28 January – 6 March: Passages, Pockets and Permeabilities

PASSAGES, POCKETS AND PERMEABILITIES

“Finder Sted | Taking Place”, KADK School of Architecture
“Residue”, The Faculty of Architecture, the University of Hong Kong

Every city, historical and contemporary, has its passages. Passages are pockets in the city. Some are intentional cuts into the urban fabric while others are the result of oversight and exist as the interstice between planned volumes. They make the city permeable and challenge conventional dichotomies between inside/outside, private/public, indoor/outdoor, containing/con- tained. The manifold articulations of passages in their concrete and metaphorical forms are the basis of the study presented in Passages, Pockets, and Permeabilities.

The group of installations had been conceived by the first year students of “Finder Sted | Taking Place”. This installation is now reinstalled in the Shanghai Study Center (HKU) in a modified version. The studio insisted on a decisive pedagogical prin- ciple to actively juxtapose theory and practice – imaginations and realities. As such a conceptual disciplinary passage was made between the familiar and traversed spaces of Copenhagen and the practices and makings of a student of architecture.

This exhibition proposes an installation explaining the abstract Copenhagen urban passages alongside graphic works illustra- tion of Shanghai and Hong Kong’s urban dynamics. In Year 3, at the Department for Architecture, the University of Hong Kong, architecture is investigated from the perspective of the city—fostering an understanding of architecture in relation to urban dynamics. The year’s work is framed through thinking of the city as a dynamic entity, in constant flux, and formed through a complex interaction of political, economic, social and cultural forces. Whether Shanghai or Hong Kong, the focus is on understanding why these cities look the way they do and exploring the design possibilities that offer solutions to specif- ic contextual issues.

Through the drawings, movies, and model images presented in this gallery, we hope to demonstrate the diversified under- standings and definition of Passages, Pockets, and Permeabilities between the three cities, and ultimately the dialogue of the two architectural programs.