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| Hong Kong selects Foster + Partners' City Park for future arts hub The Board of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) selected City Park designed by Foster + Partners as the preferred option for the development of the future arts and culture hub. The WKCDA Board endorsed the recommendation made by a Selection Panel tasked to scrutinise the three proposed conceptual plans - City Park designed by Foster + Partners (Foster), Cultural Connect: Key to Sustained Vitality by Rocco Design Architects Limited (Rocco), and Project for a New Dimension by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). The Selection Panel, headed by Hon Ronald Arculli, who is also the Chairman of the WKCDA Development Committee, recommended City Park to the Board as the preferred option, based on a comprehensive set of selection criteria approved by the Board. The Board chose Foster's City Park for its balanced mix of land uses integrating arts and cultural facilities with other uses which improves visitor experience and enhances vibrancy in WKCD. The city park concept, relaxing atmosphere and various green features in Foster's scheme earned the most public support in the Stage 2 Public Engagement exercise. The scheme also puts forth clustering concepts that minimise footprint and create greater synergy between different facilities. Foster's proposals to support arts education and cultural software development facilitate WKCDA's work in nurturing arts talents and building audiences. Moreover, as the WKCD project will span a number of years over different phases by way of organic growth, the high degree of flexibility demonstrated in Foster's scheme not only allows swapping of sites to facilitate earlier development of core arts and cultural facilities, but also allows public enjoyment of arts and cultural facilities amidst ongoing construction programmes. The park and open space proposed in Foster's scheme also allow room to accommodate temporary arts and cultural activities prior to the commissioning of phase 1 facilities. write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Construction News :: home page |