Urban planning of Wan Chai

Wan Chai is surely a unique district contains a lot of different features, but there are still some problems left as the time change, what should we do to reduce these problems, with keeping the unconventional design that shows Wan Chai as a diverse and inclusive community.

We aim to reduce the urban problem that we found in Wan chai district, with mixing the features characteristic that Wan Chai contains at first and make it sustainable, turning Wan Chai into a friendly, modernized and unique district in Hong Kong.

Wan Chai is an area in Hong Kong with rich Chinese and Western characteristic.

The problem of population aging is becoming more and more serious in Hong Kong, and Wan Chai has not been spared. Wan Chai has already became the district which contains the largest number of elderly. The following are some data about the aging population of Wan Chai:

Because of the large aging population, we mainly consider the perspective of the elderly when rebuilding the area, and at the same time try our best to meet the needs of different people at the same time.

Wan Chai is a long-standing area, which became extremely prosperous as early as the Victorian era in the 18th century. Because of this reason, Wan chai retains many foreign architectural features from the 18th century, but some of them don't fit the life of the citizens now.

In the following, we will list out a few main problems that we have found in Wan Chai, which affect the locals mostly : 

There are many hawker and pitch stalls situated in the vicinity of Wan Chai road and Spring garden road, which cause obstruction and endanger the local citizens, here are some of the examples:

• Many of the cargo residues such as vegetable leaves and meat mince were left on the road, which attracted pest crawl on the street for foraging.

• Garbage from the goods of the hawkers are placed in everywhere on the street.

• Many seafood shops and stalls were crowded on the street, which often spilled out some water to the road from the goods that they are selling( e.g. fish, seafood with water etc. ) accidentally, this will cause the street slippery and the locals, especially elderlies hard to shop or walk on the road.

The side walk in Wan Chai is narrow as they were built in the Victorian era, at the same time, many sundries were placed on the street as the outdoor markets don’t have enough space to put all their goods inside their shop, which will cause the road narrower and become more harder for the locals to walk.

Also, there might be accident happens because of this problem, such as the locals who walked on the street was fell on the road accidentally because of the narrow sidewalk, or got hit by a car.

In some of the leisure park, their are some strange, weird design and facilities that had been built inside which are unfriendly to elderly and handicapped, here are some of the examples:

• Some of the park have many railing in front of the entrance which block elderly to go inside that cause them cannot reach their aim — rest inside the leisure park.

• Low sanitary quality inside the park, the bird droppings were in everywhere which people cannot sit or rest inside, also many rubbish were packed in the leisure park, example: Spring Garden Lane Sitting out Area.

• Lack of green plants, the surrounding environment is depressing, it is difficult to achieve the purpose of "rest".

• Many facilities inside the leisure place were broken.

• Many of the parks are situated at the hillside area ( Wan Chai Park and Stone Nullah Lane Park ), which needed to climb a long stair to reach the park.

For the problem that we had listed out above, this has seriously affected the lives of residents in Wan Chai. We felt really sad about it and want to reduce them to built a modernized Wan Chai district, here are the solutions that we have thought to solve the problems.

In our following ideas, we will focus on health and hygiene, environmental quality and society and social infrastructure these sustainability goals to help the locals, especially elderly, to solve their urban problems that we had mentioned above.

• The pitch stall and hawker can reallocate into the market at the vicinity, such as the Wan Chai market.

• Inside Wan Chai Market, there is still a lot of space which can be placed in the market, also there will be staff to monitor the environment everyday, which can reduce the rubbish and cargo waste effectively.

• Also, we can build more indoor markets to accommodate the large number of pitch stalls and hawkers from the outdoor markets.

• We can reduce the road size problem by increasing the width of the sidewalks. When the size of sidewalks increases, there will be more places for people to walk and hawker to place their goods. Also it can reduce the chance of accidents ( car crashes ) too. 

• At the same time, because there will be more places after the road increases its width, it will be more friendly to the elderly to shop around the hawker as they can have more places to walk and no need to be scared about being crowded.

In addition, in areas with a lot of traffic, we can also consider building pedestrian zones and removing roads to achieve the purpose of increasing space.

• Changing the width of the road is not enough, we can improve our idea of safety by adding railings at the same time. 

• With railings next to the sidewalk, it can protect the locals by reducing the chance of falling outside the road or getting hit by a car ( the railing can stop the car before it crashes ), which increases the safety of the city greatly.

• Although Wan Chai has fewer citizens in Hong Kong, it still contains around four hundred thousand people. Because of the population problem, they live in different places. Some live on the mountain, while others live on the foot of the mountain. 

• At this time, building an escalator to connect the mountain and the mountain can be a perfect solution to solve the problem many of the parks are situated at the hillside area ( Kwong Ming Street Children's Playground ), which needed to climb a long stair to reach the park and be more friendly to the locals.

• We can paint the history of Wan Chai on the walls near the leisure park, so that it can not only relieve the oppressive feeling of the building, but also enable the masses to learn new knowledge.

• At the same time, we can also look for residents living in Wan Chai, and work together to draw their impressions of Wan Chai on the walls near the leisure park, so as to increase the sense of belonging of the citizens to this place (refer to the North Point MYR station or HKU MTR station).

• We can build new facilities for leisure parks so that residents can rest in them, especially focusing on adding facilities for the elderly such as walking sticks so that they can exercise inside.

• At the same time, we can change the original stone floor of the leisure park into a wooden floor. There are often people (especially children) running and jumping in the park, and it is easy to fall and get injured. The chance of injury on the wooden floor is not as high as that of the stone floor. Even if it falls to the ground, it won't be a big problem.

• Plant more green plants around the leisure park to make resting people more relaxed.

• We can give priority to planting plants that represent Hong Kong (such as redbuds, etc.), and attach notes on the plants.

• In this way, residents can learn new knowledge and increase their sense of belonging to Wan Chai and Hong Kong.

• We can add shelters to the chairs in the leisure park to cover the falling bird droppings or other dirt, which can effectively improve the sanitation of the park, so that residents can really "rest" on it.

• The railings in front of the park are intended to prevent bicycles from entering, but instead prevent the elderly with disabilities from entering.

• We can try to expand the gap between the fences. Which is not enough to allow bicycles to enter but can easily allow the elderly with crutches to enter the leisure park to rest.

Wan Chai is one of the busiest commercial areas in Hong Kong, including many offices of international companies. It had already been well developed since the Victorian era, which has a very high historical and cultural value as it features in this district because of its long history, such as some ancient artifacts, like the Hung Shing Temple. It existed for a long period of time and contains valued culture inside. 

We hope to preserve these traditional ancient buildings as the characteristics of Wan chai and integrate modern design to make it a unique city where East meets West.

We will not demolish these old buildings but choose to keep them. However, some buildings, such as the western-style buildings across the street from Southorn Stadium, we can choose to revitalize them, such as moving the "indoor market" mentioned above. In order to preserve the characteristics, it also achieves the solutions of solving the urban problems that we mentioned above. 

Also, we can build a leisure park around the Hung Shing temple, which can keep the valued culture in Wan Chai as a feature, at the same time can really help the locals to rest inside.

Sustainable development for the 21st Century ( SUSDEV. 21 ) means eight main points, which are Nature Resources, Society and Social infrastructure, Biodiversity, Leisure and Cultural Vibrancy, Environmental Quality, Mobility, Economy, Health and Hygiene.

In our project, we mainly used the 3 points of Sustainable development, which are health and hygiene and Environmental Quality and Society and Social Infrastructure.

• Health and Hygiene:

• Environmental Quality :

Our idea of building indoor markets can help to increase the health and hygiene in Wan Chai, because it can monitor the sanitary in Wan Chai, reduce the rubbish on the street and the pests that might appear with the hawker, and also take care of the health and well-being of citizens.

 In addition, our idea of indoor market and building ​​a screen to stop bird droppings from falling on the chair in the leisure park can make the environmental quality sustainable, reducing the dirty bird droppings and cargo residue.

• Society and Social Infrastructure :

Our idea of adding railings and fixing the facilities in Wan Chai can increase the society and social infrastructure and make it sustainable, providing the social infrastructure to the public which are friendly to everyone so that locals can live more comfortably.

Our team believes that adhering to the above methods will help solve the urban problems of Wan Chai District, and at the same time integrate ancient and modern Chinese and foreign designs, which will make Wan Chai District a more unique, modern and friendly community.

A Unique, Modern and Friendly District can be build by You, Me and all of Us with your support!

This is the end of our story map, thank you for your reading, also hope that you will like and support our ideas of planning Wan Chai District!