one plus three plus nine. v2.0.

Architecture is a demonstration of the tradition, the history and/or the culture of the people and the community for which it was designed and constructed for.

The architectural preservation of this demonstration is important in order for developing nations to not lose their background and cultural heritage in the push to become more like the much more developed superpowers of the world.  It also applied to cities of multicultural background, where their regional culture cannot be defined by one culture of traditions alone.  One region of such a background is Hong Kong SAR.

As a multicultural city who is still currently experiencing a shift of powers after a recent exchange from British colonization back to the Chinese government, the strong architectural identity of the early 20th century is slowly disappearing to give way to China's major push for progress and modernization, to simply be bigger and better than the current superpowers.  Unfortunately, China's aim for achieving a modernized nation has lead to the sacrifice of important landmarks that had demarcated a milestone in hong Kong's cultural history, notable examples of which include the Governor's Residence and Queen's Pier in the Central District.  Cuturally relevant pieces of architecture are gradually being replaced by culturally neutral skyscrapers and highrises.  To help reinstate the SAR's cultural heritage through it's architecture, the goal would be to study the vernacular of key historic districts of Hong Kong, and study what worked and what didn't that led to its potential destruction to make way for yet another shiny, new highrise.  From there, there could be an extended study on how to architecturally preserve these landmarks and perhaps implement the idea of adaptive reuse to help these structures to still be modernly functional and suitable to the residents' new and progressive lifestyles.

The primary area of focus in Hong Kong are the tenement buildings, or tong lau, in the Central District that were designed and constructed in the 1930s-1950s.  Originally designed to have a commercial space on the ground floor, with residences above, the architecture demonstrates aspects from the variety of cultures that existed in the area, from colonial British to traditional Chinese to even a sliver of French influence in certain facets of the ornamentation on the facades.

The goal is find a way to reuse the structure to preserve the form and the history represented by them while adapting them to make them suitable for the quickly modernizing lifestyle and environment of the people and places around them.