Informal and Formal Debate
Short version
Alice part
Adaptivity of architecture
T: City is something that changes and grows. Cities become inevitably dysfunctional and need maintenance, otherwise they will decade or die off. We assume that cities are only about thriving and growth, but actually it is more about decade, declining and abandon of the cities and the history and memories of them. We like to believe that buildings are permanent, totally functional and save, however this might be one of the biggest lies that have been told in architecture schools, that form doesn’t follow function.
Buildings are inevitably just functional, but might fit their purpose for their design and change their uses. This is a wonderful fact of architecture. Yet planning culture might not be something we can do. Planning Culture
A: Talking about the West Kowloon Cultural District, that demonstration as the failure of time and culture as the problem from a very topdown basis. CR: There is a contradiction on architects’ fascination about culture and the unclearness of it. Culture changes and it’s difficult to predict where the inspiration comes from and what new media will be coming. A top down decision like creating a cultural district as hardware is denying and intimacy with the software for culture to take root. The idea of cultural district is by zooming out in a classical modern city, any successful case should take significant amount of time as culture grows slowly and build upon itself.
Architect’s role in the top down development in existing urban fabric A: Within an economic model, architect’s role is very small in terms of decision making. M: Yet we should not see ourselves as individual, but a group of people, no matter professionals or not, seeing the problems with the planning system and educate themselves to engage that political process and try to make a difference. For example of the Marine Police Headquarters and compared it with the case of downtown
Alice part
Adaptivity of architecture
T: City is something that changes and grows. Cities become inevitably dysfunctional and need maintenance, otherwise they will decade or die off. We assume that cities are only about thriving and growth, but actually it is more about decade, declining and abandon of the cities and the history and memories of them. We like to believe that buildings are permanent, totally functional and save, however this might be one of the biggest lies that have been told in architecture schools, that form doesn’t follow function.
Buildings are inevitably just functional, but might fit their purpose for their design and change their uses. This is a wonderful fact of architecture. Yet planning culture might not be something we can do. Planning Culture
A: Talking about the West Kowloon Cultural District, that demonstration as the failure of time and culture as the problem from a very topdown basis. CR: There is a contradiction on architects’ fascination about culture and the unclearness of it. Culture changes and it’s difficult to predict where the inspiration comes from and what new media will be coming. A top down decision like creating a cultural district as hardware is denying and intimacy with the software for culture to take root. The idea of cultural district is by zooming out in a classical modern city, any successful case should take significant amount of time as culture grows slowly and build upon itself.
Architect’s role in the top down development in existing urban fabric A: Within an economic model, architect’s role is very small in terms of decision making. M: Yet we should not see ourselves as individual, but a group of people, no matter professionals or not, seeing the problems with the planning system and educate themselves to engage that political process and try to make a difference. For example of the Marine Police Headquarters and compared it with the case of downtown