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IN BETWEEN HONG KONG 中港

p a r a || e | | a b

Géraldine BorioCaroline Wüthrich

p a r a || e | | a b - Géraldine Borio, Caroline Wüthrich - editors

version for internet_ July 2011

www.parallellab.com

c 2011 para || e | |ab all rights reserved

-

Hong Kong, a small portion of territory on the edge of the Chinese coast line is constituted by a peninsula and a fistful of small islands. At least 75% of the territory is an uneven topography covered by an intense tropical jungle but along the shore every flat area is investigated by a concrete jungle which vies with the natural greenery.

Travelling more closely through the artificial scenery of Hong Kong we see humans who are constently trying to fit in the unstable surroundings. What are their strategies to accommodate themselves to these mega-scale phenomena?

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CONTENTS

ESSAYS

Statement on edge public spaces 18-19 Hong Kong 26-29

Lower the view point 36-37

Interstices 47-47

BIBLIOGRAPHY 57

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聲明

杰拉爾丁Borio卡羅琳Wuthrich香港

在談到亞洲的當代現實，我們很遠，從都市空間相干獎品。極端的建築密度，尺度戲劇性的遭遇，城市層重疊，所有這些形態的事故，可以被看作是所謂的實際的“城市病”的大都市來源。

事實上，在這個快速增長的背景不同

STATEMENT

Geraldine Borio Caroline WuthrichHong Kong

Speaking about Asian’s contempo-rary reality we are very far from an urbanism which prizes the spatial coherence. Extreme built density, dramatic encounters of scales, over-lapping of urban layers, all these mor-phological accidents could be seen as sources of the so-called actual “urban disease” of metropolises.

Indeed in this fast growing context the different evolution phases are mostly superimposed without any consideration for encounters of dif-ferent scales but from these situa-tions results a large variety of urban unplanned spaces which do not nec-essarily fit the macro-scale develop-ment agenda.

Strangely enough these “edge public spaces” are not planned for the pub-lic use but are belonging to the public domain and contain this in-between public/private conditions that allows room for a subtitle form of appro-priation.When travelling more closely through the artificial scenery of Hong Kong we see humans who are con-tently trying to fit in the unstable sur-roundings. What are their strategies to accommodate themselves to these mega-scale phenomena?

的演化階段，大多是疊加沒有任何考慮不同規模的遭遇戰，但這些情況導致的城市無計劃的空間，這不一定適應的宏觀發展議程

的種類繁多。

奇怪的是這些“邊緣的公共空間”沒有計劃供公眾使用，但都屬於公共領域和包含在公共/私人之間的條件下，允許字幕的形式通過人工的風景旅遊更加緊密的appropriation.When香港，誰是美滿試圖以適應不穩定的環境中我們看到人類。什麼是他們的策略，以適應這些規模龐大的現象？有了這本書，我們希望把公眾的注意力，對香港居民，特別是發達國家的能力，以適應城市岩漿之間空隙自己

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With this book we would like to bring the attention of the public on the way how Hong Kong’s inhabitant devel-oped particularly skills of ability to adapt themselves in-between the in-terstitial spaces of the urban magma. The aim is to bring the view point at the street level and discover an infin-ity richness of creative examples of space appropriation which are every day reacting to the changing environ-ment.

的技能。其目的是使在街道層面的觀點，並發現一個無限豐富的創意空間撥款的例子是每天不斷變化的環境做出反應。注意。对我们来说也是一个机会，走在了居民与他们的关系，有时不熟悉的，坚固或以上规模的环境招待理解的深。本文的目的是要考虑引进这些空间的新途径，并建议亦乐创作的合作，这将导致我们的一本书出版。我们打算提出这个建议，亦乐书创作的动机，是建立一个与在当地建立和从事编辑和外部的文化方针和香港城市丰富的合作意愿。

我们用我们的外国人为工具的背景，保持一个外部的局势可能会很熟悉的地方社区，但它确实非常独特，这有助于提高日常生活的问候。在更广泛的方面，这本书是一个进程研究人与人之间的密在香港的个案研究城市形态的互动主题的一步。

(Chinese text for reference only)

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HONG KONG

Geraldine Borio Caroline WuthrichHong Kong Hong Kong, a small portion of terri-tory on the edge of the Chinese coast line is constituted by a peninsula and a fistful of small islands. At least 75% of the territory is an uneven topography covered by an intense tropical jungle

香港

杰拉爾丁Borio卡羅琳Wuthrich香港 香港，中國沿海線邊緣的一小部分的領土上所構成的一個半島和小島嶼大把。至少有75％的領土是不平坦的地形，一個強烈的熱帶叢林覆蓋，但每一個平坦的區域，沿岸石屎森林與自然綠化爭奪調查。

誰知道哪一方在這場戰役中勝出呢？機器工作日內和夜間趨於平緩的斜坡，並填寫在海上。但如果是隱藏的限制，以防止崩潰的平衡？在事實的性質，堅持以岩石強度持有奪回人類文明所產生的每件意想不到的能力。一天一天匍匐扭曲周圍的混凝土壁柱，微觀粒子在關節的水滲漏，一旦在打擊龍出現強風和雨，集一切為了暗中與。不過這個遭破壞的土地，沿著歷史表明本身是一片歡呼的難民庇護。由游泳，乘船，在火車下或以上的移民帶著他們自己保存的財富或他們的神，但不拖累自己無關緊要的貨物。大多數移民大西遊記前延長他們的休息和逐步吸收城市成千上萬的靈魂。

時間的推移，人們不得不以適應自己，與最低生活保障。家庭重用小商品木屋前能夠轉移到現代化和高效率的公營房屋建設的難民船。當時，只有至少七人被允許分享168平方英尺（15.4平方米）單位，並在中國所有的食譜在同鍋。

but along the shore every flat area is investigated by a concrete jungle which vies with the natural greenery.

In this battle who knows which side will win? The machines are working days and night to flatten the slopes and fill in the sea. But where is the hid-den limit which prevents the collapse of equilibrium? In fact the strength of the nature that sticks to the rocks holds unexpected capacities in recap-turing every pieces produced by the human civilization. Day by day creep-ers warps around the concrete pilas-ter, micro-particles of water seeps in the joints and once in a while the blow of the dragon appears covertly with strong wind and rain and set every-thing in order.

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Nevertheless along the history this wrecked land showed itself being a cheering refugee shelter. By swim-ming, by boat, in, under or above trains migrants carried with them their saved wealth or their gods but didn’t encumber themselves with inessential goods. Most of the mi-grants extended their rest before the big journey to the West and gradually the city absorbed thousands of souls.

Time passed by and people had to accommodate themselves with the minimum for living. Families reused their refugee boats for building smalls huts before being able to move to modern and efficient public housing. At that time only a minimum of seven people were allowed to share a 168

給人一個家在有限的土地可建部分迫切需要採取的優先級最高的城市規劃和發起的城市，我們今天所看到的天際線。隨著經濟的蓬勃發展，麵條塔上升，但幸運的是, 年輕一代已經熟悉，適應他們的生活空間擠壓的技能。

政治制度的改變，香港市民看到了他們的幼根不斷操縱。保持這種顫動狀態，無疑是一種有效的方式，人口始終保持在發熱的心情。

這些年來在香港的人進行了培訓，這一共同的規則，沒有什麼是常年在這裡到處仍然無休止地得到新的層次充斥各地的城市全景。

香港的身份肯定是不能被發現在石頭和歷史符號的價值。但它是一個巨大的生命中包含城市的身份，真實的表達：社會對如何在日常生活中，本身在其高度密集的內置上下文之間扮演的具體方式。

通過香港的人造風景，我們看到誰是constently試圖在不穩定的環境適合人類的旅行更加密切。什麼是他們的策略，以適應這些規模龐大的現象？

sqf (15.4m2) flat and recipes from all over china where meeting in the same pan.

The urgent ne-cessity of giving people a home in a limited buildable por-tion of land was taken as the highest priority of city planning and initiated the skyline of the city we see today. As the economy thrived, the spaghet-ti towers rose up but fortunately the

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young generations were already fa-miliar with the skills of adapting their life to squeezed spaces.

Political system changed and Hong Kong people saw their young roots being constantly manipulated. Main-taining this quivering state is un-doubtedly an efficient way to keep the population always in a febrile mood.

Along the years people in Hong Kong were trained to share this common rule that nothing is perennial in here and everywhere around the urban panorama gets still endlessly glutted with new layers.

Definitely Hong Kong’s identity is a value that can’t be found in stones and historic symbols. But it is an enor-mous life-box which contains the real expression of the city’s identity: The specific way how the society express-es itself in the everyday life and plays in-between its highly dense built con-text.

Travelling more closely through the artificial scenery of Hong Kong we see humans who are constently trying to fit in the unstable surroundings. What are their strategies to accommodate themselves to these mega-scale phe-nomena?

在街道的每一個角落的居民的巨大能力克服與創造力的限制了這種生活的藝術，這是一個在香港的身份的重要組成部分。

我們的目標是，以顯示這些微型規模的干預行動是如何露出了真正的自由和獨立的表達，這是必要條件，在不成比例的情況下維持一個體面的心理狀況。

(Chinese text for reference only)

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At every corner of the streets the in-habitants’ immense ability to over-come the restrictions with creativity brings out this art of life which is a major part of the Hong Kong’s iden-tity.

We aim to show how these micro scale interventions are revealing a veritable expression of freedom and independence which are the impera-tive conditions to maintain a decent psychological condition in a dispro-portional context.

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降低視點

杰拉爾丁Borio卡羅琳Wuthrich香港

望著遠遠高於城市，是一種方式來了解如何宏大規模的干預，如大型複雜或高速公路橋樑，可以影響整個形態的形狀，但實際上它恰恰是在微觀尺度的地層，修改空間對人類的日常生活的最明顯的影響。然後會發生什麼，當我們在城市規劃從街道層面看嗎？

混凝土巨型結構說謊，因為空間的背景，但我們人利用城市空間的活力層捕獲。在人類的空氣，光線，反射，紋理規模變動影響居民感知的空間想像的代表性的城市，這是建立在每個人的大腦的主要成分。

這恰恰是在微觀尺度的地層空間的修改，有一個對人類的最切實的影響。此外之間的私人和公共領域在一個城市，這些概念都先後沿白天與黑夜的重疊邊界如何界定？通過兩維表示，期待已不再適應了解城市的岩漿，但我們必須降低我們的觀點，在空間性的放大，以了解從內部的都市生活。繼在街上這種直覺是這book.During我們現場調查的起點，我們看到在常人是如何生活的城市。漸漸地，我們發現，我們知道，我們所愛的城市，不僅摩天大樓明信片圖像構成，但確實是由地面上的一個活潑的微觀尺度網絡。我們的意見，進一步為我們的城市有代表性的人能夠看到真正的公共空間的微撥款的影響。

LOWER THE VIEW POINT

Geraldine Borio Caroline WuthrichHong Kong

Looking at cities from far above is a way to understand how macro-scale interventions such as mega-complex or expressway bridges can influence the shape of the whole morphology but in fact it is precisely in the micro-scale stratum that the modification of space has a most tangible impact on human’s everyday life.What happens then when we look at the urbanism from the street level?

Concrete mega structures lie as spa-tial background but the vibrant layer of people using the city space catches us. At the human scale movements of air, light, reflection, texture which in-fluence the inhabitant’s perception of the space are main ingre-dients of the imaginaries’ r e p r e s e n t a -tion of the city which is built up in everyone brains.

It is precisely in the micro-scale stratum that the modi

(Chinese text for reference only)

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fication of space has a most tangible impact on human beings. Moreover how to define the border between the private and the public domain in a city where those notions are succes-sively overlapping along the day and the night?

Looking through a two dimensional representation is no longer adapted to understand the urban magma but we have to lower our viewpoint and zoom in the spatiality in order to un-derstand urbanism from inside. Following this intuition going in the street was the starting point of this book.During our on-site investiga-tions we looked at how everyday peo-ple are living the city. Gradually we discovered that the city we know and we love is not only constitute by the postcard image of skyscraper but in-deed by a lively micro-scale network on the ground level. Going further in our observations were able to see the real impact of the micro-appropriation of the public space by the people on the represen-tation we have of the city.

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空隙

杰拉爾丁Borio卡羅琳Wuthrich香港

城市肌理進行分析時，我們所吸引，這是宏觀尺度結構的減法後的遺骸（塔，大型結構），道路網絡和整個城市結構的野生叢林間的差距經常類型學。不同於傳統的歐洲城市表示，香港是不是一個地方，在那裡可以找到像花園，廣場，廣場開放給市民使用，而是一個層間的網絡，我們稱之為“邊緣的公共空間”的空間。

事實上，狹長的後巷是狂熱的城市緻密的象徵剩餘空間和市區岩漿含有本質的特徵。

從宏觀尺度的空隙看，主要用於兩座建築物之間作為緩衝帶，但在微觀尺度的水平間的差距，氧氣泡在水泥叢林中篩選工作。它們含有之間的私人和公共空間的擴張邊界。例如：洗衣機或將採取了太多的空間內安裝一個小單位在後巷外的儲藏室。但很頻繁，我們可以觀察到，在這些多功能孔的 私人空間擴展的現象，採取各種形式驚人的風景。在這本書中的攝像機觀察這些現象一樣，如果我們用放大鏡。

INTERSTICES

Geraldine Borio Caroline WuthrichHong Kong

When undertaking the analysis of the urban fabric we were attracted by the recurrent typology of intersti-tial gaps which are remains after the subtraction of macro-scale construc-tions (towers, mega structures), road network and wild jungle to the whole urban fabric. Unlike traditional repre-sentation of the European city, Hong Kong is not a place where can be find open spaces like garden, plaza, square dedicated to the public use but rather a layer of interstitial network that we call “edge public spaces”.

Indeed the narrow and long back al-leys are emblematic residual spaces of the frenetic urban densification and contain intrinsically the charac-teristics of the urban magma.

Seen from the macro-scale intersti-tial spaces are mainly used as buffer

(Chinese text for reference only)

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zone between two buildings but on the micro-scale level interstitial gaps work as oxygen bubbles which filter in the concrete jungle. They contain the dilated boundary between the private and the public space. For instance: the washing machine or the storage room which would take too much space inside a small flat installed outside in the back alleys. But very frequently we can observe that the phenomenon of the extension of the private space in these multipurpose holes take various form of stagger-ing sceneries. In this book the camera observe those phenomenon like if we would use a magnifying glass.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Made in Tokyo” by Atelier Bow-Wow: Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. Kaijima Institute Publishing Co.,Ltd, Tokyo, 2001.

“Pet Architecture Guide Book” Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Tokyo Institute of Technology Tsukamoto Architectural Laboratory & Atelier Bow-Wow, Tokyo, 2001.

“Guerrilla Wars in Everyday Public Spaces: Reflections and Inspirations for Designers”, Kin Wai Michael Siu, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, International Journal of Design Vol.1 No.1 2007.

“Street furniture design”, Siu, K. W. M. (2004). In T. P.Leung (Ed.), Hong Kong: Bet-ter by design (pp. 77-86). Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2004.

“My 32m2 Apartment, a 30 Year Transformation” by Gary Chang, MCCM Creation, Hong Kong, 2008.

“Introduction to Micro-Urbanism”, Chi Tinan, http://www.microurbanism.net

“Tokyo Style” by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, ed. Kyoto Shoin, Tokyo, 1997.

“Faire son nid dans la ville”, Archilab 2006 Japon. Ed. HYX, 2006.

“Our life in West Kowloon” Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), 2007.

“West Kowloon: Where Life, Heritage and Culture Meet” Society for Community Or-ganisation (SoCO), 2008.

“Hk Lab” by Map Office + Stewart Clegg, Norman Jackson Ford, Judith Hollow and Alice Ming Wai Jim, Hong Kong, ed. Map Office, Hong Kong, 2002.

“Bow-wow from POST-BUBBLE CITY” Atelier Bow-wow. Atelier Bow-Wow publisher, 2006.

“After the crash: Architecture in Post-Bubble Japan”, Thomas Daniell, Princeton Ar-chitectural Press, 2008.

« Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed

Architecture», Bernard Rudofsky, 1964.

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IN BETWEEN HONG KONG 中港

p a r a || e | | a b

Géraldine BorioCaroline Wüthrich

p a r a || e | | a b - Géraldine Borio, Caroline Wüthrich - editors

version for internet_ July 2011

www.parallellab.com

c 2011 para || e | |ab all rights reserved

-

Hong Kong, a small portion of territory on the edge of the Chinese coast line is constituted by a peninsula and a fistful of small islands. At least 75% of the territory is an uneven topography covered by an intense tropical jungle but along the shore every flat area is investigated by a concrete jungle which vies with the natural greenery.

Travelling more closely through the artificial scenery of Hong Kong we see humans who are constently trying to fit in the unstable surroundings. What are their strategies to accommodate themselves to these mega-scale phenomena?