Bifurcating Ecologies, designed by Kenneth To (under Design Advisor, Wendy W Fok, and Project Team, Dave Cheung, Marco Chan), is a developmental master planning proposal which traces through humanizing the accessibility of the Hong Kong Wanchai District Waterfront through proposing new branching open landscapes and bifurcation of programs, which introduces new innovative topological energy creation that regenerates and reconnects the community. More images and project description after the break.
Acting as an intermediary “connector” and “infiltrator” within four main strands of intertwined organization, between levels of: ecology, pedestrian, vehicular, and infrastructure, Bifurcating Ecologies challenges the visceral and abundantly urbanized Hong Kong waterfront that feeds itself through both land and water.
Bifurcating Ecologies is composed of modular straps in an urban scale. It starts as a surface bisecting into multiple layers. By manipulating the layers with operations like perforation, triangulation, bifurcation, punctuation etc, urban landscapes and spaces are created which could houses various functions and needs. The straps interwoven to form a park that is fluid and ever going.
The straps are not only landscapes but also an innovative idea combing nature, leisure/function and sustainability. These multilayered developments offer a plethora of opportunities, microclimates, and developmental programs. On the top layer natural landscape provide citizen with a fresh breathe of a city runaway. The straps provide different microclimates to help adjust the city’s environment and temperature while sustaining itself with little maintenance needed.
Through building a new and innovative infrastructural system that feeds into the ‘connectors’, each layer of program weaves and intersects each other and regenerates new energy and systematic advancement and growth through renewed energy which each path brings.
The park would be zoned into different themed area, where different programs and event venues are inserted into the straps. The linear arrangement of the ecological straps creates maximum edges for different interactions to happen in between the ecological zones and the programs. Human activities and nature combined. Circulation spaces are a spatial journey that walks the landscape, up and down, in and out, and across.
Pioneering H2O Desalination technology below the Central and Wanchai Town Pier at the deepest levels of the infrastructure layer of the bifurcating ecological landscape, houses a high-powered desalination plant, which functions to collect and purify the water of Hong Kong Bay. Enough to introduce new programs that involve a water park next and open landscape playground, but also an economic lead to recycle the grey water system which could hydrate the plantation and urban farms at the Western District Markets, and provide an additional 20% of drinking water back to the Hong Kong citizens.
Bringing together a fusion of technological, economical and cultural entities, and combining a public free space into an interwoven landscape the newly developed Bifurcating Ecologies becomes an open playground of hidden gems, which offers the community countless integrated opportunities to develop and harmonize the Hong Kong Wanchai district waterfront.
Designer: Kenneth To Location: Central- Wan Chai, Hong Kong (Waterfront Development) Design Advisor: Wendy W Fok Project Team: Dave Cheung, Marco Chan Project Type: Public / Urban Landscape Project Year: 2010 (Phase I) / 2011 (Phase II) Project Area: 38,000,000 sqm Project Cost Estimation: 5.2 Billion HKD Competition: Dalian Challenge Cup 2011 – Finalist Presentation Dates: 15 – 20 October 2011
