Hong Kong Day 6 | Mapping Rooftops + Development of SSPo

After returning from Happy Valley last night, I began to map out the blocks between Cheung Sha Wan Road, Nam Cheong Street, Tung Chung Street, and Yen Chow Street in my sketchbook. My aim was to spend my next day and a half mapping out the rooftop communities that were visible from the street and then compare these to google Earth images once I return from Hong Kong. As I began to wander each block obsessively marking out the rooftops, I also began to notice patterns in building typologies and accessibility related to structures with rooftops on top of them. I also noticed that three types of rooftop conditions exist: an embedded structure that appears to be part of the existing building, a rooftop structure that is a continuation of the façade condition, and a superstructure that is slightly setback from the rooftop edge.

(sketch to be scanned)

Spending the majority of my day mapping, I then met up with the Xi, Rosemary, Pooja, and Charles at the local community center in Sham Shui Po for an interview with the director. We were open to ask him any questions we wanted, and although he knew little about the rooftop communities, his information was very useful. He mostly shared with us a very detailed history of the development of Sham Shui Po and why it is unchanging.

Here are a few notes I took from the meeting:

• the oldest buildings in Kowloon are located in Sham Shui Po
• Sham Shui Po is mostly on landfill added to make Kowloon larger
• the first street of Sham Shui Po was the original embankment of the sea before the landfill of Kowloon with the original settlement of Sham Shui Po being a port city
• with the landfill, Sham Shui Po lost its waterfront | a sad development as much of the original residents used to work along the industrial water but now have to seek work elsewhere since the large factories have moved to mainland China
• the Cantonese dialect has existed in Sham Shui Po since the beginning since almost all residents are from Mainland China
• immigration in and out of Sham Shui Po is constant | Hong Kong is a place that could give opportunity to those of poverty until they have enough money to move elsewhere (it’s almost like a vicious cycle)
• since Sham Shui Po acts like a temporary holding area, development is at a constant stand still because the flow of people in and out is too constant to deal with effectively
• two other temporary holding places exist in Hong Kong | Yau Ma Tei and Tai Kok Tsui, but these districts are mostly for foreigners not Mainland Chinese immigrants 

The meeting was very informative and played in nicely to my ideas of potentially connecting Sham Shui Po back to the water through a sectional city, starting with connecting the rooftops and then moving down towards the waterfront.

In the evening, I decided to see another side of Hong Kong by visiting Mong Kok. Mong Kok is a very special place and my trip would not have been complete without it. The area is filled with lights and signage; the best way that I could describe it was like being in Times Square times ten. It becomes almost disorienting and it feels like daylight on the streets.