“Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism” at the HKDI Gallery and presented virtually until 3 April 2022, showcases Zaha Hadid Architects’ (ZHA) innovations in architecture through a variety of project documentation tools – from technical drawings and diagrams, computer-generated visualisations, and architectural models, to video projections and virtual reality experiences.
The immersive online exhibition builds upon the gallery’s popular program of digital exhibitions in contemporary design, enabling a wider audience to journey through ZHA’s formative projects, zoom in to details of architectural models and experience the multimedia exhibition. The exhibition presents the variety of approaches undertaken by ZHA in their development of vibrant and sustainable community-orientated spaces within dense urban conditions.
It also explores ZHA’s ongoing research, detailing the pioneering innovation inscribed within the studio’s architecture. Her vision has been explosive, fluid and boundless, forcefully questioning the need for urban fortifications in her drive to establish a continuous, active ground-plane. The investigative spirit on which Hadid based her career continues in ZHA’s ground-breaking work around the world.
HKDI is committed to promoting design education and facilitating dialogue among industry experts, students and design enthusiasts through partnerships with international museums, design institutions and designers. Explaining the exhibition’s curatorial direction, Patrik Schumacher, Principal of ZHA, says, “The agenda of communicative intensification within and between densely spaced high-rise structures, via the combined strategies of clustering, bridges and atria, will articulate a new paradigm for the design of high-rise urbanism.
On this basis, the tower typology will receive a new lease of life in the central metropolitan societies, where the desire for connectivity drives urban density. In the future, even more than is evident already now, this super-dense build up will be a mixed-use build up, where multiple life-processes intersect. These life-processes need to be ordered in intricate ways that nevertheless remain legible and thereby empowering.”
Curated especially for the Institutes, the exhibition is thematically structured around three aspects of ZHA’s work: expounding on the research of ZHA’s Computation & Design research group (ZHA CODE); exploring the studio’s designs for towers in cities around the world; and showcasing ZHA’s seminal projects in the region. Source by Zaha Hadid Architects.
- Location: Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), 3 King Ling Road, Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong, China
- Exhibition Curation: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
- Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects: Patrik Schumacher
- Exhibition Design and Graphics: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
- ZHA Overall Exhibition Design and Curation: Melodie Leung, Manon Janssens, Ceren Tekin, Nastasja Mitrovic, Nica Sabet, Alex Turner, Elena Castaldi
- ZHA Local Coordination: Simon Yu, Sara Klomps, Bianca Cheung, Marisa Carvajal, Kelvin Ma, Steven Chung, Ivan Suen
- ZHA Multimedia: Henry Virgin
- ZHA CODE: Shajay Bhooshan, Henry David Louth
- ZHVR: Helmut Kinzler, Aleksandra Mnich-Spraiter
- ZH AI (Analytics + Insight): Philipp Siedler, Uli Blum
- ZH SOCIAL: Tyson Hosmer, Ziming He, Baris Erdincer
- Translation: Creatus, ZHA: Gigi Ho with Tim Yeung, Hazel Wu, Steven Chung, Ivan Suen, Jinqi Huang
- Production and Assembly: Hattrick Creative Limited
- Supporting Organisations: The British Consulate-General, British Council, InvestHK, Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC), Design Council Hong Kong (DCHK), Hong Kong Designers Association (HKDA), Hong Kong Federation of Design and Creative Industries (FHKDCI), Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile (CHAT), AIA Hong Kong, Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC), Hong Kong Furniture Association (HKFA), HKGBC: Hong Kong Green Building Council, Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA), Hong Kong Interior Design Association (HKIDA), Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design (HKIUD), RIBA Hong Kong, PMQ
- Organiser: HKDI and IVE Lee Wai Lee
- Co-Organiser: Zaha Hadid Architects
- Project Management and Education Engagement: Exhibition Team, Hong Kong Design Institute & Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Lee Wai Lee)
- Exhibition Period: From now until 3 April 2022
- Photographs: Hong Kong Design Institute, Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
