HK_SMARTOWERS: rethinking Hong Kong towers through new computational methods

Abstract

The research project HK_smarTOWERS investigates one of Hong Kong’s most ubiquitous architectural forms, the podium tower. Due to the geography, political situation and population density of Hong Kong, the tower typology has become the modus operandi for residential and commercial development in recent decades. Although nothing is fundamentally wrong with this building type per se, when deployed in large numbers and in a repetitive fashion urban spaces are transformed into organizations that lack orientation, identity and specificity. As a result architecture and urban form advance to a potentially monotonous urban condition. Given this background the research project had two main objectives. On one hand it established a methodology that is able to produce multiple possible tower configurations based on the same set of input parameters and on the other hand the project aimed towards the incorporation of a standardized and mass produced building system within an intelligent digital design approach. The computational parametric strategy of the project that utilized Grasshopper and Elefront plug-ins for Rhino engaged at a set of different scales within the design and production process of architecture. Tower massing, structural assembly, internal organization and façade configurations were all imbedded within this global computational system. Within this set up the designer can produce different massing outputs based on a set of different figure ground conditions such as L- or cruciform shapes. These figures that are dominant within the city’s context and largely responsible for the urban space we live in, can produce within the generative model new forms that as a result offer external public spaces and cater potentially towards different programmatic needs within the vertical building environment.