Fung Tat Wai Ken. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2008-2009, design report." / Urban Ruins: Empowering the Underprivileged --- p.4-17 / "This thesis is inspired by two social and economic issues: Urban Ruins and migrant workers. Here urban ruins refer to suspended or abandoned structures resulting from speculation failures caused by market and financial fluctuations. Through a comparison between these unoccupied and often unfinished structures and ""traditional"" ruins like those resulting from natural disasters, it is obvious that they share common characteristics and Urban Ruins are thus named. For example, they both consist of visible and invisible parts, though they represent different time and space." / Guangdong Region --- p.18-23 / "Following the real estate boom in the 1990s, there were once more than 300 Urban Ruins in Guangdong Province. However in the past 10 years, most of the suspended projects have been resumed and completed by developers, this phenomenon has given rise to worries at the beginning of research that it might not be the right time to touch on this issue, yet the recent financial crisis has again proven the periodic nature of the issue that is worthwhile further investigation." / Shenzhen - Dongmen Building --- p.24-37 / "Dongmen Building one of the remaining few existing Urban Ruins in Shenzhen urban area. It is a special case that the cause of its suspension is not only financial and market forces, the original developer has been cheated by other company, taking away all the capital that were invested into this building, the construction was then brought to a halt since the completion of the concrete structure more than 10 years ago. This is going to be the site of the intervention." / Shenzhen - A Transient City --- p.38-43 / "Apart from the property market, Shenzhen has been growing exponentially since it was declared Special Economic Zone in 1979, plus its geographical advantage of its proximity to Hong Kong, it has been functioning as the hinterland to Hong Kong providing cheap products and services. The manufacturing industry and services sector flourished, attracting migrant workers from all over China. These migrant workers do not have a local hukou, meaning they are not registered residence in Shenzhen, they face problems of employment, accommodation and low wages. Making the migrant workers the underprivileged and over exploited group in the economy." / "According to a recent survey, there are as much as 100 million migrant workers in China, of which one tenth of them are working in the Guangdong Province. Migrant workers, together with associated Village in the City issue pose a rising social demographic problem to the authorities." / Program --- p.44-49 / "Based on these two issues, Urban Ruins and migrant workers, a programmatic approach has been adopted. The proposed program is composed of 3 scales, firstly on a city wide scale responding to periodical market fluctuations that created Urban Ruins by taking the abandoned structure as a host for intervention. Secondly on a national-wide scale dealing with perennial population flow of migrant workers and tourists, providing temporary residence for migrant workers who are forced to stay in Shenzhen or those who just arrived in search for jobs. Thirdly on a more local scale, accommodating daily needs of public transport and recycling in the Dongmen commercial district." / Empowering the under-privileged and the over-exploited --- p.50-53 / "Going back to the title of the thesis, how to empower the under-privileged? It could be achieved by using their own expertise, agricultural knowledge, by means of an urban farm. The urban farm ties up all the other previously mentioned programs, they work in a symbiotic relationship that the public transport interchange bring shoppers to the marketplace where the produces from the urban farm, while the kitchen waste collected from the commercial district can be treated at the recycling centre suppling organic fertiliser to the urban farm. The temporary residence is run on the financial support from the profit of the marketplace and also the hostel for tourists. This establishment could be a centre for new arrivals in Shenzhen, providing vocational training of hydroponic agriculture and accommodation while they can look for other jobs." / Hydroponics and Vertical Farming --- p.54-57 / "The conventional type of farm is not feasible on the tower due the required soil depth cannot be achieved on the origi- nal structure. Hydroponic farming is introduced to produce high economic value crops like fruits and flowers. Moreover, the skills required by hydroponic farming can be acquired by the migrant workers as vocational training." / Parasitic Approach --- p.58-64 / "In order to maintain a ruin-like quality of the existing structure to create a""scar of greed"" in the city, the design approach would partly retain the existing appearance and introduce the new programs as parasitic structures. Three parasitic operations: Attachment, Add-on and Intrusion were identified from a study of parasitic structures. In the preliminary design proposal, the growing area is applied an attachment on the southern facades with other programs such as residence punching through into the existing structure as intrusions."