Najdziwniejsze Miasto Świata

Hong Kong looks exactly as I have always imagined an Asian megacity of the future Its one-of-a-kind atmosphere is in a big part created by the architecture of the city Hong Kong is an extremely uniquely looking city. Its landscape is different than any other city in the World. A substantial part of this visual effect is an outcome of a very specific kind of architecture. So I have asked Michael... Hi, I'm Mike! I have been working in Hong Kong for the last two years. Prior to that I have graduated from the Faculty of Architecture - Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). And I'm working here for an architectural firm that focuses mostly on large-scale office, mixed-use and residential projects in Mainland China and all around Asia and the Arab world. ...to have a small trip around Hong Kong architecture as Mike is an architect - kinda makes sense I guess Hi, we're gonna shoot a couple of interesting places today to show you Hong Kong from several different angles. Tune in! We are now next to the first example of the public housing in Hong Kong. It was build in 1953 after 50 000 people lost their houses in a big fire and the HK government had to react to this The quarters were extremely small - with an area of about 9 m² each. Whole families lived in such a limited space. On the rooftop there was a school for kids living in the building. After some time - those who were a bit more entrepreneurial - turned the ground floor units into shops and services and started running their businesses there. Public housing in general is a phenomenon in Hong Kong as almost half of the entire population of the city lives in this type of compounds. It's a type of architecture that is partially or fully financed by the government Then it's either offered with a lower rent or you can get a mortgage in a more affordable way. So these are all the buildings that seem repeatable? A common sight in Hong Kong where you have a repeated pattern of floors/levels. Yes! Actually there is 15 common floor plans for public housing in Hong Kong and they are being replicated all over and over again. Right! So it's like I've been always saying it's like a copy and paste type of buildings - almost as if it was Photoshopped. So that's true - it's just done in a more architectural way so the exact same building is built several times Correct! It makes the entire process faster and cheaper and the government can provide housing quicker. Still the current waiting time for an apartment in a public housing estate is about 5 years. So how about this kind of a building? That is a privately funded residential building You can tell by the bay windows on the facade and a significantly higher percentage of windows. I am actually very much interested in this type of Hong Kong buildings where they are extremelly tall while still super slim a bit like bamboo sticks well it is mostly driven by the fact that the land that an investor acquires for a projects is usually very small comes with an existing 5/6 storey building on site then it's being demolished and a new 40/50/80 storey buiding is being built in its footprint. For quite a long time there used to be a regulation here that required a building to have two staircases Two fire escape staircases. In case one gets blocked by the fire you can use the other one to evacuate. Funny thing though - with such a limited footprint of a building sometimes the common area takes up more space than the actual apartments. Here in Hong Kong it's also a fact that housing is grouped together as an estate - which is what we call 'osiedle' - right? Right! It's also interesting that when an investor acquires land for development he wouldn't really build a single tower but rather goes for like 15 or so tower blocks and provides the neighborhood with all the necessary services such as a school, shops, recreational areas, parks etc. And all that together is understood as an estate I think that's one of the reasons why Hong Kong is so photogenic and because they are perfect copies of each other it also makes it interesting and unique to look at True - its repetitive pattern makes it extremely fascinating but what makes it uniquely Hong Kong style are all the notches - indentations in the facade they are designed not only to allow more direct sunlight into the interior but what's more interesting - all the plumbing like water and sewage pipes are placed there as warm climate with no negative temperatures allows for a direct exposure to air with no need of insulation. Oh so that's why a typical housing elevation seems to be so visually complex. Right! There is a lot going on - on the facade. A distinctive feature of Hong Kong neighborhoods are scaffoldings as they are made out of bamboo sticks and connected with zip ties using this method you can built up a structure that reaches 100 floors or so oh so that makes working on a construction site here very peculiar as an integral part of the process is climbing up those bamboo sticks and very often we can see workers dangling on it True! Those guys always have to first climb up the scaffolding - almost like some kind of a parkour workout / or a spiderman / put it all together and only then they can start the actual work so the buildings your office design are also done in this way? well it's usually being used here for facade renovations but as a matter of fact you can actually see this kind of scaffolding also on some new developments around the city I see We have arrived at Fu Cheong Estate - built in the early 2000s a public housing complex 'Fu' means wealth - 'Cheong' means prosperity Clearly...! Now we are approaching Olympian City It is a privately funded residential complex which you can tell by its architecture There is much more glazing and the apartments tend to have a bigger size It has been built by the MTR Corporation a company that builds and runs Hong Kong subway system so they are getting preferential treatment when acquiring land for a new metro station builds a station - on top of that builds a shopping mall and then tops that with apartment tower blocks and then uses the sale/rent of property revenue to finance the next phases of the subway development why does Hong Kong has such a specific architectural style that cannot be found anywhere else? Well a first factor would definitely be very high population density - the highest in the World and then there is a warm climate where the temperature never goes below zero and you can place all the plumbing on the outside of the building At the same time in Hong Kong there is that funny contrast - on the one hand we have this super packed city where it seems each square meter is priceless but on the other there is an abundance of green spaces - especially in the northern part - called New Territories so that high population density is an outcome of limited number of sites available for construction? It's a very good point! Actually more than 70% of land in Hong Kong is a natural area WOAAAAAAH! Land available for development is extremely limited (side note - a big part of HK is reclaimed from the ocean) And in most cases the land is auctioned and sold the highest bidder in a public tender which makes it super hard to acquire any land land 'sold' by the government is also not really a freehold land but leased for a very long time (from 50 to 999 years). Now we got a cab to Repulse Bay. It's a beach resort on the south of Hong Kong Island and we came here as a skyline of this place is a perfect depiction of another characteristic of HK architecture - Feng shui Feng shui - which literally stands for WATER and WIND is a Chinese practice of using energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment and attract good luck and prosperity an intuitive way of understanding particular elements in order achieve balance and harmony Feng shui focuses on 'Qi' energy - an energy of fortune and prosperity - which has to be properly set Hong Kong is a city shaped by feng shui and its rules such as positioning buildings towards the water as we can see here - lots of buildings has so called 'dragon gates' - holes in the facade allowing dragons to fly from the mountains into the sea with no extra obstrucions what is more , many Hong Kong properties are missing floors with a number '4' like 4F, 14F, 24F ... as number '4' in Cantonese sounds very similar to a word 'death' So do you think Feng shui - as a set of rules - does it make sense from an architectural point of view? Well I personally think that a lot of rules is not reasonably understandable of course there are some positive effects but very often it creates situations when you have to redesign a project only based inexplicable (by a common sense) rules and their interpretation by feng shui masters In Hong Kong and also in Mainland China a popular practice is consulting projects with feng shui masters who decide whether a project is compliant with feng shui rules or not to be honest many decisions cannot be explained and understood by a common sense we are currently working - among others - on the casino project in Macau and the projects is constantly being consulted with feng shui masters as a 'lucky' project means a lucky day for the guests so it's very important for the client When I think of feng shui - I picture myself an image of meditation on the one hand meditation is very spiritual but on the other it's just a good practice - like it works on your mind and body making a difference in your state of mind yea I mean in principle it is supposed to bring peace and harmony but sometimes it's at the expense of functionality of a project so when it comes to its influence on architecture and design I believe it's more detrimental than beneficial A phenomenon of Hong Kong is a fact that local government awards compensation if any new neighboring development would affect their sense of a good feng shui and these are some substantial numbers between 2011 and 2016 it was more than 1 milion USD It's interesting that on one side Hong Kong is an extremely capitalistic society where efficiency, money and business are of the greatest value but on the other side cultural beliefs like this affect the city so strongly The reason is in Hong Kong all the cultural heritage remained strong over the years unlike in Mainland China where the cultural revolution tried to basically wipe it all off. Those damn architects can also draw pretty nice! Look at the notes Mike made for today's video That's like the pretties storyboard I have ever had for a clip. Let's not exaggerate! Now we are in Wan Chai - on Hong Kong island - in the city centre what do we have here? We are standing next to The Blue House named after the facade colour. It's one of the few remaining examples of the Tong Lau style which is a mix of styles from the East and the West and can be characterized - among other features - by cantilevered balconies Lately I have come up with such a lame pun... (**WARNING** - only in Polish) Where in Hong Kong would you make the most grammar mistakes? in Wan Chai ( W ŁAN CZAJ ) lolololol Here we can see a very common trick of Hong Kong developers - bay windows an effort to get a bigger area than the number regulated by local building code that extra area added by the bay windows is not included in the gross floor area (GFA) meaning an investor can built a significantly bigger space - sell it as an usable square footage and yet it is still compliant with local buidling regulations so I'm gonna put it in a little bit more understandable way there are windows sticking out of the building and developers can make more money this way A typical day in Hong Kong - we had to do a little hike to get here here you can clearly see a difference between public and privately funded housing the first building on the left - little windows - lots of walls while all the other surrounding buildings have much more glazing and bay windows all around we are next to another interesting structure we are standing next to Hopewell Centre That's a building that has a very intriguing feng shui story the shape of this tower resembles a cigarette or a candle so after consulting the design with feng shui masters it was associated with a symbolism of a fire and a little rounded pool was added on top to put out the fire It's worth mentioning that public housing in Hong Kong is not meant only for the most indigent part of the society Almost half of the population (about 3.2 million people) live in public housing And the biggest difference is housing affordability You can get a mortgage without having to put a 50% down payment (as in new privately funded housing) or there is simply a lower rent Can you give - from your own experience - any design change imposed by feng shui rules? Yea.. So we've been design a column supporting an entrance canopy that were perfectly functional, worked well with the overall design of the project and yet they were ruled not feng shui complaint lol and we had to redesign it all make it less functional, looking worse and bringing in way more extra structural constraints but hey now it's 'more fortunate' It's one of the icons of the city The most recognizable buidling in Hong Kong - design by a Chinese American architect - I. M. Pei A building that turned out to be in full opposition to feng shui rules From the early design stages - it's full of sharp edges and from the very beginning it was commonly called to have a very bad influence on the neighborhood and supposedlty it's exactly what happened withing 2 years of bulding completion - a couple of surrounding buildings owned by competitor banks these banks got into some serious financial troubles blamed Bank of China tower and tried take steps to stop the bad influence among others - on top of HSBC Building the owner installed two extra building maintance units (BMU) resembling a cannon - pointing at Bank of China tower - to repel evil powers what is more - also 2 years after building completion - a mayor of Hong Kong - residing nearby - died of heart attack and in this case again the architect of the tower was blamed I heard that the design of Bank of China tower is inspired by the Hong Kong neon signs and its unique lighting not sure though - I've read it somewhere well I've never heard of that but yea - possibly true Next building that is apparently anti-feng shui - Lippo Centre I've heard that the C-shaped glass-walled extrusions on the facade are non feng shui compliant but an investor hired his own feng shui masters that said it's okay! and they built it this way haha so it's like pharmaceutical companies that commision drug and supplement testing to 'indepedent' research centers it is also widely believed that those C-shaped elements look like koalas climbing a tree yea I heard that too It is also interesting that building in Hong Kong have a limited height as there is a local regulation saying that a building cannot be taller than the surrounding hills which forced the tallest building in the city - International Commerce Centre (ICC) - located on the Kowloon side to have the height limited from the initially planned 600m to 484m Hong Kong facade lighting is not operational 24/7 and is being shut down at 11 pm each day to allow the neighbooring residents to get a good night sleep Do you think Hong Kong is an interesting city for an architect? It is extremely interesting! When it comes to impressions and experiencing architecture this is a city that is so rich in its urban tissue yet so differentiated and it's all alive and full of energy making it super interesting though when it comes to the actual part of designing in Hong Kong - the city is already so complete it's not easy to find an opportunity so our office mostly focuses on projects in Mainland China and other Asian and Arab countries even though the headquarters of he company are here in Hong Kong Right! So it was an architectural tour of Hong Kong! There is so much more to tell and see in this field and we could continue forever but honestly - no point - if you wanna see more you gotta come here! For more architectural impressions - come to Hong Kong! Ciao! Byeee!

Channel: Krzysztof Gonciarz

Views: 343,678

Rating: 4.9328728 out of 5

Keywords: krzysztof, gonciarz, daily, vlog, architektura, miasto, metropolia, budynki, budowle, wieżowce, drapacze chmur, zasady, budowanie, przestrzeń, miejska, feng shui, hong kong, hongkong, budownictwo, projekt, bank of china, praktyka, dron, architekt, krajobraz, rytm, harmonia, ciekawostki, historie

Id: BX2a_QvlIEQ

Length: 18min 15sec (1095 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019