Revitalisation of Luen Wo Market

Connecting the Past to the Future

The Luen Wo Market (LWM) is a Grade 3 historic building located in Hong Kong. The single-storey brick and reinforced concrete structure was self-built by a group of local elites and merchants to compete with another market two kilometres away. Surrounded by stalls and shop-houses, the market operated for 50 years before all the stalls were relocated to the new municipal services building for hygienic reasons. Since then, LWM became vacant.

With due respect to local opinions and aspirations, we drafted, and subsequently delivered, a proposal together with a local non-profit social work organisation to revitalize the historic market with government fund. The project was to create a space for interactions between the urban and the rural, the past and the future. Additions include smart cybernetic systems and a Community Rain Garden, while the heritage was being retained.

–

(Above) Aerial Image and 3D Scan: Land Marker (1980) HK. Co. Ltd. with Revival Heritage Consultants Ltd

Modernity as a Progress

LWM was completed in 1951 and was by definition a piece of modern architecture on a time basis. The question was, to what extent was LWM modern? The terms modernist, modernism and modernity represented a progressiveness in theology, later on in philosophy, art, architecture and social science, that claims no inheritance from tradition, that rejects eclecticism and aspires for authenticity, and that points towards the future.¹ The case of LWM was far more complicated.

LWM had clear references from the past. The centerpiece was an Art Deco work. The planar layout was symmetrical. The interior structural grid was unnecessarily dense and expressive. Concealed behind the rectilinear parapet walls were the pitch roofs. And underneath the white coats were red bricks rather than reinforced concrete. Many of the features of LWM can hardly be justified by simple functionality, local construction practice nor aspirations of the future. It was an eclectic mix of styles between rural and urban, and between the past and the avant-garde of its time.

The complexity of LWM was a good example of the occult² side of modernity that was far from convergent and monolithic, but divergent and pluralistic. We can say, LWM is an evidence that modernity has always been indebted to the past, despite its claims of no inheritance, and that despite the ideological progressiveness, it has always been a continuity in multitudes.

Understanding modernity is essential to the interpretation of LWM and it is what makes the heritage unique and worth conservation.

¹ Edward Denison. Meaning of Modern, under Multiple Modernities. Unpublished seminar notes. London: University College London, 2014.
² Jan Kenneth Birksted. An Architecture of Ineloquence – A Study in Modern Architecture and Religion. London: Routledge, 2013.

–

(Above) Images from the Consolidated Project Proposal, approved in 5 July 2018. © LK CHAU. Stage 1 Collaborators: WH WU, PC MAN, KP TANG, KH TANG, Lance WONG, Peter LAM, Esther MAK, Wincy WAN, HC LEUNG, CH LAM, KM LAM, SY LI.

Designing beyond Anthropocene

We are interested in the deep past and the deep future. On the one end, imagine a rural land before human activities: a feathery reedbed, where birds fly, and the water reflects the sky. These are the sceneries rapidly disappearing from Hong Kong through urbanization. On the other end we can foresee a digital world evolving with cybernetics, of intricate sensors, motors and projections onto infrastructure. We want to combine the two together.

The west plaza of LWM is the first Community Rain Garden in Hong Kong. The landscape infrastructure regulates micro-climate and demonstrates water cycle, a transcendence of memories of tall perennial grass, a surreal ecological otherness within an urban town. The Community Rain Garden secludes the plaza from the busy neighbourhood. One has to cross the unexpected wild to reach the LWM on the opposite.

The slightly sunken Rain Garden is part of the sponge city concept aimed to improve urban resilience under extreme climate. From a functional perspective, it soaks surface rainwater runoff, holds and filters the rainwater, remove pollutants, and retain nutrients before discharge into public sewer. It attenuates peak drainage flow, alleviates urban flooding and improves drainage system flexibility, while reducing heat island effect by lowering urban temperature.

Alongside the Community Rain Garden is a terrazzo bench and a boundary-free space open to public, inviting everyone to sit, meditate and appreciate the overgrown vegetation, like a ruin, evoking an emotion of the past, suggesting traces of time, passage and renewal. 

Four trees were grown on the west site boundary to provide shading and enclosure to the plaza. They have feathery leaves, their first-branches high enough to minimize blockage to the heritage facade. They attracts birds and improve urban biodiversity. We design for human and we also design for the non-human centric world beyond Anthropocene.

–

Synthesizing Many Voices

LWM witnessed the urbanization of New Territories North. It was founded from the rural past, had been a local landmark, and would continue in the urban future. The general concepts of House for Urban and Rural Living is to bridge the past to the future.

A public project is a moderation of many voices. We spent time to visit local communities, talked to stakeholders, attended street forums, reached the farmers, collected public comments that are sometimes divided and contradictory. Many asked for a revival of the market into its past function and atmosphere. Some urged for an open architecture that should be accessible for all and free from consumerism. Others were against gentrification. The role of the architect as one of the project proponents was to listen to and synthesize from the community, while doubling as another member of public contributing to the discussion. We saw a danger here: we appreciated the familiarity of the market as a collective memory, but we must ask ourselves if the nostalgia was pointed to the images of the past or the spirit of the past. ‘Heritage is fundamentally about the future.’³ Progressiveness for a better tomorrow is as important as heritage preservation for a revitalization project.

We laid out all the ideas on the plans, discussed and modified drafts until we reached a possible consensus, that was, to revive the market stalls, to collaborate with local farmers to sell local vegetables and agricultural products, to bridge between consumption and production through exhibition, to facilitate urban and rural interaction through public open space, and to operate a fusion restaurant. Ultimately we aspired to revitalize LWM into a community living room for all. The historic characters ‘Luen Wo’ meant to ‘connect’ villages for ‘harmony’. We believed the proposal would continue the essence of the original market.

³ Richard Sandford. How do you preserve an Algorithm? www .ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/about-us/bartlett-100 (Accessed 16 May 2019)

–

–

The Restoration Works

To revitalize LWM a number of restorative works must be carried out to ensure that the heritage building is safe and suitable for re-opening to the public. The Main Entrance Canopy, of reinforced concrete structure following an old construction code, was dilapidated. Cantilevered for more than 70 years, the canopy had exceeded its originally designed service life. The deformation and cracks were so obvious that a steel frame with four legs was added by the previous tenant hoping the canopy would not fall. There were four possible conservation options, each had its pros and cons. The consultant team together with the Antiquities Advisory Board agreed that repairing by recast in accordance to the original design would best retain the spatial experience of the cantilevered canopy, without any bulky strengthening. The historic English signage was traced, analogously by pencil on tracing paper and digitally by three-dimensional scanning, and was combined, studied and reproduced on the new canopy.

The flag pole, the Art Deco centerpiece, the brick parapet walls with Chinese signage were dismantled, repaired and reinstated in-situ. Other parts of the existing reinforced concrete roofs were generally in fair condition with defects such as rendering delamination, concrete spalling and minor cracks found. Patch repair and chemical injection were carried out. The upper and lower roofs were then re-waterproofed. Existing brickworks were repaired, repointed or replaced subject to their surveyed condition, and were finished with lime plaster with breathable paint.

Most existing ironmongeries were preserved in situ and repaired. Some were taken down for interpretation purposes. All existing timber windows and metal security bars were repaired or re-provided in case of missing pieces. For the interiors, terrazzo floor tiles, metal meshes, timber planks, steel portals and wired glasses were used to echo with the historic materiality.

In the memory of many people, LWM was associated with wetness: water dripped from the roofs and the floor was always slippery. To retain the historical drainage channel on the floor of LWM, the channels were repaired and protected with granite covers to facilitate wheelchair access. Part of the channels and brick traces in the central area were covered by glass and becomes a light trough, a reminiscence of the flow of water in the market building.

The restoration works respected the architectural design of Mr. MOK Yeuk-chan the original architect. The interior brick parapet walls were mostly retained to express the structure. We designed long tables and sofas that would span across the structural bays to give visual continuity across the partition borders. One column was found painted with a shopfront name and was also retained.

–

–

To minimize visual impact to the interiors, and to reduce the number of structural roof slab openings, we spent tremendous amount of time to design and coordinate the building service routings, such that the signature high headroom clearstory of LWM would be almost free from any bulkheads or services intervention. This was possible by utilizing the residual space above the lower pitch roof to create a double-deck service routing, with major transfers only allowed at entrance portals. The suspended ceilings were designed with a tilted angle to match with that of the original pitch roof, while concealing the indoor air conditioning units, the high-quality lighting fitments, the trunks and the pipes. The intention was that when you enter into the renovated LWM, you stand along the aisle, your eyes led to the original ceilings being softly lit, you sense an atmosphere of immateriality, barrenness, simplicity, frugality, of artless elegance, as if nothing has changed in LWM and everything is almost the same as it was. Despite a lot of works have been carefully done!

–

–

Towards Open Architecture

We encourage participative construction. By autonomous participative construction we are referring to designs that allow users to customize a space on site, at their own decisions and explorations, which bring genuine immediate benefits to the same users.

In the case of LWM, long IPE timber benches were installed at the east plaza to facilitate weekend bazaars. Providing easy to assemble canvas and steel posts means participant may construct their own stalls. Moveable chairs were scattered around the site. They were heavy enough not to be stolen. A set of rotary tables were installed to facilitate occasional workshops by providing temporary half-height partitions. All were multi-purpose and transformable, fulfilling the concept of Open Architecture: incomplete works that are left open for experimentation and interpretation.

–

–

The Urban Future

The green and the digital do not contradict with each other. Efforts were made to introduce cybernetics into the project. The historic clearstory windows were installed with electric actuator connected to temperature and rain sensors, to facilitate natural ventilation in autumn and winter, and for air conditioning in spring and summer. Daylight and motion sensors were installed at appropriate locations for automated feedback loop control. High efficiency type air conditioning system and thermal sensors would control fans operations. Self-contained solar photovoltaic (PV) bollards were installed at the East Plaza.

We spent a lot of time on lighting design. There were a couple of reasons. The historic clearstory windows along the aisles were hints that lighting was a key design consideration of the original architect. Second, the majority of the public preferred to conserve the historic building as close to the original as possible, implying that we the aftercoming architects had little room to play with space or materiality. We discussed among ourselves if we could not alter the building, then the best possible intervention would be lighting. Fully integrated into the historic pitch roofs and the suspended ceilings, the tube lights set a soft ambiance to the aisles by diffused reflection, whereas the task lights accentuate the programs underneath. The high-quality light-emitting diode (LED) fitments were energy efficient while delivering museum-grade lighting quality.

At the east public space is a new annex block with basement housing the necessary water tanks, pumps and other building services installations, away from and connected to the existing LWM via an underground trench. Shrubs and climbers would grow along the grilles at the annex block to regenerate a biophilia façade that evolves over time.

The fairface concrete façade of the annex block, casted from a tailor-made formliner, was a skeuomorph of the corrugated zinc sheets frequently used for informal settlements in the rural New Territories, resulting in a vertical facade strangely familiar. A traditional accordion metal gate screens off the storefront. Architecture is a public representative art. We looked for languages that embody the identity of the specific time, place and people.

–

–

Client:
Development Bureau, The Government of the HKSAR

Status:
Completed, Q4 2023

Constructional Floor Area:
865 m²

Construction Cost
HK$ 60.7M

Service:
From Strategic Definition to Handover (Stage 0-6)

ATELIER CHAULOKKAN LIMITED
CHAU Lok-kan, WONG Lok-wai Lance, LUO Yachen

Stage 2-6 Consultants:
Lead Architect: MATTER LTD
Concept Architect: ATELIER CHAULOKKAN LTD
Building Services Engineer: AURECON HONG KONG LTD
Structural and Geotechnical Engineer: APT ENGINEERING CONSULTANT LTD
Heritage Sub-consultant: REVIVAL HERITAGE CONSULTANTS LTD
Landscape Architect: URBIS LTD
Environmental Engineer: BMT HONG KONG LTD
Cartographic Surveyor: LAND MARKER (1980) HK CO., LTD
Building Surveyor: KNIGHT FRANK PETTY LTD
Quantity Surveyor: BERIA CONSULTANTS LTD
Exhibition Designer: ONE BITE DESIGN STUDIO LTD

Stage 5-6 Resident Site Staff:
Clerk of Works: Denis NG
Building Services Inspector: Roger PANG

Stage 5-6 Contractors and Suppliers:
Main Contractor: SUNNIC ENGINEERING LTD
Conservation: DING HSUNG CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
MVAC, PD and EL: RNB ENGINEERING HK LTD
FS: PYROFOE ENGINEERS LTD
Glazed Door: SUN LAP ENGINEERING HK LTD
Waterproofing: PROFICIENT WATERPROOFING & ENGINEERING LTD
Indoor Furniture: CHOR KEE DECORATION ENGINEERING COMPANY LTD
Soft Landscape: HONG KONG LANDSCAPING COMPANY LTD
Interior Lighting: ZUMTOBEL GROUP – ZG LIGHTING HONG KONG LTD