Adaptive reuse of industrial buildings into creative spaces has recently sparked global (Mommaas, 2000, 2004; Daniels, Ho, and Hutton, 2012)and local interests (Leung, 2010; Kong, 2012). The clustering effects of creative spaces have also inspired extensive research on how creative spaces could contribute to urban development and in particular economic growth (Pratt, Andy C., 2004; Evans, 2009; Mommaas, 2009).
This dissertation critically reviews existing literature and examines the hypothesis with a comparative study of the Fotanian Artist Village (Fotanian) and Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC), which represent two distinctive development trajectories namely organic and planned creative spaces in Hong Kong. It is argued that the development of creative spaces in industrial buildings is strongly correlated to the intention of the public sector to promote creative economies, as well as market assumptions in dealing with obsolescence in urban environment. Both are governed by the concept of neoliberalism, which advocates utilization of land resources based on exchange value rather than use value, and the use of creative spaces as urban development tools. Thus, developing creative spaces in obsolete places through adaptive reuse would restrain the organic growth of creative spaces, or result in its commodification and institutionalization.
The hidden neoliberal agenda has also led to the misconception that creative spaces should be assessed for its efficiency and effectiveness as a cluster based on the agglomeration effect of industrial cluster in traditional sense. Fotanian and JCCAC are selected to test against their success performances based on the cluster theory. The two cases are compared to examine whether the planned is less successful than the organic as suggested by the literature. Findings suggest that neither one of them entirely fulfills all the conditions of creative cluster identified in the literature for a successful creative space. Indeed the clustering effect is an inconclusive, if not misleading, criterion of successful creative spaces, given that the development of creative spaces in cities might bring a variety of benefits.
Studies have shown that the adaptive reuse of obsolete places might pose potential threats to creative spaces. It is argued that the success of organic and planned creative spaces can only be possible in the long term when breeding and sustaining factors are introduced. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/195117 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Wong, Cho-ting, 黃楚婷 |
| Publisher | The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) |
| Source Sets | Hong Kong University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PG_Thesis |
| Rights | Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License, The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works. |
| Relation | HKU Theses Online (HKUTO) |
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