Interface Studio Architects shared with us their proposal for the Hong Kong Car Parc competition, which aims at romanticizing the car as an active urban object while simultaneously implementing sustainable strategies. In addition to including parking spaces in the rotational design, shopping, food and landscaping aspects are also included in the program. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Hong Kong’s relationship to the car is defined by having a small ratio of people to automobiles. In a city of over 7 million, only 461,000 cars are registered to local drivers. This massively dense city contains only 566,618 parking spaces.
We see this as an opportunity. While so many cities are forced to store a massive volume of automobiles in ways that don’t negatively impact the street, Hong Kong can afford to be different. Hong Kong likes to wear its infrastructure on its sleeve. From the Old Airport, to richly layered pedestrian walkways, outdoor escalators, and floating water-borne neighborhoods – the city pulses with circulation, both horizontal and vertical. Unlike more typical new developments which continue to emulate western approaches to hiding cars, our proposal looks to capture new potentials for Hong Kong’s infrastructural personality by integrating the ritual of “the drive” with mixed programs.
The Car Parc is just that. The car is viewed as an active urban object while also adding a new storm water management strategy that creates landscape retreats in the sky and irrigates the athletic field occupying the ground plane. The park is a civic, mixed-use armature of landscape, shopping, food, sports, views, and parking spaces tangled up in a kinetic rotation of animated circulation.
Architects: Interface Studio Architects Location: Hong Kong, China Major Funding: Private development Project Phase: Competition Year: 2011
