Last Saturday 22th took place in Hong Kong the presentation and discussion entitled 'The People´s Urbanism', an event organized by AP+E about bottom up approaches part of the last edition of the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (UABB).
The debate was presented by Jeffrey Bolhuis and Laurence Lord, Founders of AP+E and curators of the exhibition ‘Public Rules’, together with Ms. Tris Kee, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong and Director of The Community Project Workshop, Travis Bunt, Design Director of Urbanus, Adjunct Assistant Professor at CUHK and Executive Curator of the UABB*HK, and Luis Aguirre Manso, Founder of AQSO and initiator of Hutopolis research project.
The event, understood as a platform for sharing concepts and studies about bottom-up urbanism and aspirational urban development, was an opportunity for the speakers to talk about samples of public participation, charity projects, community consultations, collaborative design, self-construction and urban experiments in contexts such as Cambodia, Hong Kong, China and The Netherlands.
After the lectures, the discussion went depth into the rules under which people and public authorities get involved for urban development. Starting from two particular cases, -on one hand the single family projects being built in The Netherlands under the new European post-crisis scenario and on the other the recent proliferation of illegal structures occupying top terraces in downtown Hong Kong-, the conversation tried to analyze how bureaucratic frameworks influence these reactions and what conditions are necessary for people’s urbanism to happen.
The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) is the world’s only biennale dedicated exclusively to the themes of urbanism and urbanization. The 2013-2014 edition has been dedicated to exploring ‘beyond the urban edge’, featuring satellite exhibitions, workshops, performances and forums based on the theme of ‘the ideal city’.
