Zaha Hadid's project for a private luxury leisure club in the city of Hong Kong investigates on the terrain and formulates a close relationship to it: a horizontally formulated typology for a vertically grown city. However, it does not embrace the issue of Hong Kong’s topography in a fundamental way. The topography is addressed, but is being reduced to a design tool, while the building’s structure itself is arbitrary and does not relate to its ground. Her proposal is therefore translated into a horizontal typology that functions as a spatial slope mitigating infrastructure. It is not any more placed on the hill top but finds its way down the slope to the threshold between the densely populated city and the steeply sloped forests.
The city’s built environment can be read as a container of various typologies that have emerged from economic and socio-political conditions. Thus, the urban fabric can be abstracted to a result of parameters, such as building regulations or specific needs at a certain period in time. Following the same logic, the Caterpillar is defined by a set of explicit parameters that stem from the logic of geotechnical engineering. The architecture becomes an expression of slope mitigating measures to ensure the security of the city.
The Caterpillar – opposing the Peak – is a direct reflection of the site it is placed. There is no specific place where it is situated, rather it works as a typology that is able to adapt to the terrain. As the city is rather shaped by economic and social circumstances than an architects vision, the Caterpillar is shaped by its respective topography.
