Mapping Hong Kong (Laurent Gutierrez, Valérie Portefaix)

Can we represent the contemporary city when urban conditions are taken to the extreme? How should we approach territorial dynamics and the multidimensional tensions that spread across the surface of the urban scape? These are the some of the questions that the architects of Map Office attempt to answer.
 
Because of its singular history and geographic location, Hong Kong represents a unique synthesis of global city and local territory. The extreme character of its temporal and spatial conditions makes Hong Kong a moving platform of exchange within the Asian and world markets. In Mapping HK, the architects of Map Office treat Hong Kong as a test case for a critical experiment, in which the city is documented both visually and in text, as an attempt to understand the effects of speed and density on our urban environments.
 
Laurent Gutierrez is a co-founder of MAP OFFICE (Paris, Hong Kong); an Associate Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University where he leads the Environment and Interior Design discipline and the Master of Strategic Design as well as Innovation Design Management (IDM/MBA). Laurent is also the co-director of SD SPACE LAB.
 
Valérie Portefaix is the principal of MAP OFFICE. She received her Master of Architecture degree from School of Architecture Paris-Belleville and a PhD in Urbanism from University Pierre Mendes France. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.