Looking From The Voids 'in-between' towards Architecture

Abstract

Co-author of the books “Hong Kong In-Between” (MCCM | Park Books, 2015) and “The People of Duckling Hill” (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2015), I will illustrate the journey of a Swiss architect researching and working on Asian in-between spaces. During the last decade, the focus of my researches was about understanding Asian cities’ development mechanisms through the lenses of urban voids. Instead of looking at the built forms, I have studied the residual buffer zones and non-planned spaces within the dense urban context. How do Asian’s “in-between” inform us about the way we built and use the city? The narrow back lanes of Hong Kong and leftover spaces under Bangkok’s expressways have been the entry points to understand the mechanisms of urban environments. Less regulated and less sterile than official public spaces, these edge public spaces – unplanned and appropriated by the inhabitants – function as important buffer zones across the city. By observing people’s interactions with these in-betweens, in both physical and metaphorical ways I have learned about some of the invisible rules behind the generation of those spaces. I have developed a set of design guidelines that aims to transpose the teaching from the streets to the design of architecture. In the first part, I will define the notion of “in-between” from a morphological, programmatic and legal point of view. In the second part, I will illustrate with architecture and artistic projects, how the knowledge accumulated along different research projects has inspired me to engage users to experience space differently.