Don’t Touch The Ground In Hong Kong!
In the Netherlands many kids play a game called ‘voetje van de vloer’, which is about keeping your feet off the ground as long as possible. The Cities Collective makes this game come to life on a city-wide level by presenting a series of three-dimensional maps of Hong Kong which you can use when you would like to experience the city without ‘touching the ground’…
Citizens in Hong Kong do not have an actual notion of ‘ground’. The city is built on a highly sloped landscape and accommodates complex systems of mobility, like the numerous foot bridges and tunnels that run through both the public and private domain. Hence, the public life of the highly dense population does not just take place in the streets or on sidewalks. When walking through the city, one encounters public train stations and parks, but also large shopping malls, hotels, harbor buildings, airports, and even private lobbies. Hong Kong can be seen as a continuous network of various environments, each with its own sound and smell.
Photo Courtesy: Jonathan D Solomon, Clara Wong, Adam Frampton
The Cities Collective has produced a series of maps that let you explore Hong Kong without touching the ground with your feet. Using these maps for your daily walk offers you a unique spatial experience of the city. The series of maps are published in the guidebook Cities without Ground. The maps are also being exhibited at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam during the International Architecture Biennale 2014, as part of the ‘Urban Metabolism’ section.
Pop-Up City is official media partner of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2014. In the coming months we’re making an article series about the best the IABR has to offer.
