ON a wet, dreary morning, it helps to be a dreamer. Ricardo Bofill and Rogelio Jimenez stood recently in the middle of the Mandarin Hotel lobby and studied the tangle of stalled traffic outside.
Rain was coming in torrents and visitors scurrying into the lobby past the visitors from Spain left glistening tracks with their umbrellas. ''In Nan Sha, it will never rain,'' proclaimed Jimenez with a grin. ''It will always be sunny, like Barcelona.'' Bofill and Jimenez are architects by profession. But dreamers on a rainy day or when they're designing ideal cities.
Partners in the international firm that bears Bofill's name, their headquarters is Barcelona but both live in Paris, when they're not commuting between continents.
They were invited to Hongkong recently by the French Trade Commission to speak on urban planning and take part in a seminar on Urban Techniques.
It will not be their last trip. A new project in China will be bringing them here more often. They are creating a new city, Nan Sha, in Guangzhou.
Nan Sha is Bofill's solution to Hongkong's overcrowded, overpopulated vertical city lifestyle. It is a one-hour, high-speed ferry ride from Hongkong and one of the satellite cities that he hopes will link Guangzhou, Macau and Hongkong.
''With the linkage between the three cities by the superhighway, Nan Sha and cities like it will become thriving commercial and residential communities with low-income housing, parks, schools, shopping centres and cultural facilities.
