Urban Ethnography: Re-Commoning Sheung Shui Tin Kwong Hui
This project documents and reimagines Sheung Shui’s Tin Kwong Hui, a traditional morning market rooted in Hong Kong’s hawker history. Building on earlier ethnographic work, this research-based publication develops a comprehensive understanding of the market’s temporal rhythms, sensory experiences, and social interactions through participatory observation, architectural drawings, and video. The project then organizes guided tours and exhibition that engage local communities. Workshops will test practical and speculative interventions—from display tools and basic infrastructure to proposals for alternative market uses—linking field research with applied design practice. By bridging design, architecture, and social research, the project preserves ephemeral market culture while creating participatory models for community engagement. Situated within the broader discourse on the street-hawking economy, it connects Hong Kong’s Tin Kwong Hui with marketplaces in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, contributing methodologies for documenting and reimagining informal urban cultures in the Greater Bay Area.
This project documents and reimagines Sheung Shui’s Tin Kwong Hui, a traditional morning market rooted in Hong Kong’s hawker history. Building on earlier ethnographic work, this research-based publication develops a comprehensive understanding of the market’s temporal rhythms, sensory experiences, and social interactions through participatory observation, architectural drawings, and video. The project then organizes guided tours and exhibition that engage local communities. Workshops will test practical and speculative interventions—from display tools and basic infrastructure to proposals for alternative market uses—linking field research with applied design practice. By bridging design, architecture, and social research, the project preserves ephemeral market culture while creating participatory models for community engagement. Situated within the broader discourse on the street-hawking economy, it connects Hong Kong’s Tin Kwong Hui with marketplaces in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, contributing methodologies for documenting and reimagining informal urban cultures in the Greater Bay Area.
- 2025
- Grantee: Jessy KitSze Yau
Jessy KitSze Yau is a researcher and independent publisher, co‑founder of BarofSpace and founder of o2Common Press. A graduate of the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Architecture, she uses a cross‑disciplinary lens to examine communities overlooked amid rapid urban development, and to trace how climate crises and colonial structures shape land use, resource distribution, and ways of living. Her work continues to offer both critical and imaginative responses to these conditions.
- Organisation: O2Common Press
O2Common Press explores the intersections of urban–rural space, everyday life, and human experience. It seeks to move beyond conventional architectural practice to investigate the social and spatial dynamics of cities and villages. Through fieldwork, it documents the traces of urban environments, community spaces, and daily life. By integrateing research, publishing, and creative practice to promote a nuanced anthropological understanding of the city and the ordinary people within it.