In the realm of Spolia: The Scaffolding Laboratory

  • Diagram from Timeline of the life of aluminum, "Recyclage" (2020), Masters Dissertation Publication for Delft University, courtesy of Joanna Wing Hei Hui. Diagram from Timeline of the life of aluminum, "Recyclage" (2020), Masters Dissertation Publication for Delft University, courtesy of Joanna Wing Hei Hui.
  • ‘Scaffixer’ blocks – scaffolding pole fixing joints developed and patented by David Henry Jones & Daniel Palmer Jones in 1910s, courtesy of Patent Rapid Scaffold Tie Co. ‘Scaffixer’ blocks – scaffolding pole fixing joints developed and patented by David Henry Jones & Daniel Palmer Jones in 1910s, courtesy of Patent Rapid Scaffold Tie Co.
  • Collage base photo by Paul Kuimet, courtesy of Paul Kuimet Collage base photo by Paul Kuimet, courtesy of Paul Kuimet

This initiative addresses the construction industry’s environmental impact within Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area by repurposing dormant metal scaffolding into contemporary spolia. Amidst a regional real estate downturn and declining infrastructural investment, tonnes of high-embodied-energy scaffolding remain underutilized in storage yards, contradicting local landfill reduction targets. To redirect this surplus into circular economy cycles, the project employs a methodology of material empiricism, utilizing material reading, documentation, dismantling, and physical sketching to assess the tectonic qualities, geometry, and aging behavior of the components.

This initiative addresses the construction industry’s environmental impact within Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area by repurposing dormant metal scaffolding into contemporary spolia. Amidst a regional real estate downturn and declining infrastructural investment, tonnes of high-embodied-energy scaffolding remain underutilized in storage yards, contradicting local landfill reduction targets. To redirect this surplus into circular economy cycles, the project employs a methodology of material empiricism, utilizing material reading, documentation, dismantling, and physical sketching to assess the tectonic qualities, geometry, and aging behavior of the components.

In collaboration with a local scaffolding company, the research team will develop three structural reuse concepts—ranging from open frameworks and enclosed structures to urban furniture—into 1:1 prototypes. These designs will be constructed within a scaffolding storage yard and evaluated through the lenses of architectural aesthetics, material potential, and circular benchmarks such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Design for Disassembly (DfD).

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2025
Grantee: Stephanie Tung

Stephanie Tung is a multidisciplinary architectural designer and independent researcher focused on material culture and social design. With experience in Hong Kong, London, and Toronto, her work explores architectural reuse and the social dimensions of building practices. Her projects include Social Dock (2016), an urban installation made from upcycled pallets, and Jik Muk (2017), a mobile waste collection station built from salvaged furniture—both reflecting her commitment to circularity and community-oriented design. Her master’s thesis, Networks of Kindness, Production, Safespace: Hong Kong’s Social Commons (2021), examines emerging social archetypes shaped by informal networks of makers, growers, and mobile communities. In 2022, she collaborated with DOMAT Ltd. as curator and exhibit designer for Home in the Making, a showcase, through spatial design, on improving subdivided housing in Hong Kong. Now based in London, she contributes to local retrofit, adaptive reuse, and heritage conservation projects, with an emphasis on material culture, craft, and socially engaged design.

Hui Wing Hei Joanna is an architectural designer and adaptive reuse enthusiast based in the Netherlands whose work explores how architectural solutions bring the context into comfortable inheritance with circular and sustainable strategies. She received her Master of Architecture from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Bachelor of Architectural studies from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Having practiced across Hong Kong and the Netherlands, she is constantly immersed in the contrasts and resemblances of values and cultures, prompting her to investigate how best practices between the two places can be meaningfully exchanged, mixed, and re-applied across disciplines and scales. Her master’s thesis, Recyclage, examined nomadic applications of aluminium recovered through urban mining (2020), reflecting her pursuance of material stewardship, circular construction and economy. She has been recently contributing to residential and mixed-use projects in the Netherlands that emphasize transformation, affordable architecture, and sustainability.