It is not difficult to link Hong Kong with the image of a high density city.  The outline of the buildings continues all the way from East to West and you barely see any of the landscape except slices of green in-between buildings.

 

The high density of Hong Kong is renowned amongst world cities.  In about 1,000 sq. m of land mass, live more than 7 million people.  Out of the 1,000 sq. m., 40% of the land is Country Parks and Natural Reserve and additional 35% of the land is hilly and mountainous with steep slopes.  Therefore the high density living environment would not be easily resolved and disappear, even in the next 100 years.  In fact, we need to embrace it and think about how we can move forward with these conditions in mind. 

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Hong Kong used to be called “Pearl of the Orient”.  The sky is lit up by the shimmering light from every household.  Looking from afar, the light shines as if coming from the land itself, like jewels embedded.  Getting close, you can actually see that each household has its own identity and character, the different use of colours and lighting, the flashes of the TV sets, and they all have their stories.  It is this characteristic that Nil Studio wants to bring to Taiwan and how we look at the future from our perspectives.

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Nil Studio starts in 2014.  Before we set up this studio, we did a few projects and competitions.  Nil stands for zero.  It represents an emptiness state of mind and matters.  Each projects starts from its own origin and find its way through a vicious process of experiment and testing. 

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The design that we are proposing is a combination of a distinctive Hong Kong character and an exploration of the projects we did in an array of boxes assembled together similar to that of scenes of Hong Kong.  The boxes of various sizes are amalgamated together, each with its own characteristics and purposes.  Each box is branded with a dot, which represents Nil (0), and from each dot you can explore our projects and ideas by peeking through and look at the drawings, touching the models and materials of our proposals, listening to the Interviews, smelling the dirt we gathered from the sites.  All the boxes together represents the future of our city, a super high density, high rise habitat that push the limits of our land and resources.  Would there be solutions to the demand?  Our projects looked at a few of the possibilities in existing land use, re-structuring of existing buildings, subtle addition to a heritage building and  investigation of the boundary of sea and land. 

There are similarities and differences of Taiwan and Hong Kong, we open our minds to reconnoiter the characters of both cities.