Vision: contents and presentation

        
I went to the West Kowloon Cultural District public exhibition when I was in Hong Kong last month. It was the end of the second stage of the competition in which stars like Norman Foster, Rocco Yim, and Rem Koolhaas participated. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I have to say I felt the designs pretty disappointing.

Lord (still?) Foster's scheme is a "City Park." The strategy is to concentrate urban developments into a dense urban cluster along "The Avenue" - a boulevard that runs in the middle and connects the various cultural facilities. How innovative!

Rocco Yim is competing as a local representative. His plan is to bring back the urban energy in the long scroll Chinese painting "Along the River during Qingming Festival." Instead of separating buildings and park, he chooses to integrate the two, creating a fusion of landscape and architecture. This is not entirely new. And when there's a lack of variety and rhythm that we see in the Qingming painting, it could be rather boring after a one-kilometer stretch...

OMA's proposal is somewhere in between. It's not absolute dichotomy of building vs. green, nor a blended amalgamation. Uncle Rem decides to make three precincts of "villages" in a large field of landscape. It sounds like an interesting urban form with alternating sceneries. But I froze when I saw the details: there's Cardiff Opera House, sharing back stage with Berlin Philharmonic in a Taipei fashion. Then there's Prada Transformer floating around, and an Almaty/Singapore-like building as a museum. There's even a Casa da Musica subbing as the first-of-its-kind Premiere Theatre. Maybe it's OK, this is just a master plan competition...

Urban design is about vision - visions of what our city could be in the future, the city of tomorrow. It usually takes ages to realize an urban plan, so a key requirement for designers who work on an urban scale is to look forward. But it seems for West Kowloon, we can only dwell in the present, or even just recycle the past.

When visions went blurred, you got to have some fascinating presentations in order to grab some attention. In this exhibition, models are sitting on huge TV screens, animated with moving images, blinking color lights, and sweet voices. Of all the animations in the room, my favorite is OMA's stop motion video. Cute and sweet.

OMA's dynamic model demonstrating the program distribution.

There are more than models and animations. Foster (yeah, not himself) created a first-person 3D video game so that visitors can walk/run/jump around in the cityscape he designed. OMA utilized augmented reality technology for interactive computer model display. By holding a cardboard with a printed black square against the camera, you can see a 3D model showing up on the screen. When you rotate the cardboard, the 3D model rotates with it. Amazing tricks, right?

Look! Who's there!

       

Straddling bus

          
Auto sales are exploding in China. There are almost 1,500 new cars hitting the road in Beijing every day. When there was not enough land for buildings, we stacked up the floors and invented skyscraper. Now we have traffic jams everywhere, what should we do? The same logic - go vertical!

Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment has recently developed an odd-looking vehicle called "straddling bus." It's 6 meters wide, 4.5 meters tall, spanning two traffic lanes high above the road surface on two side stilts. The bus runs at 40-50 kilometers per hour along fix rails, and other cars can pass underneath smoothly. The bus stops are also elevated, with automatic boarding walkway systems.

This is really an innovative solution to reduce traffic congestion. Plus, it's very environmentally friendly. The system will be powered purely by electricity, partly from municipal grid and partly solar energy gained from PV panels on the bus stop roofs. With the capacity of carrying up to 1,200 passengers, one straddling bus could replace 40 conventional buses. That will potentially save 860 tons of fuel and prevent 2,640 tons of carbon emissions.

The design is not just dreamy fantasy. A pilot project will soon start in Beijing's Mentougou district. The cost of construction will be 50 million RMB ($7.4 million) per kilometer, including vehicle manufacturing. That's only 10% of what it costs to build a subway line. And maintenance will be 30% cheaper compared to conventional fuel-burning buses. The Mentougou project will start with 9 kilometers of test route at the end of this year. If it's successful, about 186 kilometers will be put in place. Can't wait to see it running!
          

Of steel and glass II - Shenzhen Vanke

     
They said no photo could register the entirety of Vanke Center. I think that's OK. A building of that scale is not meant to be experienced all at once. It's a meandering urban-like experience, and there should be variations and points of reference. On top of an overall big gesture, the design actually emphasizes the localized situations with arms enclosing or opening up spaces, various facade treatments, and even different soffit colors.

Fortunately, Vanke didn't turn their property into a gated complex. The ground has become a truly accessible public space. People can walk through or hang out freely in the cool shaded areas under the giant lifted structure, or have activities in the open landscape. Local residents can also use the large stone plaza for community events, free of charge.

If you say, I still don't really understand the overall geometry of this thing, don't worry. The architect will keep showing it to you. When you push the door, you see it as a door handle. When you enter the elevator lobby, there are lights shaped as the building plan. In the chairman's office, there's a pendant lamp of the same form. Even the table in the cafeteria looks like the building. Is that too much? Someone from Vanke said, "I wouldn't mind if at least I could sit comfortably during lunch."

An interesting vertical connection space inside the Vanke offices is called the "untie bow tie" space, with the implied message that businessmen should relax and enjoy life. But would the space be less interesting without the metaphor? Or is it just some cheesy way to sell unusual architecture?

Currently, only 200 Vanke employees are using the building, and 2/3 of the megastructure stays vacant. Did they really need to build that much in the first place? Right, save for future use. It sounds like Vanke saying "We have money and we have a huge headquarters building." This phenomena of over-building happens all around China. Even if performances can only happen once a month, every city still wants to say, "Look, we have a big opera house."
       

When the Dougong was small

          

During the Shanxi trip, I saw many new constructions right next to major tourist attractions. A lot of them are contemporary expansions or additions to very old existing temples, but they try so hard to look like the old ones. I couldn't stop but wondering: why can't we just build something true to our time?

There are many examples of temple expansions in history. A very good one right in Shanxi is Jinci. Jinci Temple started during the Western Zhou Dynasty (1045-771 BC) and has got to what it is now through thousands of years' additions and replacements. Structures of different dynasties reflect different styles, techniques, and preferences specific to their time of construction. They don't even want to be in the same axial alignment. As a result, the whole complex becomes a rich library of historic sentiments, especially different types of Dougong - a key element of Chinese wooden construction - with variations in size, number, and decoration that have developed through time.

Plan of Jinci Temple in Shanxi, China

Saint Mother Hall (Song, 1023), oldest existing structure in Jinci Temple

The large Dougong of Saint Mother Hall

Offerings Hall (Jin, 1168)

Offerings Hall interior, with the Memorial Archway (Ming, 1576) on the left.

Mirror Terrace, the front and back parts were built separately in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

When Ming style meets Qing style

Tangshuyu Temple, the Dougong was much smaller

Juntian Terrace built in the Qing Dynasty (18th century), the Dougong is very decorative.

When the Dougong was smaller, people were aware of the spirit of their times and wanted to express that architecturally. They didn't repeat the context with huge Tang/Song Dougong system. When we are building now, why do we just fake antiques by imitating the way old buildings look, but not learn from the way our ancestors think?

Maybe the question is what is a contemporary Buddhist temple? What are the transcendental aspects of Buddhism? The spirit of Zen? The pursuit of balance and harmony? In the Western world, a lot of contemporary churches are being built, with modern designs of architecture all the way down to objects like candle holders and chalices. Maybe for a contemporary temple, we should start with a new design of the incense burner.