of design. However we cannot abrogate our responsibilities to the quality of the environment in general, and I think this is the key message – sustainable environment embraces green infrastructure, public transport, and most certainly place making. The potential relevance to Hong Kong is less to do with promoting architecture than in helping the built environment create public benefit with a focus on the city. In this respect good design is indivisible from good planning. We do need an Urban Design Review in Hong Kong that will carry weight, and we also need a champion to raise our overall standards. Too much of our public realm is the result of miscellaneous standards, building codes, zoning conditions and ordinances which give us highly functional value engineering without necessary place-making potential.
Terry gave us a very comprehensive account of what we need in HK. The Farrell Review covers many aspects, including education and online resources in schools; a common foundation year for built environment students; PLACE is fundamental to urban design and is made up of -Planning, Landscape, Architecture, Conservation and Engineering – or should this be ‘Environment’.
Decision makers should receive training in design literacy. Every town and city should have an Urban Room or even Virtual Urban Rooms. We need someone to ‘put the pieces together’ – i.e. a Champion who can look at things comprehensively and make overriding decisions.
Rocco Yim in effect echoes this dilemma. As he states, we can both love and feel repelled by the city at one and the same time. We respect the constraints on development and are concerned about standard of living expectations. Ultimately we need to be even-minded but we lack a grand vision through which to determine urban betterment. What we too often end up with is an unhappy compromise that tries to keep all parties happy, even the conflicting ones, so one way or another we have to make clear choices.
Dreams must be anchored in reality. We need to remind ourselves of what we like and want, and what we don’t.
Rocco poses a very relevant question – how do we move forward?
• Building height – this is inevitable but needs to be checked in relation to cityscape intelligent distribution of height and density;
• Open space – we need better quality not merely quantity;
• Connectivity – this needs to apply in both spatial and visual - inter-related and interactive;
• Heritage – we need to talk about energising – creative interventions of the new with the old;
• Architecture contributes to ambience of a place and we need more than one typology. We need new laws that give us more innovative design; and
• And we urgently need a review of the Buildings Ordinance.
We need always to bear in mind that urbanism must be greater than the sum of the parts.
Laurence Liauw reinforced the need for urban design ‘Champions’, and to examine ‘soft’ rather than ‘hard’ issues.
Interesting Questions were raised as to what is at stake if we do not meet opportunities such as connectivity with PRD, urban regeneration, harbourfront authority, liveability and sustainability – a lot of food for thought there.
Sion Edwards reinforced this by stating that we need to manage change and drive forward at many levels, and cited Jane Jacobs ‘that cities do not serve the people unless they are created by people’.
Session One was on Realising Betterment Initiatives
Martin Barry founder of reSite struck much the same message of collaboration but in a somewhat different sense in discussing the role that civic activists are playing in Central and Eastern Europe in making city environments, using the principles of landscape urbanism. Resite has grown into a collaborative platform of partners and experts working with city leaders to best shape more resilient, liveable and competitive cities. The central message was that we can extend our understanding of city problems and emerging issues through more focussed initiatives.
The focus should be on Leadership, Vision, Education and Transparency which act as catalysts for cities that are resilient, focussed on urban design and public space. There is an emphasis on developing a network – it reminded me that the Congress for the New Urbanism in the USA has done something equally progressive on a slightly different level over the past 20 years by energising so many concerned urban design professionals from different disciplines which is actively changing the direction of residential development in USA. Martin also emphasised on Research Advisory; Online Media; Events and Competition; and trying to achieve an international audience.
I particularly liked the notion of hubs of activity and Martin referred to the writing of Saskia Sassen, probably a latter-day Jane Jacobs. I shared a stage with Saskia of the Salzburg Global Seminar on Urbanisation in 2013 and she was in Hong Kong talking very sensibly at the Nobel Conference a year ago on global warming.
Chris Law extended ideas on community participation on the basis that the public is the city’s greatest creative asset, and discussed three participatory initiatives and research programmes based on inherent community creativity in shaping innovative and regenerative proposals for parts of Hong Kong’s urban area.
He also came up with a great title - The Hong Kong Urban Genius. I also liked the very real issue of ‘Living at the Limit’.
He poses a very interesting question – how can urban design and environmental activists extend their influence, knowledge and skills through the community, and posited the notion of ‘urban discovery’ through stories about the people and memory of urban districts. An established fact is that people do actually take every opportunity to get involved in community activities – for example the Instagram Group. I shall definitely be at ‘Very Aberdeen Instagram gathering on15th May’ to see for myself. And finally Chris raised the sensible linkage between the Good Neighbour Scheme, the Local Community and the General Public .
I liked Chris’s comments on the benefits of ‘muddling through’ – yes the best cities are not perfect – cities of monuments are not necessary cities for people.
In response Francisco Pinheiro also made a very interesting intervention talking about the evolution and changes in some of the excellent urban rehabilitation projects in Macau, and Jianxiang Huang talked about the transition of ‘ideas to reality’. In Hong Kong we have an almost unique high density urbanism of impermanence and reinvention that allows us to push forward in terms of a new urbanism.
Vincent Ng the Moderator likened this process to a Jigsaw Puzzle with different pieces, and brought to an end the morning session.
The afternoon Session changed course to Sustainable Revitalisation, and commenced with a presentation by Prof Zhu Wenyi from Tsinghua University.
As we know Beijing is a very large city even by international standards and there are many concealed, forgotten spaces, or what Prof Zhu called disadvantaged spaces. So place making becomes a means of identifying these spaces, their uses and their value to the city and community, through their various typologies and the way they act to change the nature of their localities.
Some of these such as cemeteries – a somewhat taboo subject, reminds me of Stephen Tang’s work with ASD in completely re-shaping our approach to columbarium and crematoria in Hong Kong to both work better and to integrate them positively within urban districts. To successfully integrate such faciltiies within the community takes both skill and commitment, but to turn negative views into positive ones is a real mark of successful urban design.