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Mongkok Crossing - A Kinetic Citywalk - Bridging Two Stations: Kcr & Mtr

Part 2 Project 2002
Chevrio Sheung Ho Kwan
William Bond
University of Hong Kong | China
The uncountable pedestrian infrastructures give the impression of the cityscape of Hong Kong. They are the products of utilitarian directness; efficient control; and single connectedness- aiming for the utmost efficiency of human flux only, and constructed within compelling economic constraints. Their straight monotonous concrete paths are only to resolve the pedestrian/ vehicular traffic conflicts. They, simply, appear as visual obstacles to streetscape, and physical intruders to the street of life. The conventional pedestrian bridges merely carry people with their top velocities, that would never provide pleasure of the journey.

Another such urban obstacle is about to emerge in a densely built-up area of Mongkok. A footbridge system linking the two rail stations: one for the underground railway (MTR) and the other for aboveground railway (KCR), is being built by the Government for the massive daily commuters.

This project attempts to demonstrate potentials of the bridge by introducing multiple layers of passages and making connections to the neighboring buildings, so as to meet the various needs of the city commuters, visitors and residents in the neighborhood. The rhythms and speeds of the horizontal human flow are solidified into design of different layers with unfolding spaces and undulating passages. By integrating with the unique cultural context, and by reconstructing the deteriorated tenement buildings and impermeable podium spaces, the new bridges would become an event generator and distributor, which echoes to the climate of the dynamic and bustling local street, suggesting a new dimension in urban renewal strategies with the equation:

[motion x in-between space] program = event.

Chevrio Sheung Ho Kwan
William Bond


This Design Thesis attempts to invert the obstacle of a street into spectacles of the street life. The student challenged to the local
government's conventional solution to the over crowed pedestrian traffic, the elevated footbridge, which is about to be completed.

While admitting its necessity, he augmented the single role of the bridge, with multiple functions, integrating and enhancing the existing urban livelihood of the area.

The thesis explores in the vacuum area between the realm of governmental tasks and private building owners' interests and between the unrelated works of the individual governmental departments.

The design has successfully demonstrated an alternative form of the elevated footbridge over a street, optimising the potentials of multilevel
connections to the abutting buildings in the area. His preoccupation with speed and spatial experience is also well expressed by articulating various modes of walking through landscaped passages in the sky. This thesis makes
contributions not only as an aesthetic model but also as a critique to absence of an agency that would integrate comprehensive needs of the
community, when such public work as the pedestrian walk way is planned.

2002
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