DESIGN TRUST PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS: We are pleased to share an exciting line-up of upcoming grantee exhibitions and programmes, in the first quarter of the year. Spanning Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Boston internationally, the topics include heritage, urban furniture, building technology and digital innovation. Do mark your calendars and support Design Trust! Please check the link in bio for latest updates.
As Art Basel Hong Kong 2026’s cultural partner, Design Trust will also launch the Design Trust Charity Exhibition 2026 and a unique cultural tour led by Marisa Yiu (Co-founder, Lead Curator/ Executive Director, Design Trust) alongside experts, scholars and academics on architecture around the city in March. Please stay tuned for more details.
Hong Kong:
February 3rd - April 20th
Design Trust Feature Grant research project “Marine Arteries - Ma Wan Dragon Boat” led by Dr. Leung Po Shan, Anthony of Island Studies Network (HK) will be displayed at the Long Gallery of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum from Wednesday February 4th to Tuesday March 31st. The project explores archival documents, artefacts, and vivid illustrations that reveal the symbolic and functional designs behind dragon boat racing, a tradition not only celebrated as a sport but a profound ritual of worship and a vital expression of local identity.
February 21st – March 1st
Design Trust Seed Grant project “just-a-furniture” by Charis Mok, will be held at Habyt Bridges Community Living Room, Central, from Saturday February 21st to Sunday March 1st. The project challenges societal norms surrounding vernacular furniture by documenting and categorising examples of adaptive urban furniture, culminating in an interactive exhibition that explores how furniture shapes spatial environments and expands our understanding of place-making and perception of furniture.
March 7th – March 22nd
Design Trust Seed Grant research exhibition “Revisiting Choi Hung Estate: Looking back for the Future” by Don Hong, Martin Lau, Christine Lee and Sarah Chan, will open from Sunday March 7th to Saturday March 22nd at the Burrow, San Po Kong. The project explores the historical significance of Choi Hung Estate through contributions from various stakeholders. Choi Hung Estate was the first self-contained estate in Hong Kong completed between 1962 and 1964 but faces redevelopment between 2028 to 2029. By presenting photo and moving image installations, archival materials and consolidated historical findings from its design records, oral history and interviews from local residents, as well as open engagement at interactive breakout spaces. This exhibition reveals the connections between architecture and well-being across generations, and explore how Choi Hung Estate as a symbol of Hong Kong architecture and visual culture, that has mirrored and continues to drive the dynamism of Hong Kong.
Shenzhen:
January 15th - March 31st
Design Trust Feature Grant “Journeys of Delta Objects” by Mary Ann O’Donnell, will be showcased at the 10th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) 2025 Shekou Sub-venue. The project explores how residents of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) have maintained cultural identities within an evolving global system and changing local context. The project maps how global manufacturing and logistics continue to reshape the geographies of everyday life. Since the establishment of the Shenzhen SEZ in 1980, for example, the GBA has become central to China’s rise as a manufacturing superpower. The region has modernized at an unprecedented rate, transforming rivers, rice paddies, lychee orchards and fishponds into a high-rise apartments and urban village tenements, industrial parks, highways, high-speed trains, and international ports. By focusing on object flows, Journeys offers new perspectives on the social causes and cultural effects of this transformation.
January 15th - March 31st
Design Trust Seed Grant research “Stone Synergy: AI-Driven Community Housing” by Chen Shuning, will be showcased at the 10th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) 2025 Hetao Venue. The project leverages AI-driven automated design and fabrication technologies to reintroduce stone construction for mass housing, and enables communities to co-design. The process fosters social inclusion and revitalises regional material ecosystems. This innovative approach allows for customisation based on individual needs, and offers a wide range of housing typologies and materials. Through an interactive interface, the platform illustrates how algorithmic and human intelligence can merge to create adaptive, customised, resilient habitats.
March – June
Design Trust Seed Grant research “Infrastructure of the Ordinary: The Shanzhai Trolley” by Nicolás Penna and Yanyu Sun, will be showcased at the 10th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) 2025 Huaqiangbei Sub-venue. The project investigates how manual labour and low-tech tools sustain Shenzhen’s high-tech marketplace Huaqiangbei. Through fieldwork, spatial documentation, and collaboration with local makers, the project maps out how manual infrastructures persist within one of the world’s most advanced technological ecologies, and explores “shanzhai” as a culture of repair, adaptation, and collective invention to co-create a speculative prototype that transforms everyday logistics into a medium for design, public dialogue, and providing further reflections on how everyday practices and informal systems continue to shape the intelligence and resilience of contemporary cities.
Boston:
March 26th – May 10th
Design Trust Seed Grant design research “Public Parasols: Stories of Shade in Subtropical Hong Kong” by Chang Su, will debut at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design's spring 2026 exhibition at the Frances Loeb Library - Harvard Graduate School of Design as part of an international exhibition programme. The project continues his previous Seed Grant project funded by Design Trust, and explores how ethnographic research on the building cultures of Hong Kong fishing villages can inspire enhanced design approaches for shared spaces, as well as the in-between areas in high-density, subtropical Asian communities.
Upcoming:
March – April
Design Trust Charity Exhibition 2026 and experience in Central. Please stay tuned for more details for this unique exhibition responding to the exploration of public spaces, architectural sites and urbanism through times highlighting nature, design and technology’s interplay to re-read the city of Hong Kong.