The Reverse Bridge
Work,Community and Infrastructure as an Integrated Urban Prototype for Sha Tin
2021 | Hong Kong, China
Academic | Designer| CUHK
Commercial
Sha Tin, one of the key urban districts of Hong Kong, is predominantly composed of various of residential and commercial zones. However, like many instances of modernist urban planning, these programs are rigidly segregated by the Shing Mun River. While such separation facilitates administration, it suppresses the city’s inherent complexity, and eliminates the productive ambiguities between the functions. Work is confined to standardized office towers, leisure is displaced to remote parks, and the street is reduced from a space of encounter and informal commerce to a mere conduit of circulation.
This project seeks to challenge that paradigm by proposing a mixed-use prototype which integrates office space, a community market, and a public plaza within a single building. The aim is to reconstitute the social vitality of the street and to reimagine the urban complex as a site of overlap, encounter, and collective identity.