Sphere
#35
2014
18
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GOING THE EXTRAWATERFRONT MILE
Another government requirement
illustrated by Gilbert is ‘the Section 106
agreement’. Originally articulated in the
UK’s Town and Country Planning Act of
1990, Section 106 agreements are legal
requirements for property developers to
provide public infrastructure improvements
and community involvement directly linked
to new developments. Gilbert explains
that this can take numerous forms such
as “providing funding to upgrade the
nearby Chelsea Harbour pier, providing a
new bus service or contributing towards a
new train station”.
Breathing new life into an area of Chelsea
that has not been accessible for decades,
the scheme will open up 600 metres of
Thames waterfront to the community,
creating a recreational walkway in an area
inaccessible to the public for over 100 years.
Three bridges and two major public piazzas
are incorporated into the comprehensive
master plan that includes retail, residential
and work spaces, leading to a sustainable,
community friendly urbiculture.
HWPG’s sensitivity to community
needs in urban planning in London was
recognised with the recent decision to give
a green light to the building of another
3,500 London homes at Convoys Wharf,
Lewisham and offices, stores, a hotel and
restaurants in Deptford.
The demands of modern communities
in the age of global interconnection have
become remarkably similar as design
elements in one area become popular in
another. Much of the world shares the
values of modern London and makes the
same demands.
THE WORLD OF NEUROMANCER
London’s modern aspirations include
preserving its history. Hong Kong is
rushing to embrace a future once only
imagined in science fiction. William
Gibson singlehandedly launched the
cyberpunk literary genre with his seminal
novel
Neuromancer
. The novel coined
the term ‘cyberspace’ and described a
world where people were connected to a
global information system 24/7. Gibson’s
1984 novel’s world predated the Internet,
but doesn’t sound too far from our own
connected world now.
Hutchison Global Communications (HGC)
is bringing ubiquitous net connection to
a world considerably brighter than that
envisaged by Gibson. In late 2013, HGC
announced plans to increase the number
of Wi-Fi hotspots in Hong Kong to almost
16,000 by the end of 2014. This will
dramatically expand Wi-Fi connections
and change people’s relationship with
technology.
The speed will make a difference. Ms
Jennifer Tan, Managing Director of HGC,
explained, “Users can enjoy higher speed
Internet access such as 100Mbps to
1Gbps. Users enjoy bandwidth-demanding
applications such as watching videos and TV
programmes with a better user experience.”
The genesis of the decision to increase
the distribution of hotspots comes from
the rapid proliferation of tablets and
smartphones. However, increasing loads
on mobile networks mean users are,
by necessity, moving to Wi-Fi. Pyramid
Research, a telecommunications research
specialist, believes 22 per cent of mobile
data traffic will be offloaded to fixed or
Wi-Fi networks by 2016.
Explaining the expansion of Wi-Fi
hotspots, Jennifer said,“Wi-Fi service
complements mobile service as users
subscribing to mobile data plans can
offload mobile data from a mobile
network to a Wi-Fi network. This eases
the traffic burden of network operators,
particularly in congested and highly
populated areas, enhancing the user
Cities of the Future
