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Reflection on  Kowloon Walled City

After watching all the videos given from lecturer, I realized that the knowledge of built environment is extremely important to each of us, as we all lived in a built environment itself. A well organized built environment is so crucial, it provides shelter, place of relaxation, place to socialize with others and places to improve on ourselves. A well- planned built environment also provides us with sufficient area to carry out daily activities without the interruption of others. However from my observation, Kowloon Walled City does not meet the requirements of a well organized built environment. The biggest problem of Kowloon Walled City is overpopulation. At its peak, it was estimated to have 50000 residents giving it a population density almost 120 times greater than New York City. All these residents live in Kowloon Walled City that just spans 6.4 acres, which is totally ridiculous. Other than that, due to the overgrowing population, people kept building on top of existing structures. The city eventually had 300 interconnected, high- rise buildings that had been constructed room-by-room without the help of architects or building codes. It becomes so dense that sunlight could not reach the lower levels. What comes after those incidents are the low living quality of life of residents. Noises are everywhere, some residents living in apartments that had no window or access to fresh air because they were enclosed within the middle of the buildings. There is also no chance for the sunlight to pass through the lower levels. All these issues that happened in the city reminds me of the importance of applying built environment knowledge in every corner in order to ensure healthy, safe and positive life quality.

This is a picture took in Kowloon Walled City, family members sharing the same place, doing their own stuffs. This picture has impacted me in various ways. It taught me to be thankful for what I am having right now. Unlike the little girl, I am able to study in my own room with full attention, with sufficient space and without interruption of others. This picture also urges me to study harder, learn more and in details about built environment, so that one day I will be able to come out with a solution, in order to help those that are still living in apartment that are having such conditions.

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