Design Trust 2023 January Cycle Grant Recipients | April Cycle Call for Grants

Design Trust 2023 April Grant Application is now open. Since its establishment in 2014, Design Trust has been offering grant support to individual designers, curators, collectives as well as non-profit organisations. Share with us your ideas and proposals by 20th April 2023. We are also pleased to announce the Grant Recipients from the 2023 January grant cycle. The upcoming projects include research topics on community design, history of Hong Kong architecture, local craftsmanship and material innovation.

Design Trust offers grants to individual designers, curators, collectives and non-profit organisations for projects and activities that are relevant to various design disciplines. These grants support projects relevant to the context and content of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Cities within the Greater Bay Area include: the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, and the nine municipalities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province. We support innovative, thought-provoking investigations in various design disciplines from graphics, media, wearables, architecture to the built environment; and actively aim to accelerate creative design and research development of meaningful projects. These projects include but are not limited to: talks, exhibitions, residencies, research projects and creative installations.

DESIGN TRUST SEED GRANT fosters a culture of experimentation, testing and sharing. It is awarded to individuals seeking to kick-start a meaningful and intellectual project with social, educational, economical or environmental impact for communities. Seed Grants may support applicants who have a project in the pipeline that needs additional resources, as well as emerging designers, and young scholars. Design Trust highly encourages applicants from Hong Kong and the region to apply for this grant to support projects showcasing work at international venues, symposium or international biennales to showcase prototypes, or works relevant to architecture.

DESIGN TRUST FEATURE GRANT fosters cross-disciplinary projects focusing on the Greater Bay Area region. Projects awarded have a wide-reaching audience and may be sited in an exhibition or biennale venue with international recognition and standing. This grant supports international exchanges between a Hong Kong/ China based collective with an international renowned cultural institution. It aims to excel, share and build new knowledge and unique positions on the value of design, critical research and provocative outcome.

Grant Recipients from the 2023 January Grant cycle:

“Docking” by Wing Chun Cheng, focuses on the living condition of street sleepers during the rise and fall. In the past years, the existing shelters found at Kwun Tong Public Pier are constructed in a primitive way, most of the materials are wasted in each clearance. Hence, the team designed one mobile dwelling unit and one foldable unit based with simple means and standard materials readily available on the market. Cuts are also designed to be minimal when assembling the materials. The proposed project will continue improving the spatial prototype, while documenting the engagement with the communities through films and zines.

“Futuristic: Property Developer” by Wing Shan Wong (flyingpig), aims to explore new ways of representing traditional stores and their stories in the form of a 3D-Image Archive and exhibition. This project combines LiDAR scanning, VR technology and spatial narrative to present the public with a new representation of Hong Kong’s traditional stores and their historical stories. ”Futuristic: Property Developer” will develop a digital space that allows us to design virtual platforms, online experiences, and even immersive spaces. The collated 3D space will be built into a virtual space archive on the Internet so that the public can visit the old and small stores from the perspective of the first body. Other information will be provided on the website, including descriptions of historians and architectural experts and voice recordings of the collective memory of the old shops.

“[other] ways to occupy public space” by Ximena Ocampo Aguilar, is a catalogue of appropriations, objects, elements, and actions of occupation of public space in Hong Kong; a detailed account and inventory, of current uses, including those that are non-intentional, spontaneous, and unplanned. The project aims to analyse and give value to everyday actions that shape our public sphere. The catalogue will be composed of photographs, architectural drawings, videos, soundscapes, and descriptions, open and available for anyone to consult, expand, organise and form groups, categories, relationships, and nodes that give different readings and meaning to public life, conferring new possibilities for architecture in the 21st century. This project will be the Aguilar’s second of the series, following their first catalogue developed in 2021 on other ways to occupy public space in Mexico.

 “CHICHOIMAO. from Hong Kong to the world” by Wing Sing Chow, explores local Hong Kong wood craftsmanship in a contemporary way. Through developing new wood works and showcases at different exhibitions and fairs, the project hopes to promote the local wood craftsmanship to audience around the world. CHICHOIMAO’s works are made by solid wood with traditional joinery techniques in a minimal form with fine details balancing usability and aesthetic. CHICHOIMAO hopes to develop high quality handcrafted wooden works which fits nowadays living condition in Hong Kong while redefining the manufacturing industry in this city today.

“Utensil Acoustic Enhancement Development (UAED)” by Chaklam Ng, examines how technology and design can enhance dining experience by acoustic sound augmentation on utensils. Knowing the wonderful progression of utensils in visual and functionality, their mission is to meet the level of such aesthetic standard, in sound. Product and sound/acoustic design should work hand in hand. This engineer based project is grounded on the idea of re-designing utensils into acoustic pleasing 'music instruments', and Ng believes such philosophy can be developed into objects and products of everyday life, with infinite possibility. This project will reinvent dining experience, by redesigning the utensils’ form with acoustic harmony in mind.