brooklyn NEW YORK
Pratt GAUD
Critic: David ERDMAN and Hart MARLOW
suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.
Sandra NATAF: Considering contemporary issues such as urban living and density, this studio project focuses on the specific case of Hong Kong.
- Sandra NATAF, “Hong Kong Housing – Altered features.”, Perspective
- Sandra NATAF, “Hong Kong Housing – Altered features.”, Perspective
- Sandra NATAF, “Hong Kong Housing – Altered features.”, Section
- Sandra NATAF, “Hong Kong Housing – Altered features.”, Elevation
Looking at its public housing system and the typical 40-storey cruciform towers that proliferate throughout the city, this research investigates the impact of alteration, by designing an addition to the top of existing residential estates, keeping in mind considerations such as the blurring of boundaries between the old and the new, materiality, coloration and identity.
Concept:
This design derives from the concept of Space Object, which refers to “an intensely cohesive urban void space, that is not necessarily inside a building enclosure”. In other words, the design is driven by a key consideration: the void spaces between each tower of a single estate and between each branch of the cruciform towers, are a six-sided object to be designed, rather than leftover or accidental space.
After an extensive study of patina, coloration schemes and floor plan and façade rhythmicity, and under the influence of Heinrich Wölfflin’s Renaissance and Baroque, this design focuses on producing a pressure point at the top center of the tower through an alteration of the building features, from rectilinear and fragmented to curvy and continuous, while playing with aperture to concentrate light towards the focal point of the new addition. From within, these lightwells frame the views looking down and out at the bottom of the estate, where to ground intervention echoes the top one.
Representation methodology:
The images produced for this studio are not renders but montages of photos of the actual housing estate, Tin Wan, that I took on site during the studio trip too Hong Kong over Spring Break, and of the physical models.
