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WHEN
people go to Hong Kong, their usual primary purpose of
going there is to shop. Everywhere you go, there is
probably a famous shopping area just around the corner
where you can find bargain merchandise with good
quality. I recently went there primarily to attend my
friend’s wedding—but of course going around the shopping
areas was also on my to-do list.
One of
the places that I went to was Mong Kok District, which
is located in the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. The Chinese
name means “flourishing or busy corner,” and the area is
characterized by a mixture of old and new multistory
buildings, with retail and restaurants on the street
level and commercial and residential units above.
Historians say that this area has always been a place of
trade since the Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420).
Mong Kok
is one of the few places in
Hong Kong that has been able to preserve its traditional
characteristics with a wide variety of small shops, food
stalls and markets that have disappeared in other areas
of the city over the past years. Its streets have
acquired their own names that describe the unique
character of each.
The
Ladies’ Street on
Tung Choi Street
is literally a woman’s shopping haven. This is where you
can find thousands of selections of women’s clothing,
accessories, bags, shoes, cosmetics and the like. There
is even a grocery and a market within the same vicinity
for housewives who want to buy their household needs on
the same trip. For men, however, Temple Street is the
place to shop. If you’re looking for a pair of Chuck
Taylors or the latest Adidas running shoes, then you can
go to
Fa Yuen Street.
This area is sometimes referred to as the Sport Shoes
Street. This is where I bought myself a pair of white
leather Converse sneakers. Aside from clothing, there
are other merchandise also available in this area. Sai
Yeung Choi South is a street full of consumer electronic
products, cosmetics and discount books. Mong Kok also
has a Bird Garden, a Flower Market and a Goldfish Market
for environmental enthusiasts. If you’re into
construction or design (as I am), you will definitely
enjoy Tile Street. It is a section of Portland Street
with more than 50 retailers that sell construction
materials that range from wallpaper to window frames.
There
are also famous shopping plazas located in this dense
area, such as Sino Centre Arcade. This shopping center
specializes in Japanese animé, comics and CDs of Asia’s
major and minor pop music stars. In Ho King Shopping
Center and Mong Kok Computer Center, you can find many
products related to computers and the latest video
games. So if you’re shopping for the latest XBox, Wii or
PSP (PlayStation Portable), these would be the places to
go.
The best
architectural discovery I made in the Mong Kok
area—perhaps even in all of Hong Kong—was Langham Place.
It almost seemed out of place because its design seemed
so futuristic, exquisite and insanely expensive for a
place like Mong Kok, which is defined by street culture.
It is a monumental business and commercial complex which
consists of a shopping mall, hotel and an office tower,
occupying two entire blocks with a gross floor area of
1.8 million square feet. It was meant as an urban
renewal project, and was intended to cleanse and
modernize a dilapidated area in Kowloon that used to be
known as a red-light district. The 59-story Grade A
office tower, Langham Place Office Tower, is the tallest
in Kowloon, with a height of 255.1 m (837 ft).
The
shopping mall of
Langham Place
was absolutely breathtaking. Here in the
Philippines,
we are used to five- to seven-story shopping malls with
a typical atrium-oriented design flanked by a strip of
commercial establishments. Langham Shopping Center, on
the other hand, is designed to be a “vertical mall,”
departing from the common western model of the low-rise
shopping center. It is a 15-story shopping complex with
two basements that spirals itself up to the 13th floor.
The reason for the vertical development, aside from the
lack of space, was mainly because of the high land price
and the higher yield on retail property. Because of
this, they were able to come up with 60,000 square
meters of retail space.
The
recurring design that is consistent throughout the mall
is one of folding planes and surfaces. Whatever angle
you look at the mall from, it appears as if the building
is in motion. There is almost no surface that is
parallel or perpendicular to the ground, aside from the
floor, of course. But even the floor is gently inclined
to form complex ramp systems in other parts of the mall.
Almost all of the surfaces in the exterior and interior
sides of the building are clad with stone, which
explains the 10-billion HK dollar cost of the entire
structure.
There
are quite a number of special spaces within the mall.
The first is the Grand Atrium. It is a stunning
nine-story volume whose walls are fully clad with
continuous glass, allowing natural daylight to come into
the magnificent space. This is the center or the hub of
the whole complex, connecting the shopping center, the
hotel and the office tower.
Suspended on the ceiling of the Grand Atrium and running
the whole length of the mall is what they call the
Digital Sky. It is one of the most unique and
fascinating attractions of the mall, where they project
different kinds of images in the ceiling, from rolling
clouds to psychedelic visualizations.
Langham
has one of Hong Kong’s longest indoor escalators.
Located in the Grand Atrium, it has a total length of 83
meters and can take you from the atrium floor (located
on the 4th floor) directly to the 8th floor, where the
cinemas are located. From there, you can take another
“Xpresscalator” straight to the 12th floor. This means
that shoppers can go directly to the 8th or 12th floor
directly, or vice versa, without having to wait for an
elevator to take them to their desired floor. It really
makes you feel the immense space, especially if you look
down, as the length of the Xprescalator enhances the
spatial volume of the mall.
Another
feature of the mall is the Spiral. It is a continuous
ramp of hip shops and restaurants that winds and
corkscrews around another atrium from the 12th floor
down to the 8th floor. Meant for young people,
traversing up and down four floors via a unique ramp
could be a fun experience. This floor configuration
allows the design of this area to twist, bend and fold
upwards.
At the
uppermost floor of the mall is the Ozone. It is the
place of the mall to “see and be seen,” as this is where
the chic restaurants and bars are located. Not even our
very own
Greenbelt
3 can compare with this stylish area, especially because
of the romantic ambiance and hypnotic imagery provided
by the Digital Sky. I was even able to spend an
unforgettable moment there with my girlfriend.
I do
hope that malls in our own country start to look like
Langham Place. Some of our newest malls simply look like
huge parking garages, with no semblance of a design
effort for the exterior of the structure. Developers,
architects and contractors should also think of
designing a shopping center that will enhance the
quality of life of its shoppers. It should not be seen
simply as a place to purchase one’s desires and needs,
but as a place of refuge from the daily hassles that
life throws at us. After all, Filipinos spend a huge
chunk of their lives in shopping malls.
You may e-mail the author at design@buensalidoarchitects.com
and visit his web site at www.buensalidoarchitects.com. |
