A Bridge as a Mirage

in

typicalplan = planning

A BRIDGE AS A MIRAGE.

Where the mirage above the African desert road
–the optical illusion of water-
becomes the real seawater
over the submerged
bridge to the dream of Europe.

A breakwater, concrete with a polystyrene core,
floating a few centimeters under the water surface.

People walking on water.

The significance of the connection between two continents
matched by the magic of an apparently supernatural feat.

Not just the official link to the promised land,
the breakwater also protects the illegitimate crossings
by boat from rough seas.
(a hidden agenda?)

On the other side,
the fata morgana of the Gibraltar rock
a promise of prosperity,
as elusive as the mirage of water above Africa’s desert roads.

Where the perception of each other has always
been defined by myths, dreams and desires,
the link between the continents celebrates this
complex relationship in a magical act. 

“The high elegance of a fictional bridge which barely takes the trouble to exist. A mirage is a fantasy, but a mirage becomes more interesting when it actually does exist […]” - American science fiction author Bruce Sterling about “The Bridge as a Mirage”

  • type: submission for ideas competition “Project Heracles” organised by Domus magazine, shortlisted by jury member Bruce Sterling

  • location: Strait of Gibraltar

  • year: 2011

  • architect: Hans Leo Maes / TypicalPlan

Bedside cabinet

in

typicalplan = producing

furniture: a BEDSIDE CABINET.

A small drawer cabinet in solid oak, made with traditional mortise and tenon joint techniques. The oak has been darkened through a traditional fuming process using ammonia.

Top and drawer front panels are in cement board, thus using the more intricate natural material for the main structure and a cheaper industrial material as external cladding -like a treasure box with the most valuable assets hidden from view.

  • materials: oak, glue, ammonia, cement board, PU- and water-based varnishes

  • year: 2010

  • designer & manufacturer: Hans Leo Maes / TypicalPlan

Upside Down Chair

in

typicalplan = producing

a chair: UPSIDE DOWN CHAIR.

A dining chair and lounge chair in one, the use depending on which side is turned up.  

  • materials: MDF, glue, blackboard paint

  • year: 2009

  • designer & manufacturer: Hans Leo Maes / TypicalPlan

Warm Heart

in ,

typicalplan = planning + producing

a children's dormitory: WARM HEART.

Design for a new type of dormitory building for Warm Heart Children’s Home housing kids from neighbouring hill tribes, using cob -locally available mud + straw.

Full design services devising a new type of dormitory encouraging social interaction and community building. Engaged in hands-on construction work, collaborating with a group of local and international volunteers and local paid workers. Co-responsible for on-site problem solving, managing very limited resources, tools and manpower.

  • location: Phrao, Thailand

  • year: 2011

  • client: Warm Heart Foundation Thailand

  • architect: Hans Leo Maes / TypicalPlan

  • site architects: Hans Leo Maes, Jonas Sayer

  • construction manager: Dan Lockwood (Dragonfly Community Foundation)

Eisenhower

in ,

typicalplan = planning + producing

an apartment interior: EISENHOWER.

Renovation of 1930’s apartment, deconstructing the conventional spatial layout. Inspired by dazzle painting, the geometric wall patterns contradict or skew existing perspectives and plans. 

An old building is a palimpsest of alterations. This renovation avoids fixing the apartment in some new ideal or idealised state. The all-over patterning creates space for future, localised modifications. 

  • location: Antwerp, Belgium

  • year: 2013

  • architect: Hans Leo Maes / TypicalPlan

Hong Kong Homeliness

in

typicalplan = penning

about: HONG KONG HOMELINESS.

Far from the modernist ideal of the rationally planned highrise city, much of Hong Kong is like a medieval town on steroids. A lack of planning has conspired with extreme geography to produce this idiosyncratic urban landscape. Narrow streets are contorted in three dimensions and lined with disproportionally high buildings. Towering facades link up to line the streets with continuous walls of concrete and glass.

Not here any of the rules or regulations to mitigate density, no podium schemes or setback requirements. No rationalist measures to organise the city, no grids or apparent grand organising principles. Hong Kong is where extreme urbanity meets wild nature. Not just in the juxtaposition of the city with the mountain landscape, but also in the uncontrolled organic way the city has developed. This is the prototypical urban jungle. 

In Hong Kong the modernist virtues of cleanliness, daylight and spaciousness have been replaced by a much more nebulous commodity, not usually associated with a metropolis: homeliness. This is an unexpected by-product of a festering building frenzy that has hemmed in and precisely defined all open urban space.


Homeliness 1: Verticality.

Montane Mansions Monster building Hong Kong

The abundance of built mass gives public space an enclosed quality lacking in the ideal cities envisioned by modernism. The sheer verticality, out of proportion with the cramped public space at ground level, shrinks the scale of the latter down to that of a reassuring interior. A lack of sunlight and distant perspectives add to the feeling of claustrophobic intimacy. Life pushes into the tiniest alleyway or service corridor. An inescapable but ultimately reassuring sense of community springs eternal in this pressure cooker of a city.

Homeliness 2: Randomness.

Montane Mansions Hong Kong Facade

Hong Kong has developed into the ultimate utilitarian city, a purely functional expression of capital flows and investment.

Liberated from the restrictions of taste and quasi-unfettered by town planning guidelines, the haphazard collage of clumsy architectures results in an endlessly fascinating cityscape. On the scale of the individual building, the bland facades are customised ad libitum: a blank canvas for a patchwork of AC units, window layouts and corrugated metal canopies. Old apartments sport outgrowths wherever feasible; commercial spaces are emblazoned with signs and adverts in every shape and size.

Hong Kong is chaos, and like an overstuffed boudoir either its claustrophobia repels you or its nonthreatening informality embraces you in a way you would not expect in the densest city in the world.

Homeliness 3: Overflow.

Hong Kong Laundry

The cramped living conditions prevalent in Hong Kong are widely publicised and bemoaned. Its consequences reverberate far beyond the private sphere as domestic activities spill over into public space. Senior citizens are raucously gambling in a covered square, a kitchen aide is slicing fish on an upturned bucket in a side alley, hundreds of Filipina maids are picnicking underneath the HSBC headquarters on their day off. 

When you hardly have a living room to speak off, the whole city becomes your lounge. 

Homely No More.

Hong Kong Facade design

Nowadays new property developments in Hong Kong are doing away with all that unsightly business. Rational planning has stepped in to safeguard public interest. Greenery is provided, roads widened, buildings kept at reasonable distances. Pastel-tinted elevation patterns visually break down the overwhelming building masses. Newly enforced laws govern add-on structures and other visible modifications to buildings.

There is a drive to humanise the spatial experience of Hong Kong, to take a step back from the overwhelming surroundings. But one has to wonder whether in the process we are not losing the unique feeling of a sheltered life which nestles in the cracks of bigness, in the reassuring shadows of what is too big to fathom.

Literature:
Geopolitics of Home: Public Domesticity in Hong Kong and London, Katherine Brickell

  • year: 2013

  • author: Hans Leo Maes / TypicalPlan

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