The adamantine reality
Hong Kong. A summer night. Two offshore powerboats, coming from the sea, are engaged in a pursuit. On board, we find Hollywood Bau, our heroine, and her nemesis Half Bueno an international killer.
We see that Half Bueno holds a big and shining diamond in her hand. It’s the world-famous “Reality Diamond”. Before reaching the harbour the killer jumps off the powerboat and lands on the pier with an acrobatic roll.
As the killer’s powerboat blows up, Hollywood Bau lands and begins the pursuit of Half Bueno who is running toward a building at 1, Yip Fat Street. Hollywood Bau cagily approaches the door leading inside the building. As soon as she gets inside the trap snaps.
The killer attacks our heroine. There is a spectacular battle with jumps, kicks, and flashing machetes tracing dangerous paths.
Hollywood Bau kicks the hand in which her enemy holds the diamond. The shining stone draws a parabola in the air and shatters on the floor.
Then reality itself gets fluid and strange as if the reflections of the world in the diamond’s glittering splinters create a multiuniverse.
Original script by Mauro Marchesi
The Factory Renovation
Role: Design Team Leader @ RAD Ltd.
Location: Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong
Client: K. Wah International Holdings Limited
Year: 2009
Status: Built
Size: 30,000sqm
Photography: Alberto Cipriani, Mauro Marchesi, Roberto Solieri, Steve Wikeley, Silvio Scuccimarra.
Program:
Keeping the structural intervention at a minimum cost, yet still providing a nicely designed space, an old dismissed industrial building was transformed into a gigantic and interactive comic book.
The space was designed so that users’ everyday lives could blend into unusual spatial conditions; the size of the traditional paperback was blown out of proportion providing a whole new reading experience.
How do you read it? Arrive at either the car park or the main entrance and be greeted by ‘Hollywood Bau’ in a pistol shoot-out. Go into the lift and the story continues. Users will make up their own stories traveling around the building. Every floor has another element of the storyline. Staircases, lifts, toilets, and vending machines hide twists and surprises in the story. We provide the users with excitement and interaction with the architecture.
Finally reaching the roof via the staircases or the lifts each telling its story line reveals the roof-top bar. The panoramic view of the South China Sea serves as a perfect location for functions blending guests with silhouettes from the comic strip.