Masterplanning the Adaptive City

252
MAD
Diagrams indicating
the pavement
pattern of the
undulating plaza,
the organization 
of structural
elements, and
cladding.

---

This project was conceived and executed through the collaboration between three
organizations, Hong Kong Parametric Design Association (HKPDA), dotA and
OCEAN CN.
Design Team:
HKPDA: Sam Cho, Yang Wang, Ben Dai, Jaenes Bong
dotA: Gao Yan, Duo Ning, Chang Qiang
OCEAN CN: Tom Verebes, Eric Liu
Engineer: Chang Qiang (dotA)
This proposal for a border crossing facility between Hong Kong and Shenzhen
inscribes an explicit, fluid connection between two disjoined territories while
maintaining the discrete identities of both. The graphic qualities of traditional
Chinese calligraphy, in which the movement of brushstrokes is frozen in space and
time, helps to express the connection between these two cities, two geographies,
two systems, as a fluid transitional space in which the identifiable characteristics
of each side are concurrently associated yet distinguished through the peeling
away of a series of tectonic roof bands, flanked by two strokes of office volumes
which hover above on either side of the passenger crossing. Given the two parallel
yet divergent ecological, planning, and political histories, the Hong Kong side is
characterized primarily by wild protected landscapes and topographies, while the
Shenzhen side is overwhelmingly artificial and urban. This proposal aims to
synthesize the categories of the artificial and the natural through an emergent
ecological paradigm, in which man-made, “mineral” urbanism is no longer
conceived of as being in opposition with the natural, “biological” environment, 
but rather as fused in a symbiotic association of mobile dynamic forces and
interactions. Gradient fields of computationally coded graphics become more
dense and pronounced in slow zones, and more porous and ephemeral in the fast
zones. Space is no longer fixed and static, but rather fluid as time.
CASE STUDY
HONG KONG PARAMETRIC
DESIGN ASSOCIATION, DOTA,
AND OCEAN CN >LIANTANG/
HEUNG YUEN WAI BOUNDARY
CONTROL POINT PASSENGER
TERMINAL BUILDING, HONG
KONG SAR/SHENZHEN, CHINA
2011

---

254
HKPDA, DOTA, AND OCEAN CN
Diagrams indicating the
correlation of surface,
envelope, and
structural systems.

---

255
PASSENGER TERMINAL BUILDING
N
0
20
50
100
GOO
DS
VEH
IC
LES
GO
ODS
VE
HI
CL
ES
PR
IV
ATE
CA
RS
/CO
ACH
ES
PR
IV
AT
EC
AR
S/
CO
AC
HES
EASTERN CORRIDOR
SHENZHEN RIVER
交通枢纽
TERMINUS STATION
西岭下村改造
XI LING XIA NOTIFICATION
污水处理厂
SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT
附属设施
FACILITY
香港
HONG KONG
深圳
SHENZHEN
LUOSHA
ROAD
Masterplan of the
border crossing
facility across both
sides of the boundary.

---

256
HKPDA, DOTA, AND OCEAN CN
Section and elevation of proposal, indicating the route across the boundary. 

---

257
PASSENGER TERMINAL BUILDING
Aerial view of
proposal, demonstrating
fluid spatial effects
across the boundary.

---

258
HKPDA, DOTA, AND OCEAN CN
Night aerial view of proposal, demonstrating lighting effects.

---

Funded Research Project (Tom Verebes, Principal Investigator)
HKU Team: Tom Verebes (Team Leader), Kristof Crolla, Gao Yan, Christian Lange,
Praneet Verma (Research Assistant)
Arup Hong Kong: Ander Chow (Transportation); Iris Hwang, Ricky Tsui
(Research)
Counterpart Cities Curators: Jonathan Solomon, Dorothy Tang
The FUTUREPort project is a design research project which speculates on 
the future of shipping, land management, manufacturing, environmental
sustainability, and future urbanization in the Pearl River Delta (PRD). From an
examination of thirteen ports in the PRD region, there is evidence of an acute limit
on the available land for expansion, while older ports have crowded waterways 
and cannot cater to the largest vessels. As a visionary strategy for the development
of a postindustrial economy in the PRD in relation to the future of the SZ-HK ports,
a dynamic network of offshore cargo ports is proposed with a new high-density
urban corridor in the mouth of the Pearl River, along the future Hong
Kong–Macau–Zhuhai Bridge. Projected as a series of differentiated scenarios
documented at instances from 2011 to 2111, the aim is to link the PRD region as
a continuous city with a population of fifty million by the year 2111. The direct
proximity of offshore ports to industrial production is the primary driver of this 
new model of the symbiosis of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. In addition, sources of
clean energy harvesting are proposed as integrated wind and solar farms on
offshore islands.  
CASE STUDY
THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG
KONG RESEARCH TEAM, LED BY
TOM VEREBES >COUNTERPART
CITIES: FUTUREPORT, HONG
KONG SAR, SHENZHEN, CHINA
2011
Detail plan of one sequence of islands of the maximum extent of
proposal, one hundred years in the future. 

---