THE WALLED CITY OF KOWLOON

The walled city of Kowloon was originally a small fort used by the Song dynasty. It then sat untouched for hundreds of years before becoming a military outpost. The city expanded rapidly from that point and at its peak had over 500 buildings on 27 hectares of land. This land was not governed by anyone, hence all the chaos that happened there.

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To start with there was no architects or engineers to design any of the "cities" building so the suffered from things like, sunlight not reaching the lower levels of the buildings, these dark ally ways were a breeding ground for crime and diseases. Because all the buildings were built on top of each other pipes and electrical cables dangled around carelessly. Residents of this area had to walk around with umbrellas when on the lower levels to protect themselves from the leaking fluids. Sanitation was also a major problem in this area.

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If architects were employed or any regulatory body most of these problems like the lack of light and poor sanitation could have been avoided because architects are trained to create spaces for people. In general the residents would have a much more pleasant life then the thought the had.

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The scene below makes me feel sad because the people in this area where happy with their lives because the escaped an even worse life but because of the lack of a regulatory body to help them with their infrastructure the have to live in apartments with virtually no fresh air. Some of these people living on the lower levels probably went days without seeing the sun,when all these problems would have been soled by employing someone to design the buildings and plan the city.

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