New Kai Tak Masterplan

East Kowloon, Hong Kong
Spring 2012 / RSA Semester 5.2
Professor Albert Pope, with Jon Siani and studio members
Urban Design

The New Kai Tak Masterplan represents a design strategy whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It proposes a city-scaled primitive figure, an “X-glyph,” that works urbanistically, architecturally, and cognitively. Its strength comes from its near indescribability as an icon stamped onto Hong Kong’s former airport site, able to absorb future economic, social, and political unpredictability. The “X-glyph” recontextualizes the existing runway by duplicating the existing runway and rotating it toward Hong Kong Central. Its two arms inside the apron accommodate nature voids while its two arms in the water accommodate housing and retail districts. A circular monorail, termed the Kai Tak Carousel, stitches the Masterplan together. Finally, in a grand public gesture, an iconic waterfront stadium is positioned tangent to the Kai Tak Carousel in Victoria Harbor facing Hong Kong Central.