07
Data-dreaming of the future(s)
A visual and written speculative narrative on the future potential world(s).
Still from I’m too sad to tell you, 1970-71, mixed media artwork by Bas Jan Ader.
a change of governance;
a change of collective consciounesse;
a change to a mass-oriented society;
a cross-sectoral planning;
a stronger attachment to our economic system,
of our concept of equity;
a future as a driver for greater systemic change.
Somewhere that bridges today and tomorrow.
A ripple in time.
The accelerating exploitation of the ecosystems by human activities have led us into the existential planetary crisis. How we respond now may make a difffference, but is it enough to re-route the fate of the planet and all life forms?17 It is time for the return to our attachment to the land and our attention to the earth.18
An utopian state as an expression of the Metabolist thinking is not megastructure. The vision of this future is less of a system and more of a plan that surrenders to change and the unknown. Self-sustaining not through the means of control, but through the interdependence among disparate elements. A work-in-progress mentality. A shaking of its order as an attempt to end the systemic crisis, whose casual relationships and ramififications we are beginning to understand.
A mediation between an urbanism of the large infrastructure (controlled public system) and the consideration (freedom) of the individual. A radical rethinking of our attachments to the new and the eco-technical solutions that are suitable for a just social and cultural practices.
The megastructures as vision of the future? The 21st century marked its revival as an adaptation strategy to mitigate our failing world. Reinterpreted and greener versions of Agricultural City as megastructure were steadily being realized as ways to combat overpopulation, desertification, over exhaustion of our natural resources, and the need for clean energy.
Greener,
more sustainable,
more accessible,
fairer,
freer,
happier, like a utopian state?
The notion of megastructure as vertical urbanism of the 21st century attempted to leverage the power of technology and new environmental consciousness to promote eco-districts in a city scale. Yet, the rapid development, concrete channels, walled-barriers of the megastructures, further exhausted our already compromised biodiversity. The technological salvation of net zero or net-positive energy buildings did not slow down our soaring carbon emissions. The flood walls and the green city towers that sat on concrete stilts above our rising sea levels failed as long-term flood mitigation strategies. The expansion of megastructure replaced our old-growth forests and wetlands. Our aquatic fauna ecosystem failed to flourish.
[...]
The ghost landscape of the elevated highways, cross-bridges, and ramps that traverse the city are the new artificial ground. A new surface for pedestrian green corridors that are connected to the adjacent buildings. They are to become a new form of public space.
A distinction from the three types of open spaces established by the Hong Kong (HKSAR) government – Green Open Space for the conservation of natural environment; Active Open Space for recreational activity; and Passive Open Space for parks and gardens.9 The new pedestrian green corridor is classified as Artificial Open Space, defined as any landscaped area built on the former vehicular infrastructure. Strict guidelines dictates passive recreational activities as the main legal use of space and a zero-tolerance policy towards small to large gathering and occupation of any Artificial Open Space, as is the case for the other three categories of open spaces.
The question of public space or public use, and to whom do the spaces that are publicly accessible serve remains.10 The history of the public realm has evolved around struggles over access, while the politics of public space of this century highlights the flawed perception that public space is inherently democratic. Agency is now a rare commodity. It is unclear to whom agency is granted in this new precinct of publicly accessible Artificial Open Space.11
The years between 2015 and 2025 marked a decade of symbolic stand against high-tech controls and tech-backed authoritarianism. It was a decade of transforming and rearranging Hong Kong’s urban landscape as ways to reclaim the city from the tight grip of hightech control. The strength of public space as an embodiment of impassioned activism was tested against a high ratio of CCTV cameras installed across the city, ultimately pushing the boundary that safeguards the private from the public realm as surveillance cameras were installed outside of every residential home by the end of 2100.
The evolution of the Industry 4.0 and its technological counterparts that make up a powerful public controlled system, reinforced by a digital “health code” system and contract-tracing smart-phone app established during the corona-virus crisis as way to control and track all human movements, have significantly undermined public trust. The green corridors of the Artificial Open Space were not embraced by the citizens of Hong Kong. An all-workno- play and a remote working and learning culture rendered the new pedestrian friendly corridors primarily unused.
The vacant sites became a sanctuary and fertile grounds for spontaneous and diverse planting. The return of nature as an embodiment of different plant species finding nesting grounds as the pace of urban change continues, highlighting the global interconnections of plant species, manifested in the ostensibly unremarkable clusters of weeds and native grasses. An ecological formation that is defiant of control, an alternative interpretation of a set of social and political parameters.12
The city of Hong Kong is historically influenced by extreme sea levels associated with tropical cyclones known locally as seasonal typhoons.13 The hig temperatures of summer seasons are broken by typhoons and rainstorms, during which the city endures torrential downpours that render any drainage system insufficient.14 The vast amount of impermeable surfaces that make up our large infrastructure made flooding far worse. As such is the progress of heavy urbanization.
Since the 1950s, various options were exercised to build up Hong Kong’s coastal resilience. Strategies include the construction of high dykes to protect reclamations from being over-topped; the toppingup of low-lying areas prone to flooding during urban renewal; the zoning of land use according to tolerance of flood damage; and the installation flood pumping stations in development areas.15
The year 2020 marked an installation of the largest underground storage tank as preventive measure against storm surge flooding. Underneath the Happy Valley Racecourse landmark sits a storage tank at a size that is comparable to twenty-four standard size swimming pools. The vast chamber retained up to 60,000 square meters of water which by 2050, it was at full capacity outside of typhoon seasons. The priority to maintain prime real estate limited the options for natural and nature-based coastal resilience strategies such as vegetated buffer zones and designated areas for intentional flooding. Our storm surge barriers – most of which were build on landfill and manufactured land – failed to keep up with the rising sea levels.
By 2200, our “forward-looking” environmental public-policy along with the engineering salvation of flood-wall, surge barriers, tide gate, storage tank have lost the race against high tide and humandriven climate change. Flooding is no longer seasonal. Sea water has risen above and consumed the ground plain. All that is left are the elevated corridors as the connective tissue of Hong Kong’s urban condition. “Homeland” is no longer assured. A migratory crisis as we face the question of whether we look for a new place to land.16
“…occasionally the river floods these places.
Floods is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding;
it is remembering. remembering where it used to be. all water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get
back to where it was.”
The Site of Memory by T
Toni Morrison
The Site of Memory by T
Toni Morrison
1 “Ecotopia Rising: The Quest for the Future in Two Novels by Ernest Callenbach.” Creativity 3, no. 2 (2020): 55–. https://doi.org/10.22381/C3220203. (55)
2 Li, Guoping, Yun Hou, and Aizhi Wu. “Fourth Industrial Revolution Technological Drivers, Impacts and Coping Methods.” Chinese Geographical Science 27, no. 4 (2017): 626–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-017-0890-x. (627)
3 Li, Guoping, Yun Hou, and Aizhi Wu. “Fourth Industrial Revolution Technological Drivers, Impacts and Coping Methods.”)
4 Pedrabissi, Dario. “Artificial Land Concepts and the Architecture of Megastructure in Seoul.” International Journal of Structural and Civil Engineering Research (2020): 144-148. doi:10.18178/ijscer.9.2.144-148.
5 The Evolving Urban Form: Hong Kong | Newgeography.com, accessed August 9, 2021, https://www.newgeography.com/content/002708-the-evolving-urban-form-hongkong#:~: text=High%20Income%20World’s%20Most%20Dense.
6 “Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2030+ ‘Lowering Carbon Emissions and Transportation’ ,” Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2030+ “Lowering Carbon Emissions an Transportation” , accessed August 8, 2021, https://www.climateready.gov.hk/files/report/en/6.pdf.
7 Steve Ranger, “ What Is HYPERLOOP? Everything You Need to Know about the Race for Super-Fast Travel,” ZDNet (ZDNet, August 16, 2019), https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-hyperloop-everything-you-need-to-know-aboutthe-future-of-transport/.
8 Poon, Linda. “The High-Speed Train at the Heart of Hong Kong’s Political Future.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. Accessed August 9, 2021 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-20/the-political-controversy-behind-china-s-high-speed-rail-into-hong-kong.
9 Carlow, Jason. “[Re]Forming Public Space: A Critique of Hong Kong’s Park Governance through Architectural Intervention.” Footprint (Jan 1, 2013). doi:10.7480/footprint.1.763. https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=dedup_wf_001::38ddefd5229167b147e64717710a50fa.
10 Hu, Jian-miao and Jian-mei Cen. “Video Surveillance in Public Space in China — Focus on the Right of Privacy.” Frontiers of Law in China 4, no. 3 (Sep,
2009): 474-488. http://www.hyread.com.tw/hypage.cgi?HYPAGE=search/search_detail_new.hpg&dtd_id=3&sysid=00315370.
11 Couture, Daisy, Matt Hern, Erick Villagomez, Sadie Couture, Selena Couture, Glen Sean Coulthard, and Denise Ferreira da Silva. On This Patch
of Grass : City Parks on Occupied Land . Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing Company, Ltd., 2018: (39-41)
12 Matthew , Gandy. “Landscape as Affective Image (and the Instruments of Experience).” ALICE Series Surrounded by a Fog of Virtual Images . Lecture presented at the ALICE series Surrounded by a fog of virtual images , February 13 Frassetto, Roberto. “Impact of Sea Level Rise on Cities and Regions.”Marsilio, 1991.
14 James Griffiths, “Hong Kong’s VAST $3.8 Billion Rain-Tunnel Network,” CNN (Cable News Network, July 25, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/style/article/
hong-kong-tunnels-climate-crisis-intl-hnk-dst/index.html.
15 Frassetto, “Impact of Sea Level Rise on Cities and Regions.”
16 Latour, Bruno, and Catherine Porter. Down to Earth : Politics in the New Climatic Regime . English edition. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2018: (5-9)
17 “Hypertopia.” State Studio . Accessed August 9, 2021. https://state-studio.com/program/hypertopia.
18 Latour, 57.
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