Before departure, I have heard its amazing skyscrapers, high-density population and collision and amalgamation between different cultures in Hong Kong. However, when I actually standing in CBD of Central and Kowloon, sitting on front row of mini bus, closing to the Victoria harbor, I truly feel the impact comes from the word “ Hong Kong’’. Studying in Hong Kong is a wonderful experience.

I think in this short program, the challenge for me I think is how to control the time. As an architecture student, I prefer to design things logically. However, it is hard to present the whole thinking process in a small readable panel. Thus after the review of the first assignment, I learnt how todo less but effectively in limited time. Thanks for the video presentation, it becomes easy to show our site conditions and strong contrast around the Kat Hing Wai. Moreover It is luck to work with talented HKU students who come from various backgrounds. Using the story to show our site conditions also come from a smart girl who does not have too much landscape and architecture background. We believe the group talents all the time and this help us overcome difficult.

Through the past two weeks, I can feel a lot of pressure of people who live in Hong Kong. See all kinds of workers in MTR, people walk hurriedly on the street, and the limited living conditions. Hong Kong is a place where dreams could come true, thus I think, it is the reason that so many young people even come from all over the world are willing to fight in this battle.

One thing also shock me is that the strategy of developing Hong Kong. It is unbelievable that with such a high density in Kowloon and Central, more than 70% of land has not been developed in Hong Kong. It is truly a treasure for the offspring, and leave huge potential for future planning. Comparing with some megalopolis in Mainland China, overdevelopment has already brought some environment problems. Thus I have strong feeling that sustainable policy is the key of development of city and country. HongKong is a good case to study, and I still need more research about its whole system and policies. I think it will help a lot for my career.

UO Alumni dinner is a great opportunity to know many architects who are working inHong Kong. It is so exciting to listen to their stories and projects which is a huge encouragement for me to work here one day.

I wish the program could be longer.

Colorful (Tetris) Building in Wan Chai

We often form expectations, create mental images for what will happen and what it will mean.  Yet none of which were able to match what we actually faced in Hong Kong.  Upon departing the plane, even just walking through the tunnel the connected back into the terminal I was blasted with humidity and heat (Note, this was in six in the morning).  Adjusting to the different environment was among the hardest challenges.  Everywhere you went, you were met with a barrage of people.  That included the endless stream of pedestrians that commonly overflowed into the equally packed vehicular roadways, to the interesting array of automobiles.  With such human/building multitude, the experiences go far beyond simply visuals; as we immersed ourselves in the streets of Hong Kong, the city eagerly fought to control our senses.  There were the blaring lights and car horns,  the subtle humming of million air conditioning units, the arguing shopkeepers, and, of course, the sweet aroma of food.  Not to say other cities are not vibrant and lively, but while many cities have their quirks that beckon you towards them, Hong Kong persona seems to assert what it has to offer, as it vigorously hauls you in.

Another challenge was the communication of ideas.  Aside from the language barriers within the groups, there was the difficulty in presenting our research and knowledge on the poster or in words.  Mainly, I found the most challenging part of this to be the consolidation of ideas.  After spending approximately two days studying the landscape of Mei Foo, we gathered a plethora of sections, interviews, layout plans.  Determining what to keep and use from became challenging, especially since each person perception of an item’s importance varied.  During the first week review, one of the instructors suggested to search/ stay close towards the main idea, or take-away.  Even if not all the points are strong/relevant as others, sticking and returning to a key idea helps to focus the audience.   Our group decided to deploy that advice in the second project, production of a video, and we started with brainstorming for a single point we wanted to make.

In regards to my career path, this trip greatly reinforced my passion for architecture and design.  The program being meant for landscape architecture students, and graduate students at that, evoked some distress, intimidation and fear of inability to comprehend the course material.  Thankfully, that was not the case, in any regards.  As shown through one of our opening games, everything is connected, whether be architecture, astronomy, or finance.  All of the fellow UO/HKU students and staff were approachable and willingly elaborated when misunderstandings arose.  Being surrounded by a group talented, gifted individuals was hardly daunting, but much rather humbling, edifying, and even entertaining at times.  I am more than overjoyed to have participated in this study abroad experience and have nothing but affirmations and gratitude to everyone who made it possible.

Thank you, and until next time Zai-Jian!

Video link to project two:

Innovation Tower

ICC Tower

We start our video from Kam Tin’s most obvious symbol—Wall System. It is a rigid and visible boundary separate inside and outside area. Since the subsequent architectural construction, the original grid inside of Kat Hing Wai is not comfortable for resident any more, and the narrow alley is not a good scale for the houses on the two sides. Thus the historic wall more looks like a limitation and also does not obtain therespect it deserve. People prefer stay in the shade along the street and public space. Zooming up the map of our site, we decide to use this real architectural boundary as our main subject to extend the others boundaries of people’s life in this area.

We can easily clarify the sign and lane on the street which shows us the visible boundary. However, people on escalator leave the left side naturally for someone in rush also presents the invisible boundary. Sometimes this kind of invisible boundary is even more serious. Kam Tin is a traditional Hakka settlement, with the development of Hong Kong, more and more outsiders move in this area. Currently, the village mixed various people who have different nationality, skin color, even the language is not the same one. From our film record, we can see a strong boundary between various residents. They hardly share a public space, chat with each other. It is frustrated that getting video interview is so hard, because people are so sensitive to the camera. However, we try to record the necessary information from the observation and brief talking with residence.

The Kat Hing Wai reminds me of Hakka Earth Building Complex. It is located in Chunxi Village, Fujian Province, China. Both of these residential district used Wall System as defensive function at first stage. However, the difference is their inside area. Earth Building has larger public area inside of round wall, the designers left more potential activity area which also shape the behavior of users. It is lucky enough to see the original Earth Building which has more than six hundred years history. How I wish the original Kat Hing Wai still exist.

To sum up, the second assignment is very interesting, each of our group members contribute to this process. We recorded the film both on weekday a weekend for figure out the differences. I still remember the moment that when a suitable background music was found. It starts with kind of gloomy and becomes dynamic gradually. We recorded tons of fragments to consist of the final film. I love this way to show the project, because sometimes it is hard to present emotion when you actually stand on the narrow alley without animation.

The Link of Video Assignment

Going on this study abroad was both a treat and a challenge for me, since I was just starting out in school and I had no confidence in going on a study abroad so soon. I had two major challenges that I saw right away before even starting on this program.

The first was my lack of confidence in working with others, especially with people older than me. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to communicate with my teammates because I would be too intimidated. However when the groups were picked out for the project, I couldn’t be happier with my teammates! Both could speak Cantonese and Mandarin so there was no problem with the language barrier. And even though both of them are graduate students and older than me, I felt as if I belonged and had a place in that group. They gave such good advice for both academic and personal life that I feel as if I know them already for a long time. When we went to our site for the first time as a group, we were all excited to start on this experience together. By the end of our program, we were all sad because I had to go but we made a small promise to see each other again; whether it is they come over to the US or I go back for another study abroad in Hong Kong!

The second challenge was working with the professors. Meeting and working with new professors for the first time is an intimidating process. I was worried that I wouldn’t, again, be able to communicate my thoughts and understand the feedback they would give me. However, getting to know Gavin was such a treat! He is the funniest and so far most mesmerizing professor that I know. On the first day, we took a tour of Hong Kong and he kept all of us on our toes trying to catch up with him and giving us important facts and information about the old Hong Kong. And usually I am too shy to talk to professors but this whole program gave me many chances to talk with the professors and strike up conversations both about academic matters and somewhat personal matters as well. I learned that professors are easy to talk to, no matter what the topic is.

My experience in Hong Kong has led my future plans down a different direction that what I thought I would head down. Now, I am also thinking about yet another study abroad back in Hong Kong; except this time I would like to stay longer and actually take a quarter or semester there to see what it’s like to be a full time student there. However, this experience also just strengthened my long-term goal of maybe finding a job there. I wanted to work there before because I like the busy lifestyle in Hong Kong and I like the environment there. Plus I have lots of friends and family there so I won’t be so lonely if I live there! And, the UO Alumni dinner was also a plus because I got to meet people who actually work in Hong Kong and talking with them gave me yet another connection to Hong Kong.

Overall, I thought that this program is great! Although it was only two weeks and it was jam-packed with the projects, it was well manageable. The only thing I wished was a bit more efficient would be the planning of the events. The events were great, however the time to prepare for the events or making the itinerary was very short and I felt rushed at times.

For the future study abroad students, I would say to get to know the language of the place you’re going to! It would be very helpful and you can communicate better with the other students from there. And don’t be afraid to go to new places; you’re there for the program but also for yourself! Have fun and explore… you never know what you’re going to find!

Video Link: https://vimeo.com/139266509

Cheers and see you all soon!

Bella

I just want to start off this final blog post by saying that I truly had an amazing few weeks in Hong Kong. It was an experience that I’ll never forget, with people who I’ll hopefully stay connected with for a long time. Traveling to Asia was something that I always knew I had to do, and while this was just a little taste of the culture the region has to offer, I’m so glad that I got the chance to experience Hong Kong with the group we had. I’ll talk about them and my out of program fun later, but I just want to note that those experiences were a big part of my positive takeaway from this trip

Jumping right into the challenges I faced in this program, many of the issues that I encountered were rather minor and many challenges I explain err on the side of silliness. In all seriousness however, the coursework was definitely a challenge at times for a number of reasons. The language barrier between the three of us group mates was something that we worked on throughout the two-week program, and while it was difficult to communicate on some issues, we all grew better at expressing our ideas to each other in the end. Even though communication was something that we never perfected, it helped that we all remained patient with one another and that my teammates were a couple of great people to boot. For the actual project work itself, it was quite time consuming. On some days we stayed on or near campus from the morning until deep into the night. For me, I’ve never experienced a studio class, so the long hours spent on campus we fairly unusual to me, but honestly I tried to enjoy it. There’s a definite sense of community when you spend that much time around the people you work with, and even though these may have just been some high caliber individuals, the time spent working on our projects felt a significant bit less strenuous with those classmates around. Another in-class challenge was probably the presentation for me. We really banked on the longer 10 to 15-minute time limit for the explanation and theatrics of our board. When we were told that we would only had five minutes to present, my mind went into overdrive and focused more on whether or not we could pull off our fun and unique design. We got through the presentation and unveiled our layered board relatively smoothly, unfortunately leaving many topics out, but even if the instructors did this on purpose we probably would have changed the approach to the whole presentation a little earlier if we had known the actual time limit. Alas we got the presentation done and the board was received as well as we could have hoped, so it wasn’t too big of an issue.

During the rest of our travels an obvious problem that anyone who has been to Hong Kong in the summer must face, is of course, the heat. With endless air conditioned buildings, finding a cool spot was never too far off, but the constant swings in temperature from hot and humid to cold and air conditioned was confusing to the body. The hottest times were during our tour the first week and the time my group spent making our video on the baking streets of Tai Kok Tsui. We stood in the middle of intersections in the filtered, yet searing sun and had little shade relief on the treeless roadways. So we acted like filthy tourists at times and created our own shade with umbrellas that got more use in the sun than the rain. Honestly though, now that I’m back in Oregon I miss the humidity a little.

The food challenges were few and far between as nothing that people typically eat in Hong Kong is really that strange. The one thing that I ate which proved a challenge was the chicken feet in Aberdeen. It really wasn’t that much of a struggle, but I messed up and instead of sucking the flavor off the foot, I took a bite. Bad idea. I was left with a mess of bones and cartilage in my mouth that I was never destined to swallow, and while it had a nice, spicy flavor, I didn’t go back for seconds. On our trip to Macau, as a group we had the challenge of getting a Chinese national into an SAR of the People’s Republic. The image to the left was captured as our friend was finally freed from his detention upon entrance into Macau. #FreeWei2015.

I’d say the biggest challenge for me however, was leaving. . This was both a challenge and a time for me to reflect on how the experience in Hong Kong would impact my future educational and professional plans. The credits from this course are the very last ones I need to graduate with an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science, and coming back home means stepping into a time where I’m generally expected to make certain life decisions. Further schooling is something that I always considered could be in my future, only if I had a good reason to do so. I was on the fence as to whether or not a graduate degree was something that I wanted or found valuable, but now that I’ve had a little exposure to the world of landscape architecture here and in Oregon, I know that entering an MLA program would benefit my career goals. In conversations I’ve had with other UO students in the landscape architecture program on this trip and back in Eugene, they have given me confidence that I could succeed in a design setting even coming from a science background. Applied environmental thought gets put into landscape design so frequently that with a degree in environmental science and a minor in planning, I know I have something to offer in future projects while improving my visual presentation skills through various mediums i.e. sketching, layout design, 3D modeling, etc. For now, I’ll do what I can to look good on an application for a master’s program somewhere, but if I found myself back at Oregon in a year, I would be very happy.

I really don’t have any big grievances about the program that was put together for us. Personally I would have wanted another meeting between everyone before we left, but now looking back on how quickly everyone got to know one another and how easy Hong Kong is to navigate, it was never an issue. I only wish the program was longer!

Here’s a video of a guy riding a homemade Segway in Tai Kok Tsui…Have a great day 🙂

Homemade Segway

Andrew

It has been two weeks since I left Hong Kong, but literately every day during the past two weeks I talked about our experience in HK to other people. Now I am doing a short internship in Hangzhou, which is a beautiful city in mainland China (nobody should miss this city if he/she decide to travel around China), crowded like Hong Kong but very different in many ways.

First similar phenomenon is the way people crossing street, it scared me a lot because it seems that pedestrians never care about what color the street light is when they decide to go to the other side of the street. But it also indicates people used to be the owner of streets, they were used to walk freely on streets without vehicles. And similarly to what we saw in one of the video during a lecture in HK that people using street to do their daily activity, I have seen people in Hangzhou would just pull out chairs and sit in the middle of a narrow walkway, and chatting in a group of two or three like there is nobody. But the real situation is that pedestrians are passing by them all the time, and they have to walk on the car lane to pass through because these people sitting on chairs blocked their way. But it only happens in secondary or minor streets. I guess the reason why people still doing this is because first, they used to this living style, second, the design of their community is lack of public gathering space. People have to adapt their situation but it doe not always turn out to be a genius solution. The designer of our site did a great job on creating several public social space in different scale around the whole estate. Our interviewees, especially elderlies told us that they spend most of their time in the public space instead of staying inside. Children have different playground to chose, and their parents can sit around chatting with others while watching their kids.

For residences in Yat Tung Estate,  mostly are low-incoming people and a lot immigrations with different religions and ethnicities, they really pay no attention on whether the design of this estate is responding to surrounding natural environment or not, topography or shoreline for instance. They like the shades created by surrounding high rise blocks, which makes the out door space very comfortable.

We didn’t get permit to go inside, but I guess there is no roof garden in any of those blocks that is very different from Harbin. Because our climate makes it impossible to stay outside during winter, and people don’t want to suffering from the heat during summer when they all have AC at home, the most valuable space is usually indoor commercial space that face to main streets. Thus to make more benefits, a lot new development will have high rise residential structures on top of commercial spaces on lower floor( we called them “skirt houses” 裙房 in Chinese), and the roof of these commercial houses becomes the community park for residences. It is very common both for low income housing and regular residential developments.

A good design can really benefit people’s life, creating comfortable public space is one of the most influential aspect, which I will definitely put a lot efforts on in my future projects.

Hopefully the following address works, here is the video.  Yat Tung Estate

Milk Tea & French Toast

Southorn Park in Wan Chai

Gondola Ride up to see Big Buddha Statue

Mido Cafe – Old fashioned, traditional HK cafe. Very popular among tourist and locals alike.

The second assignment tasked us in discovering the story of our selected place, then displaying that story in video format to the rest of the class.  From the research we conducted during the previous week, we saw an overarching prevalence of disconnection in Mei Foo, both spatially and/thus socially.  The elevated podium levels divided the pedestrian and vehicular presence which provided safety for either party, but in doing so limited vibrancy in said locations.  Our video set out to show the inhabitance conditions of these spaces visually, additionally implying our thoughts on the space’s connectivity metaphorically; the video’s protagonist walked through places while searching for a cellular connection.  Aforementioned character, interview English translations, minimal video editing via Adobe Premiere Pro, and partial script decisions were performed by me, while filming, directing, major film editing were done by the rest of my group.

In comparison with sites presented by other groups, Mei Foo shares many similar aspects.  Not unlike many housing projects in Hong Kong, Mei Foo housing complex’s main function is to provide large quantity over any other purpose.  It features the common podium level construction, which elevates semi-private space usually two to three levels above street level.  It has easy accessibility to transportation devices such as MTR, taxi, and bus.  The dense, rugged condition simply resonates with numerous other cities in Hong Kong.  However, when compared to other cities such as San Francisco, (Near where my family currently lives) it is entirely dissimilar.  Although also sharing the need for relatively large population, the availability of space greatly influences the typology and efficiency of the buildings.  Certain Victorian/Edwardian homes in San Francisco also share a common walls, similar to the Mei Foo complex.  Yet, these generally do not exceed three stories and offer much more visibility than the respective “towers” in Mei Foo.  Public space/ Semi-private space either takes form in parks or the pedestrian streets, which are significantly wider.  Experience at the street level has its own differences, heat/density, based on location and existing structures.

Constructed during the 1940’s, the buildings seem lackluster and even foreign when placed next to contemporary or modern buildings and complexes.  One can easily determine negative aspects of the complex, the inability to perceive location among the wall of buildings, relatively dark arcades, divided spaces; however, with time and effort, certain positive elements begin to unveil themselves.

The usage of video format gave us the ability to demonstrate what if felt like to be in a space, with still-shots of spaces themselves and the movement/inhabitance of humans.  We included interviews of residents/visitors, and asked them for their opinion of Mei Foo; while broadcasting their responses we switched between video recording of themselves or relevant still shots.  Having both verbal and visual displays reinforced the points they/we were making; this was another benefit of using video format.

Overall, the video-making process as well as watching everyone’s video was an insightful and fun experience.  The videos provided us a perspective on the place, and the group representing it based on how they presented.