URBAN CONSERVATION AND
REGENERATION OF
DIVERSIFY ACTIVITIES & ATTRACTIONS (SPATIAL REDESIGN OF MAIN STREETS)
MINIMUM POROSITY
DEMARCATED AREAS
KIOSKS
The Current state of the main streets reflects minimum porosity in which the volume of the demarcated area is being occupied to its maximum capacity. Such landscapes, despite allowing commercial activities to gain advantages of high profitability exchanges from tourists or visitors, are destructive to the local cultural and social existence and continuity of the historic streets. The visual obstruction and physical connection to the historic fragments such as the shophouses and fivefootways are apparent in such an arrangement. The section below envisions an alternative proposition of the spatial arrangement.
Main Street as Cultural Street (NOT MERELY SHOPPING CENTRE)
Our vision of de-gentrifying the Pagoda Street to be a Cultural Street that caters various local informal activities has the potential to transform an otherwise intimately-scaled space, returning it back to the original stakeholders which are the locals who might have felt like intruders visiting this area (as the amount of tourist outnumbers the local). Encouraging such spaces through the activation and designation of programs and inhabitation of urban furniture for the respective programs within the demarcated zones, as well as providing the streets with "Hang-out spaces" through urban furniture which allow visitors to stop by and mingle, are measures that are investigated through plausible scenarios that can take place in the main streets. The activities suggested shall respect the porosity and scale of the historic urban fragments to achieve the goal of re-spatialising without disrupting the character of the historic place.
DAY
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Inhabiting the streets with urban furniture to cater the already-existing activities, the urban furniture are designed to be flexible and transformable to allow various activities to take place at the same time. In line with the spirit of keeping the streets alive for 24-hour, the furniture provided are expected to be able to multi-functionally cater the. different activities during day and night. The occupancy of the demarcated area is maintained to be below 70% to provide porosity. During the day, the furniture are. predominantly functioned as kiosks, restaurants and seating space or mini park to provide a space for locals, tourists and merchants to interact with each other while simultaneously reflecting the activities of the past where similar interactions took place at the streets. The aim is to bring back the sense of community and space that constitute the "Genius-loci" of the historic cultural streets.
NIGHT
Diversifying the attractions (through urban furniture) to be introduced to the main streets adds variety, expanding the pool of interest for the stakeholders to experience the historic area and extending the liveliness to night time. Certain programs, for instance, night market, skateboarding and night life activities, which have a festivity nature, could add a new dimension to an otherwise fixed landscape that has become a public space where visitors would love to spend time in Therefore, the flexible and transformable furniture are expected to be utilised by the stakeholders to carry out such activities at night. These elements of surprise add vigour to the main historic streets, ensuring public participation who will not get bored with the promising lively atmosphere of the street during the day and night, just like in the past.
Detail of Transformable Kiosk
To maintain the porosity of the street in order to achieve a harmony between the urban fabrics (shophouse, five foot way, street), the Kiosk module is redesigned and experimented to obtain the most efficient instrumentation. The end-product is a retractable module which can be transformed into various forms of furniture to cater several activities (as shown in the diagram above). The size, height and feature of it are specifically designed with the spirit of maintaining porosity and cultivating socio-cultural interactions amongst the stakeholders through the activities.