Did you know that 137 Pillars House has a history connected to the kingdom’s royalty? The house was originally the headquarters of The Borneo Company Limited founded in Chiang Mai 130 years ago, a British teak trading company whose first manager was Louis T Leonowens, son of Anna, English tutor to the young Prince Chulalongkorn? […]
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Kuk Po, similar to Lai Chi Wo and Mui Tsz Lam, is defined by its coast-to-hill topography, one that stretches from the picturesque expanse of mangrove and reed wetlands, emerging from the long-abandoned rice paddy grid, to the once-productive valley topography nurtured by numerous streams. Endowed with fertile lands and its gateway location facing northwards […]
Mui Tsz Lam is a 20-minute uphill hike away from Lai Chi Wo. An unwalled 360-year-old hamlet predating its bigger neighbour, its two main rows of east-facing rowhouses are also backed by feng shui woods and fronted by rice paddy terraces that once extended all the way down to the coast. By the early 1980s, […]
Lai Chi Wo is the largest and best-preserved of the seven-village cluster of Hing Chun Alliance in Sha Tau Kok. Backed by mountains and facing the sea, its nine-row, three-column walled village layout has ancestral halls within, a temple and school overlooking an open plaza without. Once an affluent education and trading hub, the village […]
Outside of the hyper-dense high-rise compactness of urban Hong Kong, three-quarters of the city’s territory remain relatively rural and undeveloped. There has been more attention to rural revitalisation since the government’s recent launching of countryside conservation policies and funding mechanisms. In 2018, the Countryside Conservation Office (CCO) was established to support innovative conservation of natural […]
Read More… from Architectural Restorations for Remote Countryside Regeneration in Hong Kong
In the absence of formal conservation status for many of these residential developments, private citizens have taken on the challenge. One of the most comprehensive organisations is Docomomo, an online archive of modernist architecture with chapters in cities around the world operating independently. The Singapore chapter is one of the most prolific in Asia, with […]
Dear FuturArc readers, In attempting to embark on a journey of uncovering and highlighting old architecture that is still in use today—with some even serving its original functions—and have been designed to be climate- and context-responsive eons ago, we thought the word gold will fit the topic nicely. The word is not only often used […]
China’s Grand Canal—the world’s longest and one of the oldest artificial waterways—played a key role in strengthening connections between the country’s south and north areas. Positioned at the canal’s southern extent is the city of Hangzhou, with an 18-hectare site formerly occupied by an oil refinery. Since the factory’s closure, most of the structures had […]
Read More… from Hangzhou Oil Refinery Factory Park: From ‘fossils’ to renewable energy
There is a paradox of housing provision, where many properties stand empty within inaccessible areas while at the same time people are facing a global housing crisis. In urban areas, the urgent need for housing is often met by constructing collective homes—but in the attempt to build faster, many factors such as community and liveability […]
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The ocean covers 70 per cent of our planet and represents over 95 per cent of the biosphere. It also produces at least half of the planet’s oxygen while absorbing around 30 per cent of carbon dioxide, making it a key ‘carbon sink’ in buffering the impacts of climate change. Despite humanity’s utter reliance on […]
Read More… from The necessity of safeguarding ocean ecosystems: World Oceans Day 2023
Initially patented as an alternative to tree-based materials, and with the intent to reduce deforestation, plastic bags and other types of single-use plastic has grown to cause problems for the environment due to their widespread use and lack of recycling management in many places. The production of plastic is among the world’s most energy-intensive manufacturing […]
Read More… from World Environment Day 2023: Solutions to Plastic Pollution
The regeneration of Fornebu Brygge, a fjord-side location just outside central Oslo in Denmark, aims to transform a disused parking lot into a centre for pioneering a sustainable ocean economy. It would provide the region with waterfront interactions and an arena for marine life preservation, sustainable food and energy production, and Green ocean transport solutions. […]
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