Media

HKU’s architecture project “The Pinch” wins prestigious World Small Project of the Year 2014

19 Oct 2014

 

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) Architecture Department Associate Professor John Lin and Assistant Professor Olivier Ottevaere jointly won the World Small Project of the Year 2014 at the World Architecture Festival. The Pinch, the award winning project, is a library and community centre in the earthquake-damaged village in Yunnan Province.

World Architecture Festival is the world’s largest festival and competition dedicated to celebrating, and sharing architectural excellence from across the globe. Architects John Lin and Olivier Ottevaere worked with a team of students at HKU to design and build The Pinch, which is part of a government led reconstruction effort after an earthquake in Shuanghe, Yunnan, in September 2012．In the earthquake, the majority of village houses were destroyed, and the residents were left living in tents for up to one year. Since then, the government has sponsored new concrete and brick houses and a large central plaza. During the first site visit of the HKU team to the area, the houses remained incomplete and the plaza was a large empty site. 

The project is an HKU Knowledge Exchange project, the construction involved collaboration with a local timber manufacturing factory. The process resulted in the development of a surprisingly diverse form through simple means - the twisted wooden roof of the library and community centre extends out to meet the upper pavement, creating a surface that visitors can walk over and that children can play on, overlooking the new public plaza. Inside, interlocking timber frames create bookshelves that are suspended from the ceiling and hover just above the floor. Simple school benches offer flexible seating, while polycarbonate plastic sliding doors front the building.

Located in the new but empty public plaza of Shuanghe village, the structure would serve to activate the community and provide a physical memorial for the event. Lin said the building was designed to house “an important aspect of village life”. He explained: “By adding the library, we have created an important public and communal facility in the village”. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the use of timber has reinforced a sense of ephemerality, humility and hope.

 For media enquiries, please contact Ms Trinni Choy, Assistant Director (Media), Communications and Public Affairs Office, tel: 2859 2606 email: pychoy@hku.hk; or Ms Melanie Wan, Senior Manager (Media), Communications and Public Affairs Office, tel: 2859 2600 email: melwkwan@hku.hk.