TRIGANES
year
made and second-hand information used (some of which is reliable and some is not).
However, results have always been most satisfactory, indicating the value of a completely uninhibited approach to such problems, where economic considerations often SO addle the mind, that it is difficult to think clear- ly. This is not to say that the ap- proach is towards the Ideal City, though this is open to those who wish to try, but rather is it a feasibility study in general environmental terms.
Housing
Housing, set within the strict limits of a typical Hong Kong programme, offers little scope and results tend to be stereotyped, except in detail. The housing programmes set in the school normally envisage improvement in standards and the ultimate aim is the evolution of minimum standards com- patible with human dignity.
Despite this, Housing is a good subject for study at all levels in schools of architecture, since it brings the student closer than any other to humanity and the evaluation of human needs, which is fundamental to architecture and which, in other projects, becomes obscured by other considerations.
High building is an accepted fact of life in Hong Kong and offers no terrors to the Hong Kong student. The study is concentrated on those features of high building peculiar to itself the development potential of the site, town planning implication, the servicing with particular emphasis on fire protection and on mechanical communication systems, the structure and the external cladding and water- proofing.
As the years go by and one sees in practice less and less regard being given to the visual and environmental aspects in the development of city
The fifth
ΤΗ HE study of architecture does not
involve a quick learning and ap- plication of certain more or less con- stant formulae to be applied in turn as each problem arises.
After four years of studies, the fifth year student is supposed to display all he has learned in the past. He is presented with problems and projects which require him to give evidence that he thoroughly understands many things: means of construction; in- tegration of mechanical equipment: theories concerning space, form and
Far East BUILDER, June 1968.
sites, the more and more is this em- phasised in the high building city centre programmes set in the school.
The last staff set programme in the school is the Fourth Year large-span project (in the Fifth Year the major projects are at the students choice). New realistic projects come more difficult to mind, once the gamut of railway-stations, airports, convention centres and skating rinks is run, and the thought "whether or not too much is
made of realism" inevitably
returns.
The large-span project besides providing an exercise in complex planning, requires co-ordination of design and structure and both these studies could well be better carried out in an abstract fashion, provided the correct methodology is applied.
777
HUBRAY NE.
VOLIVA
A more rational attitude to the employment of electronic aids, such as the computer is created, the com- pilation of data and the verification of criteria being essential features of the design process at professional level.
At present the format of the Fourth Year resembles closer that of the first three years of the course rather than the Fifth Year; the setting of pro- grammes with specific objectives in view, their solution under staff guidance, and their final assessment— the denouement.
The proposed change in curriculum mentioned earlier should not destroy the character of what has become consistently the year in which the greatest educational development oc- curs, but the sense of continuity will be enhanced.
The Fourth Year offers the last opportunity for the student to prove himself and for the staff to really test him. In his final year, he works largely to pursue knowledge of his own choosing, to become self-reliant, authoritative and confident.
P
HARCOURT EL.
しししい entortdinment
BLOCAL PLAN
SCALE MA
Entertainment centre for western end of old Dockyard site, HK-fourth year
year
amenity; comfort and structure; his- torical solutions to architectural pro- blems; means of architectural pre- sentation; conduct of architectural practice; theoretical and practical knowledge in planning and so on--all this specialized knowledge resting firmly on a foundation of liberal arts, humanities and science.
More than any other year of study the fifth year is concerned in par- ticular with the broad practical and theoretical problems involved in the improvement of man's physical en-
古
vironment in terms of efficiency and aesthetics.
To approach these problems is first to realise that they exist; to find out and to do what is necessary and what is best, and not simply to accept an answer on the basis that it has always been done in a particular way; to avoid the arbitrary and to develop ideas; to explore all the possibilities by working from the known into the realm of reasonable assumptions and of technically, economically, aesthe- tically and otherwise feasible solutions.
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