Document Type
Thesis Prep
Degree
B. ARCH
Date
Fall 2018
Keywords
Hong Kong, Chinese Government, Umbrella Revolution, Social Credit System, urban infrastructure, architecture
Language
English
Disciplines
Architecture
Description/Abstract
Hong Kong has always been colonial; its existence is shaped from the confluence of East and West. After 158 years of British rule, Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese Government, catalyzed by the expiration of its 99-year lease of the New Territories, began in 1997 whereby the city operates under a "one-country-two-systems" policy. These events have created a culture and identity of disappearance as the people of Hong Kong have scrambled to define their identity due to the imminence of its disappearance, as discussed by Ackbar Abbas. This is exemplified in the Umbrella Revolution in 2014 when citizens, mainly students, occupied major infrastructural areas of the city to protest the breach of their promised right to a fair democratic process. The present-day impact of these events, infrastructurally and socio-economically, is an indication of the possible future to come.
This thesis speculates on the conditions and architectural implications of Hong Kong, post-2047, after the unification of Hong Kong and China. Using infrastructure as a tool to influence and control, this thesis explores the future narrative that China will impose an infrastructural mega-system, called the Entity, onto the city of Hong Kong, rezoning and segregating the city based on socio-economic class. The Entity superimposes layers of circulation on top of the existing fabric, including walkways segregated by class and a new ground for the sole use of mainland Chinese citizens. Movement on the walkways, or grounds, is strictly enforced by the constant surveillance of the entity which utilizes the Social Credit System to administer and solidify its control of the inhabitants of Hong Kong. Furthermore, this thesis speculates on how the people of Hong Kong can re-appropriate the system and define a new form of protest, and thus a new identity, against a system created to subdue them.
In short: Hong Kong's new identity will be found in the spatial practices implicated from new urban infrastructural conditions pervasive in Hong Kong's urban life and landscape, post-2047.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Mike and Sadhwani, Raul, "2047 City" (2018). Architecture Thesis Prep. 419.
https://surface.syr.edu/architecture_tpreps/419
Source
Local Input
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Additional Information
Thesis Prep Advisors:
Mitesh Dixit