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May 2024 Release

Community

社區

HKIA Journal Issue 88: Countryside 鄉郊

photo essay

圖片集

Vista of Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site, Futian Mangrove Nature Reserve and cityscape of Shenzhen (Credit: Miriam Lee)
Belcher Bay Promenade, Kennedy Town. LN9267. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA4.0
Kuk Po Lo Wai aerial photo (Credit: CCAU Weijen Wang’s research team)
Siu Hei Court Play Space by One Bite Design Studio.Credit: One Bite Design Studio.
Management Agreement Scheme at Lai Chi Wo Enclave (Credit: CCO)
Photo mosaic of Home Modification for Low-IncomeFamilies. Credit: Domat.
Old House of Mui Tsz Lam Village (Credit: Tsang Yuk On)
“Wanchai Nocturnal” waterfront screening event by Hong Kong ArchitectureCentre. Credit: Archoi & HKAC.
Exhibition of CUHK Education & Research Base in the restored village house at Ng To, Kuk Po (Credit: Jessica Li)
Quarryside by MATTER Limited. A gentle ramp descendingtowards the “Dockyard Theatre” draws the public towards the event space.Credit: Quarryside, St. James’ Settlement        
Sunset at Tai Mei Tuk (Credit: Jessica Li)
A Cycle of Life in Chun Yeung, North Point by MLKK Studio.Credit: 1km Studio.
Interior of Terra Centre (Credit: 1U1V Team)
Close-up, The Symphony of North Point, ARTA ArchitectsLimited. Credit: Kelvin Ng.
Bird's-eye view of valley and river ay Valley Retreat (Credit: WWJA)
Panorama streetline for Blue House, Stone Nullah Lane, 2018 © StefanIrvine & Jörg Dietrich.
View of Nam Chung from Luk Keng Observation Post (Credit: Miriam Lee)
Common room at 6-8 Wa In Fong West, H19 Staunton Street Revitalizationproject. Credit: Planning and Design Division, UrbanRenewal Authority.
Adventure Global School in Cambodia (Credit: OOA)
88-90 Staunton Street, Grade II Historical Building. Credit:Planning and Design Division, Urban RenewalAuthority.
Completion for Ancient Tree Defense Structure (Credit: Team Tombolo)
Federative drawing, To Kwa Wan. Credit: Architecture Land Institute(ALIN), By Us For Us.
Completion for Ancient Tree Defense Structure (Credit: Team Tombolo)
The Beacon of Hong Kong, ARTA Architects Limited. Credit: Kris Provoost.
Completion for Ancient Tree Defense Structure (Credit: Team Tombolo)
Performance in courtyard, Blue House cluster in Wanchai. Credit: St. James’ Settlement, Viva Blue House.
Completion for Ancient Tree Defense Structure (Credit: Team Tombolo)
Design Trust Futures Studio, micro-park at Yi Pei Square Playground, Tsuen Wan. Credit: Design Trust.

editorial

編者語

HKIA-Journal - ISSUE 78: Countryside 鄉郊
Community
社區

In Hong Kong, architects are increasingly more sensitive to designing with and for communities. There is growing experience and expertise in different project types that place community-building at its core. Recent practice has also broadened to include placemaking, design thinking and co-creation, having moved on from the previous era’s participatory design and planning to become more impactful both in design and social relations. At their best, user-inspired designs can enable “self-seeded” appropriations, empowering individuals to take collective ownership of their surroundings and cultivate a sense of community cohesion.

This issue kicks off with our Symposium on “Community”, with two panels that deliberated on how architecture relates to community, discussing issues such as empathy and modesty, involvement and social responsibility, agency and audience, and debating on the conditions and limits of architecture in place-making and community-building.

Designing with Communities begin with Alan Cheung, Sarah Mui and Stephanie Cheung’s collaborative urban interventions connecting people to plants and heritage, followed by Maggie Ma Kingsley’s compelling award-winning improvements to subdivided flats and modest but impactful rural school. Eric Ho’s multi-stakeholder design methodology rethinks architects as strategisers, facilitators and curators, while Kar Him Mo, Yidan Gong and Danyang Lei explore open-endedness and community empowerment in co-design via ethnographic evaluation. Rosalia Leung reflects on designer-user reciprocity through the transformative Buddhist notion of inter-being, drawing from her own involvement in participatory projects. Helen Leung considers how Hong Kong’s public housing designs responded to shifting social conditions and definitions of “community”, while Guillaume Othenin-Girard and Kent Mundle speculate on alternative visions of housing as co-operatives, conceptualising a “third model” beyond private market or public housing. Thomas Chung and Jimmy Ho’s co-creative school redesigns collaborated with partner schools to develop a participatory process to facilitate teaching, learning and student well-being.

Places for Community opens with Marisa Yiu’s Design Trust Futures Studio, showcasing its imaginative micro-parks and their policy impact in encouraging innovative play-space designs. Next is ARTA Architects’ trio of playful harbourfront projects. MATTER Limited’s Quarryside, an award-winning community architecture whose design is inspired by the site’s industrial past is followed by A Cycle of Life in Chun Yeung by Kian Yam, Li Kwan Ho and Mavis Yip, a remarkable pilot integrating food waste recycling and green wall with public rest-space in North Point. Similarly, Vicky Chan’s K-farm pioneered urban cultivation with waterfront leisure at Belcher Bay Promenade. Nearby, Sai Wan’s photogenic Instagram Pier is the focus of Benni Pong’s careful urban ethnographic study that shed light on bottom-up community design.

On community public space, Melody Yiu and Hendrik Tieben introduce their multi-district placemaking project Space+ comprising local capacity-building, open space designs and community festivals. Hong Kong Architecture Centre also highlights their various initiatives that encourage better community participation and appreciation of our city’s architecture and public spaces. Don Hong argues how new town shopping malls can help to cultivate community identity, while the Urban Renewal Authority presents its community-making approach for the Staunton Street revitalisation, and Nick Tsao reports on an architect’s first-hand (his own) experience of community-building in Wanchai’s Blue House.

In Platform, Jack Choi’s delightful drawings survey Hong Kong’s street-based vernacular practices, Cyrus Chan documents the lively foreign domestic worker weekend scenes in Central, while Ai Liu and Alex Choi's research reveal the hidden community life in subdivided flats. Sauhim Ho and Huiyan Du’s continuing efforts on community design and development in Shunde in the Greater Bay Area conclude the section.

Thomas Chung
鍾宏亮
FHKIA, Registered Architect, APEC Architect
Chief Editor

HKIA Gold Medal Award 2023

香港建築師學會2023年度金獎

HKIA-Journal - ISSUE 78: Countryside 鄉郊
Dr Liao at 94 years of age, continues his life pursuits – inspires us to believe, enjoy and be happy in what we do!
Dr Donald Liao Poon Huai, CBE, JP
廖本懷博士 CBE, JP
Edited by Miriam Lee

廖本懷博士是香港公共房屋設計先驅,最為人所知的規劃及設計代表作為享負盛名的華富邨。該屋邨於1967年至1978年建成,設計包含自給自足設施的生活社區,其理念影響許多後期公共屋邨的發展。在政府部門擔任不少重要職位其間,他協助處理城市規劃政策,​​提高許多基層大眾的生活質素;其嶄新理念不但促進本地社會房屋政策發展,並對年輕建築師和世界各地的公營房屋及社區空間設計帶來積極影響​​。

At the recent HKIA Annual Ball cum Annual Awards Presentation held on 8 November 2023, Dr Donald Liao was conferred the HKIA Gold Medal in recognition of his profound and distinguished contributions to the city’s architecture development. He joins luminaries Prof. Patrick Lau Sau Shing (2021) and Mr. James Hajime Kinoshita (2020) to receive this prestigious award.

In his award citation, Dr Liao was lauded for his instrumental role in pioneering public housing designs and masterminding public housing policies for the well-being of generations of Hong Kong residents. Joining the Government as an Architect of the Housing Division of Urban Services Department (predecessor of the Housing Authority) in 1960, he took a leading role in planning public housing estates with self-contained units over decades. Such progressive innovations in housing not only enhanced living standards and benefited a wide sector of Hong Kong's community, but also influenced social housing policies both locally and around the world.

Dr Liao is best known for his planning and design of the renowned Wah Fu Estate completed between 1967 and 1978, one of the earliest public housing estates designed as a living community with self-contained facilities. The ”Twin-tower Block” debuted there were subsequently adopted in many housing estates for its superior structural stability and popularity with tenants. Ever witty, he recalled a humorous episode during his speech at the award ceremony how he “seldom heard complaints from satisfied customers,” except for one occasion where he was told by a housing manager at Wah Fu Estate that “a new tenant was unhappy because he was not allocated one of the flats with the famous sea view!”

Over a 30-year long career in public service, Dr Liao had been appointed the Secretary for Housing and the Chairman of the Housing Authority between 1980 and 1985. He then became the Secretary for District Administration in 1985, and later retired in 1989. He dedicated 30 years of his career in civil service, diligently serving and providing housing and amenities to no less than a million residents, particularly through his pivotal role in the 10-year Housing Programme launched in 1972 which contributed significantly to the mass provision of public housing in Hong Kong.

Wah Fu Estate, at Southern District, is Dr Liao’s pride and joy.
Dr Liao at his desk in 1977.

Dr Liao was also credited for proposing the Home Ownership Scheme in 1976 which offered an accessible pathway for low, middle-income families to purchase their own housing units and facilitated social mobility in the decades to come. His passion in giving back to society and providing for the less-privileged of the community has inspired generations of architects to contribute to the community and society at large. He also demonstrated how an architect’s vision and mission for the built environment could be realised through professional expertise and dedicated leadership. This has set a benchmark for young architects who wish to create long-lasting impact in livable environments by serving in public positions.

Even at 94 years old, Dr Liao maintains a keen interest in promoting architecture and nurturing architects to serve Hong Kong’s society. He reminds us of the importance of enjoying what we do, ending off his speech by wishing attendees of the HKIA Annual Ball, “the very best of health, good luck, and happy architecturing!”

Dr Donald Liao joined The Hong Kong Institute of Architects (previously known as The Hong Kong Society of Architects) in 1959 and is one of the most senior members of the Institute. The long-lasting positive impacts he has cast on the profession is evident in his innovations and revolutionising Hong Kong’s public housing design and urban planning policies. He took a leading role in addressing the overcrowded housing conditions in Hong Kong in the 1960s, and the “Twin-tower Block” became the adopted format for many housing estates in Hong Kong. His achievements go beyond the physical forms of buildings, housing estates or infrastructures, and demonstrate how architecture can change lives for the better for many people.

Throughout his career, he has played an important role in guiding and supporting Hong Kong’s growth from a small entrepôt to an international city. Dr Liao still maintains a keen interest in promoting architecture and nurturing the younger generations in serving society.

symposium

論壇

hkia-journal ISSUE 78: Countryside 鄉郊 - symposium
Community
社區
7 October 2023 (Saturday)  2:00pm – 5:30pm
HKIA Secretariat, 19/F, One Hysan Avenue, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Edited by Miriam Lee

Moderators

Weijen Wang
王維仁
(WW)
Editorial Director
Professor, HKU Architecture
Thomas Chung
鍾宏亮
(TC)
Chief Editor
Associate Professor, CUHK Architecture

Panellists

Session 1: Small Interventions
with Big Impact

Sarah Mui
梅詩華
(SC)
Design Director & Founder, One Bite Design Studio
Maggie Ma Kingsley
馬潔怡
(MM)
Co-founder, DomatAssistant ProfessorCUHK Architecture
Rosalia Leung
梁皓晴
(RL)
Visiting ProfessorÉcole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Normandie
Eric Ho
何力輝
(EH)
Co-founder & DirectorArchitecture Commons
Corrin Chan
陳翠兒
(CC)
Council Member, HKIA

Session 2: Large-scale Projects with a Human Touch

Helen Leung
梁喜蓮
(HL)
Chair, Board of External Affairs, HKIA
Vincent Ng
吳永順
(VN)
Chair, Harbourfront Commission
Nigel Ko
高永康
(NK)
Co-founder, Pokfulam Village Cultural Landscape Conservation Group
Hoi Wood Chang
張海活
(HC)
Associate Division HeadDivision of Social SciencesHumanities & Design, PolyU CPCE
Chris Law
羅建中
(CL)
Founding Director, Oval Partnership

在後疫情時代,社區空間以及共創包容、團結和互助的社區空間變得越來越重要。隨著人們對社會性和幸福感的追求不斷提高,技術創新的應用,和更多關於身份、參與、可及性和可持續社會的討論,建築師更需考慮怎樣將社區與建築聯繫起來。本論壇提出兩個與「社區」及「建築」息息相關的題目,透過各建築師及建築學者的在地項目,探討小型社區計劃如何引起社會影響,以及大型項目如何緊扣社區。

In the post-pandemic world, emphasis on community spaces and the process of creating them to inculcate a sense of inclusion, unity and support has become more and more relevant. With increasing awareness of social and physical well-being, trending applications of technological innovation, emerging debates in identity, participation, accessibility and social sustainability, the question of relating community to architects and architecture is becoming ever more urgent. This symposium covered a number of issues on “community” and “architecture” in two separate sessions.

In the first session, “Small Interventions With Big Impact”, the panellists explored how seemingly modest placemaking and design efforts had collectively contributed to creating a big impact in our city, making it more liveable and loveable, and elaborated how they successfully engaged a diversity of users in scaling up and creating social impact in their works. The second session, “Large-scale Projects With a Human Touch”, reflected on how even in large-scale projects, architects accommodated community interventions that enriched urban life and created cities that truly thrive by fostering strong social cohesion and community resilience.

Session 1: Small Interventions with Big Impact

Introduction / Corrin Chan
Architecture is conventionally thought of only in terms of buildings, but architecture is also about people — building communities and connections. I would like to express my appreciation for the selection of community as the theme for this symposium and the upcoming HKIA Journal.  I am also glad to see the group of young architects growing up on a new path and walking in a new way on a new plateau. (CC)

Interconnecting People and Making Places / Sarah Mui
At One Bite Design Studio, we want to look at how we can connect different people around us so that we can build a place together as a community. Working with the community is about the comeback for the community. Placemaking could be seen as a collaborative process with the community, from preparing the canvas of invention to observing  impacts. Community Plant Library attempted to connect the community through plants. We aimed at creating an accessible space for people to gather, where plant therapists and librarians share their knowledge about taking care of potted plants with the community. We engaged businesses by designing furniture with selected ground floor shops, allowing for display, adoption, exchange, and donation of plants. As a further attempt to reconnect people with nature and the community, we mapped and tagged plants and hosted Plant Tours, encouraging people to rediscover and understand their history as a community from a new perspective.

Likewise Project House has utilised vacant ground-floor shop spaces to create community platforms to bridge community, business, and social services. By opening up these spaces for workshops, music events, and movie screenings for local startups, artists, elderlies, children and advocacy groups alike, the project brought forward the sustainable transformation of our city’s spaces. In addition, elevated spaces were not left behind, One Bite has transformed rooftops of the often overlooked “fifth facade” of buildings into accessible and enjoyable spaces that could connect communities.

Impact comes when designs are people-centred. I truly believe in the importance of working in collaboration with the community, and figuring out how we could get people to participate at their capacity and their will. When we talk about small interventions, we must ask whether it is also catalytic enough so that they could create growing, lasting impacts. (SM)

Modest Interventions with Impact / Maggie Ma
Intervention entails respecting and understanding the context and situation of the project where changes are made to. It inherently implies that we as architects undertake the responsibility to make sure that the subsequent design would be an improvement to society.

Insufficient public housing gave rise to subdivided units as a low-cost rental housing alternative for low-income families. In the Home Modification project, we began with understanding the limited living spaces, the occupants’ need for storage, and their tendency to constantly move to the next housing unit. We therefore developed the strategy of designing modular furniture that could be modified, interchangeable, and can stay with the family as they move houses. We also provided a spatial order to organise their living area and build up their sense of home. The project had benefitted more than 350 low-income families to date. At the same time we had noticed similar projects and competitions from other local organisations, which in a way meant we had created further impacts on the broader society.

Our recent project, Yanjiang Rural Village School in rural Jiangxi, China, looks at a wider context of the surroundings. We worked with the existing dormitory block, oriented and shifted the form along the nearby stream that bisects the building. We adopted an exposed concrete frame construction which was simple and cheap and allowing locally available materials and technology with minimal decorations. Barrel vault roofs facilitated the drainage of rainwater while providing better cooling, ventilation, and sunlight for the classrooms. Small interventions such as the addition of sitting areas along the corridor activated and encourage interactions between students.

The courtyard area was transformed into a farming area for students to learn how to farm and bring new ideas back to their home villages. These interventions allowed users to adopt and potentially created impactful influences on the sustainability of the local community. (MM)

Exploring the Relationships between the Concept of Inter-being and Participatory Design /Rosalia Leung
Participatory design gained significant attention in Hong Kong and recognition for its inclusive and collaborative approach. However, as with any other methodology, it has its limitations including representational bias, power dynamics, and potential imbalances, alongside constraints on time and resources involved.

Upon reviewing my previous projects, a recurring issue appears to be the lack of social sustainability: once the project is delivered and the designer has stepped out, the community is hardly motivated to sustain and maintain the project by themselves. The role of a designer as the leader and the participant as the follower limit the possibility of self-mobilisation and transformation in the long run.

The Buddhist concept of “inter-being” is essential when doing participatory work. While participatory design actively involves stakeholders, end users and the design process to create a more inclusive and user-centred solution, the idea of inter-being helps us to apply participatory design by cultivating empathy, compassion, and an understanding of our inherent connection to others. Inter-being helps to foster a sense of responsibility, ethical awareness and care for the well-being of all beings. It helps us as designers to see beyond the boundaries of separate entities so that we can facilitate a deeper understanding between each other.  

In an elective course I conducted at HKU, with a view to the double aging phenomenon in HK public housing, we delved into improving existing living conditions in existing old buildings to cater for aging in place through participatory action research. The researchers directly took part in the ongoing work as a stakeholder, going into the situation and learning from it. Throughout the design process, the elderly, their caretakers, and healthcare professionals were interdependent and the students would have to keep engaging with other stakeholders so that they were informed with knowledge and insights from them throughout every stage.

There were significant changes in the users’ opinions throughout the engagement process, from showing great reluctance to changes to arriving at the final design with our students through deep listening, understanding the way they think through an empathy map, and respecting the users’ priority ladder with empathy, while being open to previously defined problems statements. When we try to bring in changes and offer help in participatory design, through interconnectedness and interdependence of inter-being, we realise that participants are also simultaneously offering us new insights that are impactful and transformative to us as designers. (RL)

Towards Multi-Stakeholder Action / Eric Ho
Hong Kong is a very interesting context to look into for spatial interventions because there are so many different stakeholders in our everyday lives. There are plenty of scenarios as opportunities for us to intervene and make use of our agencies as architects. While we explore new territories of design, we must consider how we could act across stakeholders, and become advisory for top-down policy-makers such as the government and developers, so that they can also see this vision and work together with us.

Neighborhood Innovation Lab was an experiment for us to create a multi-stakeholder innovation, to connect neighbours as service designers, and to work with different parties including government, developers, industry leaders, and policy-makers. In Project Well-being, we empowered students to create a well-being hub with and for the students and teachers themselves. The outcome vastly differed out of the 5 different schools we worked with. The second role for us is as curator. In Neighborhood Commons Wanchai, we worked for 3 months with over 1,000 participants and came up with 4 neighbourhood ideas for the public spaces in Wanchai, including Diversifying Open Space Use and Business Collaboration to leverage and connect businesses. The same experiment continued in Tsuen Wan with 3 trajectories for neighbourhood action. Some of the initiatives continued and some did not, exposing the limitations and opportunities.

As strategists we advise agencies to look at our bottom-up initiatives to empower communities. We worked with the Urban Renewed Authority (URA) on the repositioning of 7 Mallory Street as a community-centric property by studying everyday lives and cultural discovery, creating neighbouring networks and nurturing exchanges. We advised the Architectural Services Department (ArchSD) in the project Possible! Public Open Space Design Lab, through a very elaborate community engagement and working with a lot of professionals. We produced the “community-driven design toolkit” as a way to go back to facilitating stakeholders and designers to engage users while designing POS.

While we push our methodology and theory, we also think ethically regarding the constraints on time and resources. We should all be aware of strategically positioning ourselves so that the whole ecosystem of funders, clients, practitioners, and the government can see the values in it. (EH)

Discussion Highlights
Many years ago, HKIA started a project named “100 Years of Hong Kong Architecture”. It was the first community-engaging event by the institute and it further developed into the Hong Kong Architecture Centre. Times have changed, and architects felt a need to be connected with the community and the people. During subsequent events, I saw a new generation of architects, including many of you, who create new paths, build connections, conduct social experiments, and explore new roles of being an architect. You are doing something beyond the conventional practice. My questions then are, would it be sustainable? What are the impacts and changes to yourself? What is the most impactful memory to you through these years? With the people that you have engaged with, what are the impacts you think you have made to society, and also to our profession? (CC)

People often do not see how much we as architects can do and contribute to the community. Even though participatory design has been trending for several years, people in general have little exposure to the subject. How can we equip members of the community or empower them so they can gradually become an active participant in the community? I think it takes time for real changes to come, and even longer to build a strong and active community. (SM)

Architects are at the same time very arrogant as if architecture is the only thing to do and make money. We need to look outside the box and be open to different kinds of business models out there. Architects need to be less arrogant, and instead be more empathetic and modest. We need to learn and we cannot confine ourselves to our own circle. It gets on my nerves when people ask me how I make money. I think of it as a startup, you start with something small and it can really scale up if it is scalable, so you cannot realistically judge someone at the beginning of a movement, especially in this new territory that we are still defining. (EH)

Questioning how much money we make is thinking from a traditional mindset. Space is not confined to the physical but also the digital. There is value in an architect that we can do more than just space design, but also as facilitators, strategists, and creators. Our ability then expands and gains a greater value. I can see that you are starting to impact on the policy level (CC)

It is a new territory of work and we are still learning. It is interesting that some of these ideologies are changing, and some funders are open-minded enough to see the value of us. We have to be more open-minded when looking at the professional work culture. We use space to influence different changes stemming from new designs, new management models, and operation models. (EH)

From what RL said about empathy, I feel it is important to have empathy in the system as a part of the engagement and participation. I shared with CC previously about the public toilet project we worked on before. During our participation workshop, a left-handed wheelchair user shared his experience of using a disabled toilet. Because a government officer also participated in the event, at least one of the public toilets added left-handed facilities and invited the user to come and test it out afterwards. If there is empathy within the institutional structure, changes could be made quicker and could be sustained. (SM)

We as architects also want to understand users more. I appreciate that we have more engagement with communities nowadays and people are seeing much more of our work. When we started working on subdivided units, it was a sensitive issue and I was told that I might not be able to mention the term on a radio show. But it is much more talked about now, even in government policy. We hope that by making these small steps, we help to change the community. (MM)

In my opinion, architects are traditionally quite passive, in a way that we wait for clients to tell us what needs to be done and designed. Even for commercial projects, we enter at a very late stage which the developers have already done a lot of work before the architect jumps in. The reason why I prefer these community projects is that there is more action involved, I want to define what we can do and what we should do, and also to expand the impact of architecture. The way we approach community project engagements is trying to return back to what we learned at school, while trying to expand architecture beyond the buildings. We as architects are always in a creative industry, we are able to creatively redefine what we can do and what we want to do. (RL)

I am seeing the impacts made by all of you. It is not about the scale, but whatever possibility that they create, and I see what you have created is making changes step by step. Architects have the ability to consolidate all these invisible materials such as relationships between people, we have the ability to deliver them in the form of space and form. (CC)

From Sarah’s inventive collaborations, Maggie’s compassion for equitable design, to Eric’s methodological innovations and Rosalia’s self-transforming involvement and reflections, it is encouraging to see such blossoming of community-inspired practices in Hong Kong. For me, it seems we need to give more space to these architects who see architecture and design ultimately as a process of listening, strategizing and curating for the betterment of community well-being. (TC)

Session 2: Large-scale Projects with a Human Touch

Introduction / Chris Law
To start with, I have 5 key questions for you. What is community architecture? How do we design for communities? Who are we designing for? To what extent does community building rely on architects? What are the conditions, limits, or potentials of architecture in placemaking and community creation? These questions are by all means we as architects should consider when thinking about architecture and community. (CL)

Designing for the Community - Public Space in Public Housing Estates in Hong Kong / Helen Leung
Working for the Housing Authority (HA) for the past two decades has been a rewarding experience for me since we spend most of the time designing for the community.

“Community” means a group of people living in a particular area sharing common interests. More than building the physical envelope, architects co-create built environments when we design for the community by working with existing and future users so that the culture, heritage and identity of a place are enhanced to create a space that meets the users’ needs. Social sustainability of architecture is sensitive to the needs of people. There are many tools and exercises to help us gather ideas from end users. I rely mostly on in-person communication.

Small-sized residential units of public housing estates lack the flexibility to build good relationships. Public spaces downstairs become vital extended living space, a key to social lives. Designing public spaces is hence very important for architects who work in this sector. In the past, public spaces at public housing were rather primitive like leftover spaces. After 2000s these spaces are more mature with more greenery, seating areas, playgrounds and equipment. Yet, there is still room for improvement.

Upper Ngau Tau Kok Estate is HA’s first project to engage the community to identify their needs. This large estate houses more than 12,200 residents with 21% of them being elderly. The engagement process lasted for 7 years to investigate and understand the values that residents wished to preserve, and to realise design ideas. Artefacts were collected and remodelled to be displayed in the redeveloped estate to maintain the sense of belonging. Lots of seating areas were also incorporated for the elderly. Technologies to conduct micro-climate studies were adopted such that residents enjoy adequate sunlight with good ventilation since people would spend most of their time downstairs.

Wah Fu Estate, an iconic public estates in Hong Kong against a scenic sea-view backdrop, is now 60 years old and faces the need for redevelopment. It is our mission to let all residents and Hong Kong people feel that all their needs are catered to during the process. (HL)

Victoria Harbour Waterfront / Vincent Ng
The 73km-long harbourfront of Victoria Harbour (VH) has undergone various levels of facelifts in the past 20 years. Particularly in recent years new initiatives were implemented to realise VH’s vision of connecting more than 34km by 2028. Having served on the Harbourfront Commission since 2010, I realise that we ought to work very creatively to bring changes to the government system. The Harbour Planning Vision is to enhance VH and its harbourfront areas to become an attractive, vibrant, accessible and sustainable world-class asset. We aim to build a harbour for the people and a harbour of life.

There are numerous difficulties, for instances, areas occupied by cargo-handling facilities, infrastructure or even highways. The biggest hurdle is management — deciding what activities are allowed and what are not. Harbourfront spaces zoned into park or garden managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) have to follow strictly the Playground Ordinance that almost all activities are prohibited. We realise the importance of having a more flexible management system in order to realise our visions with 3 “E”s — Experiment, Engagement and Empowerment.

We adopt an experimental approach in terms of design and management. This large harbourfront project is composed of hundreds of various smaller projects, like putting together jigsaw puzzles to form a bigger picture. With this approach, we delivered more than 30 harbourfront venues since October 2020. The Belcher Bay Promenade and the Water Sports and Recreation Precinct in Wan Chai, where “Night Vibes Hong Kong” currently takes place, are not designed for any particular purpose to give the space greater flexibility and a faster delivery.

Incremental approach means simple design and quick delivery. It is very effective in pushing earlier opening of harbourfront spaces to the public and allows flexibility in organising different activities. Fence-free design is another achievement, which we experimented and were successful in the sense that people are well aware of the danger and at the same time we pull them closer to the sea.

Fence-free design and flexible management were not based on traditional management systems but rather the new “co-management model” which we brand as harbourfront shared space. The joint-management system by different government departments proven to be very successful. With an open management mode of public spaces, they are vision-driven and an exception to breaking from existing restrictions and limitations, that people respect each other and enjoy the harbourfront spaces harmoniously. (VN)

Preserving Cultural Landscapes and Engaging Villagers / Nigel Ko
I am from Pok Fu Lam Village. Pokfulam (PFL) Farm as part of the cultural landscape preservation project in PFL Valley is itself not a large-scale project compared to Victoria Harbour. However, it could be “large-scale” when cooperating with government departments and incorporating cultural heritage. PFLV cultural Landscape conservation is physically and conceptually large, including both tangible and intangible heritage elements of different layers of historical and cultural significance.

In terms of “human touch”, active villagers interaction including decade-long project can also be considered as a “large-scale” in terms of time. Since the early phases of the project, we found that “no resources is good resources” as adversity makes villagers and the human touch strong. We started with small docent tours and groups since 2013, and have now over 10,000 docent participants to date with villagers, student helpers as well as heritage ambassadors.

Chung Yat-san from HKU coined the word “upservation” in the following quote: “To preserve the village, villagers need ’upservation’ to upgrade the conservation elements and to achieve the identification of Hong Kong people.” Upservation is a continuing conservation movement to keep creating and exploring the conservation elements of place. More importantly, it involves interaction between the villagers and outsiders. Currently, new platforms have been established and we work with 8 academic disciplines from various universities across USA, Macau and mainland China. This successfully influenced the government to make more policy changes, for instance, assisting us to establish a more sustainable sewage system for the villagers that would endure for at least another 30 years.

Our ABCD (Asset-based Community Development) Approach values human touch in the conservation of the village. Understanding the strength of villagers and their values give meaning for villagers living there. For instance, we support villagers who are good at engineering and ask them to form a group to help the village or other villagers in need. Likewise, the cooking ladies group revitalises and records all traditional dishes and cooking methods in menus, leaflets and books to share with outsiders or villagers. Everyone is playing a part in preserving the cultural landscape across physical environment and intangible heritage. (NK)

Jockey Club Project Well-being: Place-making in Schools / Hoi Wood Chang
There are currently over 1,000  primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong with more than 800,000 students. Good design of school environments have positive impact on the school users, educational outcomes and process, which involves extra-curriculum, co-curriculum and pedagogy. Place-making could affect these stakeholders’ well-being by creating a sense of ownership and belonging, promoting positive social interaction and a healthy lifestyle.

This project is funded by Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust with a consultation fee of HKD $6 million and lasted for 2.5 years. Our methods include design thinking and participatory design. We run design thinking workshops with teachers and students from 6 to 17 years old. The first step is to discover, understand, empathise and define. We discover the unique character of schools and project locations, understand the goals and implementation details, empathise with the stakeholders and then define the initial design problem. In the second stage, we ideate, prototype, evaluate, validate, decide and develop. We ideate possible solutions with various co-design tools. We hold prototype tangible mock-ups to test ideas with users, evaluate and validate the options, decide the best options and develop them into a feasible design proposal. Then we have the design validation and development process. We consolidate and deliver in the third stage with drawing production, budgeting and the tender process. We then materialise them on campus. Eventually, we celebrate, share, document and study it. Completed projects from 15 schools engaged in the year 1 programme include cafes, playgrounds in corridors, gardens, mindfulness rooms, multi-purposed rooms, a canteen, a fitness centre, a cat house and a teahouse. For the 16 schools in the year 2 programme, we delivered design proposals and they get their own budgets to realise their projects.

To conclude, there are five elements connecting place-making and well-being-connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give. Through place-making, we connect people. We allow students to connect with the school community with quality and quantity of time. We encourage students to be active, allowing students to discover and create a habit for physical activity that suits them. We also allow students to be curious and be mindful, to discover and be aware of their daily lives and always encourage students to try something new, help them to set a challenge and help them achieve. Eventually, we encourage students to be pro-social to understand the community. (HC)

Discussion Highlights
Large projects are very attractive, adaptive, impactful, potentially attracting huge amounts of resources, but they also bring up a lot of discussions and controversies.

Society needs big projects, but big projects have their own logic and own way of doing business. The first is about rules and regulations. You cannot control a big project unless there are management rules and regulations. Major projects that run out of control will turn into chaos and disasters. Second and third are standardisation and economy of scale. With these we managed to realise many major projects in the last 40-50 years in HK such as many of the new towns.

But there remain at least three challenges. The first one is knowledge gap. When we work on such major projects, how do we know the needs and aspirations, or even the cleverest solution for a particular street? How do we obtain knowledge, and know the know-how? That gap in knowledge as always been nagging architects since day one. The second challenge is what I would call the “one-size-fits-all” challenge. Because of modernisation and standardisation, at least before 3D printing buildings, we have always been trying to find the simplest, smallest number of standardised types that could fit everyone. But it is hard to be specific; how can this standardised design of schools or houses really meet the aspirations of this particular family? For the third challenge, I would call it the “agency challenge”. The decision-makers in policies are fellow professionals who might have other agendas. The project manager wants to complete the project within budget and schedule. The owners and users of the final product would have their own agenda too. How do we bridge that conflict, or conflict of interests between the agent and the actual project users and owners?

I am really pleased that our four extremely eminent panelists have found, in one way or another, methods to tackle these challenges. Helen talked eloquently about how we could use social participation and engagement to help resolve some of those knowledge gaps and also to build a sense of community through history and storytelling. Vincent presented the operation and method within the Harbourfront operation, co-managing, co-designing, cutting down the time during short-time projects, but also improving the flexibility of the public open spaces in the all major public space of our Waterfront. Nigel worked on an “upservation”  methodology that tied in the community, coming up with alternate ways, not only designing it, but also managing the whole process of conservation and potential development to suggest social and economic future of Pok Fu Lam village. Hoi Wood created a mega-education building system in Hong Kong that has been successful for many years for standardised schools that efficiently provided education services by design-thinking, place-making, re-building a sense of specificness, and sense of identity and ultimately placemaking within those schools. And it also involved so many good architects.

I would like to ask all four panellists, given that Hong Kong is just about to start some major mega projects such as the Northern Metropolis (NM), what would you do or advise to put human touch into these mega projects? (CL)

It’s a very difficult question because I can see a very big gap between a big project which takes a lot of other considerations, like programming and budgeting and may take 20 or 25 years to realise. It can only be built upon step by step. As an architect or designer you will need to know what people need now, and 20 years later. Bridging the time-gap in big projects involves a lot of public consultation and engagements. And 20 years later, the users will not be satisfied because they were not in the engagement process 20 years ago, while those who were may already be in hospitals or have passed away. So after working 20 years on the Harbourfront, I realise that we have to get the place done ASAP –  getting people down there to use it and find out what they need while using it. Be as flexible as possible. An architect cannot presume. Architects always want to determine how people will live by their design, but actually it should be the other way round. Architects need to observe how people use the places and design for them for what they need. My experiences in approaching empty premises in the waterfront tells me that we should open it ASAP without much design intervention. Adopting this very open-minded and flexible management approach, anything could be done there and the whole process is observed. We can actually learn a lot through observing how people use spaces, for example, we did not expect Belcher Bay Park to become a skateboard lovers’ playground because it was not designed for that. These waterfront spaces were not designed for Night Vibes Hong Kong either, but you can hold the event here. By observing how people use the place, you facilitate the use of them and you do not determine everything. I find this very humanistic. (VN)

We should start first with our vision. If that vision put people, heritage, culture and social at  top priority, then everything will go right. So who to make that vision? We should ask the stakeholders first. We should let the right people to lead the project, not a government department. Like the Harbour. Harbourfront Commission is doing a very good job because they have the vision to give back all the space to people. Technical studies are necessary to form the basis. As an architect we should at least ask for a leading that is composed in a balanced way, including planners, architects, engineers, historians, heritage specialists and of course, the general public such as housing estate residents or villagers in the New Territories. (HL)

In terms of architecture, to design for something like the NM, Vincent’s Harbourfront is an exemplary project for Hong Kong. It has the vision. We can also have bottom-up initiatives, like those in Pok Fu Lam Village and in schools. But it’s much more difficult for NM since it has got more layers for the whole city. (TC)

Making big projects, particularly NM, involves a community sense and human touch. So two things, one is small, and one is flexibility. If a large development cannot break down into smaller ones, we may have to think about it on a street level. For example, can mega projects break into smaller developments under a larger plan? Second, change. Is there a way that we design the architecture basically as infrastructure to allow smaller developers or architects to do their 20m or 50m sections of a street? That would allow flexibility. (WW)

Vision is one thing, but execution is another. Any large project will have elements falling into the jurisdiction of different government departments – it is too compartmentalised. And they may, or mostly may not, share the vision. We always need some advocates to work inside and observe. This is the only way to be successful but it is definitely not easy. (VN)

We talked about the importance of vision, and a delivery agency to be able to make it happen. We had a critique of the current engagement or participation process. We also discussed the importance of flexibility. In some countries, future-proofing is one of the criteria for the national development framework. (CL)

A final question on size. How big each development project should be allowed? If you make a mistake in a superblock,, you cannot adjust. My keyword would be “break down”, to separate them into smaller packages that we can deal with one at a time and with different stakeholders. Thank you very much for the discussion. (WW)

hkia-journal ISSUE 78: Countryside 鄉郊 - symposium

content

目錄

Designing with Communities

社群設計

Collaborating to Create Catalytic Interventions with Impact

協作創造具影響力的催化式介入項目

Designing Modest Interventions with Social Impact

謙遜而具社會影響力的介入手法

Toward Multi-Stakeholder Action

誇界別持份者協作

How Can We Understand the Impact of Co-Design?

我們如何理解共同設計的影響?

Exploring the Relationships between the Buddhist Concept of Inter-being and Participatory Design

淺談佛教「相互依存/緣起」觀念與參與式設計之關連

Designing for the Community – Large Scale Project with a Human Touch

為社區設計 金 人性化的大型項目

By Us For Us: Hong Kong Co-operatives, Future Proof Narratives / Guillaume Othenin-Girard

由我地,為我地:香港建屋合作社面向未來的敘述

Co-creative School Redesign for Well-Being

共創幸福校園再設計

Places for Community

社區空間

「未.共研社」: 從「小」玩到「大」

Design Trust Futures Studio: From Smallness, Playfulness to Community Impact

Harbourfront Designs for Community

社區的海濱設計

QUARRYSIDE

舍區

A Cycle of Life in Chun Yeung

以公共設計塑造社區改變

K-Farm: Redefining Urban Farming in Hong Kong

K-Farm堅農甫:重新定義香港都市農業

Participant Observation and Community Design : An Anthropological Inquiry of the Western District Public Cargo Working Area

參與觀察與社區設計: 以人類學為基礎研究西區公眾貨物裝卸區

Community Public Space Transformation

社區公共空間改造

Public Spaces – What’s Next?

公共空間的未來

From Spaces to Places: How Retail Centres in Sha Tin New Town Cultivate Community Identity

從空間到場所:論沙田新市鎮的商場空間如何塑造社區意識感

Integrated Urban Renewal Approach Driven By The Community

社區主導的市區更新

Communal Life in the Blue House

藍屋裏的鄰舍生活

Platform

平台

A Collective Urban Curation

集營都市

Sunday Street Ballet: Practice, Condition and Imagination of Foreign Domestic Worker Community in Public Space inCentral

周日的街上芭蕾: 外傭社群在中環公共空間的實踐、條件和想像

Subdivided Units As Community

作為社區的劏房

Exploring Community Building in Shunde

探索順德社區營造

Development History of Cross Laminated Timber in Japan and Its Feasibility in Hong Kong

直交集成材在日本的發展歷史及在香港的可行性

editorial board

編輯部

Chief Editor
主編
Thomas Chung
鍾宏亮
Executive Editor
執行編輯
Miriam Lee
李敏婷
Assistant Editors
助理編輯
Ian Tan
陳昱宏
Journal Director
學報總監
Weijen Wang
王維仁
Chair of BIA
內務事務部主席
Edward Wong On Wa
王安華
Publication Committee
出版委員會
Edward Tong Sin Ching
湯先澄
Ellen Ngan Ka Sin
顏嘉倩
Eric Kwok Wing Hei
郭永禧
John Wong Po Lung
王寶龍
Marco Siu Kwan Yeung
蕭鈞揚
Yannis Chan Ho Yin
陳灝賢
Web design
網頁設計