Interstitial Hong Kong

Commonly called saam kok see hang (‘three-cornered shit pit’) in Cantonese, Sitting Out Areas (SOAs) can be found all over Hong Kong’s urban areas. Situated in the anomalies, gaps, interstices and mis-matches, the Sitting Out Areas (SOAs) is an unique type of interstitial space crucial to our inhabitations of Hong Kong, where every inch of space is extremely valuable and must be used to maximum advantage. By creating an illustrated survey on the unique public space that urban designers would like to forget, IHK aims to find new grounds for creative intervention, and to function as enabler of new public realms and social spaces that reflect social cultural concerns and evolving social practices in Hong Kong.

The Interstitial Hong Kong team is composed of Ivan Valin, Dr Xiaoxuan Lu, and Susanne Trumpf, instructors and scholars from the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong.

Xiaoxuan Lu is lecturer in the Division of Landscape Architecture, where she teaches landscape history and theory, and design studios. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Harvard University in Cambridge (2016.4-10), IIT in Chicago (2015.3-5), and Chaumont-sur-Loire, France (2013.5-11).

Ivan Valin is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the MA Landscape Architecture program. Valin has been a practicing landscape architect and architect for over 10 years and his work has been exhibited internationally with the National Building Museum, the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, and the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Biennale.

Susanne Trumpf is an architect and designer based in Hong Kong. She founded indialogue, a platform for collaborative design and research, and her work has been exhibited in Hong Kong and Seoul and published in Monu: Interior Urbanism (10/2014) and Tourette: Wide Open (08/2014).