Landscape Design Studio 4

Full portfolio available at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H2hiPdCXqOQZo-c8bzWv0_aywcoRe9We/view?usp=sharing

Course Introduction

This studio investigates the role of ‘playscape’ in Hong Kong and analyses the topic typologically, morphologically, and socially. The course focuses on concepts of community design, paying attention to the role of society and urban context in the design process. Before designing within a complex and challenging urban setting, students are asked to develop a keen understanding of and the ability to engage with its complexities and multi-layered conditions.

Project 1 - Dynamic Neighborhoods

This project introduces two methodologies to understand and interact with an urban neighbourhood. Using ‘walking’ and ‘mapping’, I documented public space/publicly accessible space in Sai Ying Pun using historical research, oral histories, analysis of physical and environmental aspects, mapping of social patterns and practices, to uncover and articulate tangible and intangible narratives and histories of the urban area.

Project 2 - Terrain imaginations

This project introduces typological studies of playscapes through sectional analysis. Through the use of collage, students create urban settings for studied ‘play artefacts’, while considering the relationship between object and body, and between object/body and urban context. This projects aims to develop a spatial contextualization connecting the scale of the neighborhood from project 1 and the scale of ‘play artefacts’ studied in this exercise.

Project - 3 Community strategies

This project develops students’ awareness of specific planning, community, and environmental narratives in the urban context, and introduces a range of community-oriented practices in landscape design at the scale of the city. Students are assigned conceptual readings in groups, and through an analysis of these texts, to reflect on the key findings/arguments from each. They further will speculate on ways that the issues presented reframe our understanding of local problems. Students should fundamentally respond to issues of community engagement, urban development, and ecological design as base to develop their own critical position for their design/planning interventions.

Project 4 - Topographic playscapes

In landscape architecture, site-specific design proposals are essential. Project 4 will be focused on developing a site proposal for a new playscape at Kwong Hon Terrace Garden. Based on the

strategies developed in project 3 and the theoretical/historical background of playscape design introduced in class, students will test, elaborate, and define spatial playscape configurations that engage with the topography on site.

Project 3 video: