Density & Transit: Towards Compact Integrated Cities

With more than half the world’s population living in urban areas which accounts for just under 3% of the world’s land mass, today’s cities face an ever rising set of urban challenges. Hong Kong, renowned for its high density urbanism, was culminated by its now demolished Kowloon Walled City. With living conditions similar to the notorious Walled City, today’s subdivided apartments, locally called ‘butchered flats’, are homes to some 200,000 people, accommodating families in crowded environments, which in some instances, are barely 10 square metres. The culture of congestion with its spatial and programmatic juxtapositions of the Walled City have continued to manifest today in the city’s composite building typology such as Chungking Mansions and Mirador Mansions situated in Kowloon. Moreover, with 90% of the population taking public transportation every day and a large proportion of the residential and commercial spaces only within 500m radius of a train station, Hong Kong’s public transportation system is typically described as the gold standard. What makes Hong Kong’s dense and highly efficient urban system tick? This lecture describes the cogs and gears of the city as an integrated built environment connecting all aspects of urban life, from living, to working, playing, and everything else in-between.

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