ICE @ Hainan: Coffee

For us the fascination of the new Chinese urbanism lies the development of themed cities. They can be based on nearly anything: Flower cities, medical cities and even coffee cities (like in our case) are forming the new urban landscape. Where traditionally a city evolved in all its complexity around trade or defence, the themed urbanism transforms the complexity of cities into a brand. All those new city developments are using similar ingredients that are loaded with an identity, that is either rooted in features found on site and or practices from the region.

Yet the peculiar identity of the region will be scaled from a potential singular point/building to a city. This scalar change has an interesting effect on the development: Imagine you take the Eiffel Tower in Paris and replicate it as many times as possible throughout the city. What used to be unique becomes ubiquitous. As if one is not enough content to give quality. Repetition becomes reassurance of quality.

A usual mix of the city looks like this: A vast trading centre with convention area, sales halls and infrastructure hub is surrounded by hotels, entertainment streets and centres, exhibition areas for the theme, offices and a vast area for residential development. All branded, all themed, all empty for the most part.

When we were approached by the coffee town in Fushan, Hainan, we were fascinated by the idea, that an entire city can evolve around coffee. They took great length to justify the massive development with the obviously delicious local coffee production.

To our surprise, we were greeted by a gate of Phoenix and Dragon instead of giant coffee beans, followed by an ever so popular italian plaza and village of the most bleak character. Nothing seemed to work together as all buildings were either for trade or administration. We couldn't spot any residential development which at least would have added some life to the public spaces. We enjoyed the coffee however. Delicious and really special. We felt sad, that such exquisite taste cannot be mirrored by the urbanism.

Greeted by Phoenix and Dragon:

Plaza and Adminstration:

Iconic Clock Tower:

We were obviously were fascinated by the findings on site and were attracted to the idea of creating a bold statement that takes on the theme of the city and evolves architecture around the idea of nature, leisure, farming and yes, maybe coffee as well. Being in a hilly environment, where slopes were lush and green and used for coffee farming. The breeze from the sea adds a healthy saltiness to the tropical, moist air, which we think is responsible for the delicious taste of the local coffee. We saw a potential to put more emphasis on nature, natural materials, fresh air, outdoor and landscape as the identity to enhance what ever city evolves around the theme of coffee.

We proposed a few strategic concepts to the client and which evolved around leisure and nature and illustrated it by transforming the existing identity buildings first. As an alternative to the current gate, we proposed an architectural canopy, that puts emphasis on organic materials and light, shade, air.  

We envisioned buildings to be more open to the environment by creating large terraces and big cantilevers for self shading. 

An sightseeing tower replaced the clock tower with a viewing platform around a coffee tree on top of the city.

We actually came quite far with this project. There were multiple committee meetings in our favour and we got very excited about the project potentials at some point. However, a few months later, key people of the projects stopped responding to our queries. It fell into the same time of massive arresting of politicians and business figure heads. We were told, that everybody will be playing safe for now and reduce spendings and developments. The Chinese business environment has slowed down by then already and we were sure that such development will be observed suspiciously by the government as well at this point in time. So we abandoned the project with sweet memories of delicious coffee remaining only.

Team: Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger, William Liu, Chi Chuan Yuan, Liu Wei, Isabella Ducoli, Eugenio Fontan

© 2015, ice - ideas for contemporary environments

Tribute to Victoria Park Swimming Pool

Summer is coming to an end. So is the life of the Victoria Park Outdoor Swimming Pool. It closed its gates yesterday at 10 pm for the last time.

Being a passionate swimmer myself, I am deeply saddened by the closure of this wonderful urban experience. For the past few years I have spent my daily morning swim in that pool. The best moments were at the beginning of the outdoor swimming season when water was freezing cold and only me and 10 lifeguards were around in the chilling morning sun. My children learned swimming in the pool. I was with them from the time of their first clumsy approaches in the water to the moment they glide naturally through the deep blue.

Nights at the pool where startling. The pool lied at the edge of Victoria Park, surrounded by the city that formed a formidable background to the scene. The moment the sun set, buildings began to sparkle. First as a reflection of the setting sun, then as a powerful skyline of artificial lights. Whoever knows Hong Kong, knows the seduction of its skyline at night: the fascination of the behemoth of urban invention and innovation.

And in the middle of the city was this giant pool (during hot summers a rather overheated jacuzzi) from where you could enjoy the beauty of the skyline. It always was a magical and surreal moment, floating in the water and watch the city passing by, day as night alike.

To me, the swimming pool and the already demolished Kai Tak airport were some of the few formidable metropolitan sights of Hong Kong. They were proofs of the intense effects and collisions of a hyper dense city. But they also demonstrated that you could be at peace within this moloch of a city; it showed that the collision and confrontation can create urban poetry at its best.

Opened in 1957, the pool has been one of the oldest outdoor pools of Hong Kong, one of the few with a 5m diving pool and a 50 m lap pool with a 10 m dive board. It also features a grand stand for public viewing and a restaurant with pool view. The beauty of the pool lies in its design of the boundaries to the surrounding park. The park landscape was seamlessly translating into the water landscape. Changing rooms were placed under the grand stand to reduce the architectural impact of the pool.

To my dissatisfaction, the newly constructed indoor pool next door is a large scale architectural mass, with no relation to the context. The design has not benefitted from the subtleness of the outdoor pool, nor from the function of a park as an urban open area for the public. An alien like, disproportionate podium block was designed, which rather resembles a shopping mall than a public swimming pool for leisure and enjoyment. It is understood that an indoor pool is a building, an outdoor pool is a landscape: However a six story disproportionate glass blob which seals off its interior from the surrounding park is a rather cynical answer towards a positive transformation of the city.

It is a shame as the city of Hong Kong missed the chance (again) to encourage excellency for its public buildings. Instead, they apply commercial and economic logic to their civic construction as well and neglect the social, spatial and historical components that have made Hong Kong what it is in the first place.

Luckily swimming requires a certain functionality. So I will find myself at peace with the new venue as long as it features a clean 50 m pool and enough space to swim.

However there must be a reason that the pool was one of the most beloved leisure venues of the citizens. During my last swim at 10 pm, there were a lot of people inside the pool. Most enjoyed the last opportunity to dive in a 5 m deep 50 m olympic size pool. In fact the bottom at 5 m was the most crowded as there will be no pool anymore of this depth. There was a large crowd at the stand, taking pictures of the great view, chatting with the lifeguards and silently but happily and enjoying the scene. Most likely some of them contemplated wether the new pool will be as enriching to the city as the old one.

When we left the pool as one of the last, we left with the certainty that Hong Kong has sacrificed another urban jewel of its glorious past to the genericness of the commercial world.

© 2013, ice - ideas for contemporary environments

West Kowloon Cultural District - Oops, he did it again!

It is official, that Foster won again the West Kowloon Cultural District - after the victory in the 2004 competition over hist competitors OMA and Rocco. While in 2004 it was the giant bris soleil, which wetted the eyes of the jury, now it is the the giant water front park.

The others won't be too sorry over the loss, I guess, as they walk away with a HKD 50 Million concept design fee each, a sum, unbelievable these days for a concept master plan only.

Although there lie seven years between the two competitions, nothing has changed much in terms of the content of that project: In 2004, hopes were high. The design brief for that competition was talking about a 'world-class' cultural center, the involvement of Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim and all big players in the cultural industry. Shortly after the announcement of the winning entry, both, Centre Pompidou and Guggenheim renounced their engagement, as it was culturally and commercially not feasible. The project was shelved. The government had to realize, that Hong Kong did not have any major art collection, nor any major art collectors, which would put the project on solid ground.

Hence, it took them another six years, to rethink the strategy. Eventually, they had to react to the cultural defeat in 2004. In the meantime, planning and construction for a major train station just next to the site is underway. The high speed train will connect Hong Kong with Guangzhou, Wuhan and other Chinese cities. It will be most likely the biggest singular arrival points for tourists, coming to Hong Kong. And they come with a lot of cash, which the city is trying to get out of them.

And here lies also the dilemma of the entire project: As the train stops in the middle of nowhere, the government was forced, to develop this land concurrently, not to let millions of visitors flood into barren land and get a bad start with the city. The idea of 'Hong Kong Culture welcomes you' was born: A shopping paradise for Bruce Lee action figures, dim sum restaurants, action movies and a beautiful view over the harbor. To upgrade the sentimental shopping mall, to fit into the self proclaimed image of 'Hong Kong - Asia's World City', western high culture should give a good alibi.

As culture did not succeed so well in 2004, the 2010 competition was putting emphasis on the 'people', trying to get support from the local community. It should be a place for people, for the Hong Kongers to enjoy and celebrate their hometown. For the same people, who have seen a steep rise in property prizes in recent years with an actual decrease in living area, yet a decline in income and salaries. They should enjoy the water front and a gigantic park in a fairly inaccessible part of a city, which lies in sub tropical climate with a heavy rainy season, typhoons from May to September, burning sun throughout most of the year. Usually people gather here closer to shelter and buildings, as the safety of a dry place can be a benefit here. And as (affordable) housing is still the main problem of the city, the need for culture is fairly insignificant, compared to that. Yet, what the city does lack is an urbanized waterfront, highly mixed use, programmatically dense and a larger portion of housing.

As the winning scheme puts this park at the waterfront, it certainly upgrades the value for the adjacent buildings, which we can imagine with very expensive flats, overlooking an empty park towards Hong Kong side. Yet, the scheme stays on the level of low density, which creates a rather smaller amount of built area. What a stunning view of course, and what a possible price tag attached...It is a scheme, which reveals the true intention of the project. To transform a disadvantaged site into a luxury property heaven. And for that, the scheme does it quite well.

I forgot to mention the aspect of culture: Shortly before announcement of the final results of the 2011 competition, the chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District resigned. Maybe him too, could not really find a good cultural reason for the project and gave up.

I personally think, the OMA entry is the best of the three projects. But it is also the most naive, trying to create an urban fabric, which in fact is really for the people, urban fragmentation, variety, scalar and programmatic change. Despite its naivety, it reminds me positively of a quote by Niemeyer, I read, when I started studying architecture. When Niemeyer was asked about his membership in the communist party, he said it is a duty for an architect to be communist, because his foremost responsibility is for the user, for the people. Unfortunately, naivety is a high value, most of the architects have lost in the last 20 years of accelerated property activities.

To conclude, I need to refer to developer client of ours, who had a brilliant idea at a conference, we attended about the West Kowloon Cultural District. He said, instead of giving the project to three firms to design only, the government should let ALL the architecture firms in Hong Kong, big or small, participate and design and build at least one building each.

We'll second that. And this would truly be a concept, worth HKD 50 Mil. And who knows, maybe we will see a third competition within the next few years and then, the winner hopefully is someone else.

© 2011, ice - ideas for contemporary environments