Design Trust Futures Festival 2025 at Murray House, Stanley Plaza Opens to Public

Design Trust Futures Festival 2025: “The Art of Transformation” is a new micro festival where Design Trust researchers, scholars, global partners to innovative designers, participate and share further their ongoing work. Small scale site specific commissioned works around the themes of “Exceptional Transformations” of the historic site Murray House at Stanley Plaza, with architectural significance, extraordinary heritage and natural context enlivens conversations on the public realm. This festival opened on March 29th and to June 18th 2025, with a series of curated workshops and community tours.

Curated by Marisa Yiu (Co-Founder, Lead Curator/ Executive Director) with Zheng Zhou (Head of Programmes/ Associate Curator), this new initiative is conceptualized to shape, test ideas and speculate on the future of spaces, urbanism and the role of creativity, as we respond to global conversations around sustainability, placemaking, role of tourism to culture and heritage of Hong Kong within the Greater Bay Area, and international context, in positive and impactful ways. Supported by Lead Venue Sponsor and Programme & Exhibition Co-sponsor Link Asset Management Limited (Link), the festival transforms Murray House into a community-based cultural venue, featuring exhibitions, public installations, and cultural tours.

 “‘The Art of Transformation’ explores spatial constructions and interactions of design and architecture to re-imagine, transform perspectives of city heritage and the culture of nature. Situated in Stanley called ‘Chek Chue’ in Cantonese, a coastal town located on the peninsula of Hong Kong Island in the Southern District with beaches, historic piers, to the popular annual dragon boat festival, heritage monuments and the seaside culture of Hong Kong. This natural context, forms the beginning of a unique programmatic and research-driven learning programme to inspire and gather for community collaboration.”, says Marisa Yiu (Co-Founder, Lead Curator/ Executive Director).

Design Trust Futures Festival 2025: ‘The Art Of Transformation’ collaborates with over 60 designers, artists, architects and curators, over a three-month programme at Murray House, Stanley Plaza where the 19th Century Victorian-era building, fronted by Blake Pier and Ma Hang Park, sets the stage for new perspectives on material ecologies, ocean connectivity that links the 263 islands of Hong Kong. Five key exhibitions and multiple public space installations, features lightweight interventions throughout the historic building to echo the Stanley waterfront, and its environs, as a space for dialogue to speculate on the future of spaces, urbanism and creative discovery.

Design Trust Feature Installations: “Transformational Interventions” highlights feature installations from Joyce Wang Studio, Jacqueline Chak (Design Trust Futures Studio 2022 designer mentee) & Genevieve Chew of Editecture, Toshiya Hayashi & Hokuto Ando of We+, across the public areas of Murray House at Stanley Plaza to explore the intriguing relationship between heritage identity, material upcycling and sustainability.

Deign Trust Charity Exhibition 2025: “Transformational Exceptions”: Crafted in dialogue with Lead Curator, artists and architects over the past months, create and donate a unique art work, specific to their artistic practice, responding to the site and theme of “The Art of Transformation”. These new works or expanded works, relate to the historic Murray House, Stanley environment, Hong Kong city and public spaces, where the cultural community have been in constant transformation to craft works in dialogue with material translation and the nature. The works are generously donated by artists, designers, galleries to support the ongoing research and granting programmes of the registered charity Design Trust of the Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design that was founded in 2007.

Participating artists and designers include: William Lim, Daphne Mandel, Ant Winglam Ngai, Stephen Chun Hei Wong, Yang Danful, Eddie Lui, Gary Chang, Hou Jianan, Peep, Cynthia Mak, Judy Gee, Dominique Fung, Ryo Matsuoka, Frank Tang, Austin Bell, Toshiya Hayashi & Hokuto Ando of We+, Paribawga, Winnie MAK, Joseph Munyao Mutuku, and Andi Fischer.

“Sea Garden”: Design Trust Ideas Lounge features five site-specific and interactive installations from Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando of We+, Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami of A.A.Murakami (Design Trust Futures Studio 2019 mentors, Design Trust Arts Prize Dynamic Duos recipients 2024), Chi Chun Tang and Leroy Yuen of Island Works Team (Design Trust Seed Grant recipients), Chaklam Ng (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), Wang Xin, and Niko Leung of Hong Kong Soil (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), transforming the former old restaurant remnant with playfulness through intriguing displacement. Installations include filmic, sound to interactive work and objects that probe into the complexity of human and natural interactions within this coastal and marine context.

Design Trust Curatorial Survey Show: “Hong Kong Islands and Material Ecologies”: This thematic exhibition presents the past decade and ongoing research and speculative projects, analysis to material urban transformation (islands, people, materiality) from the Design Trust community of grantees, mentees projects under material sustainability, oceanic pursuits, locality and heritage, to island communities. The curatorial survey explores how these works and research inform, as ideas to action think-tank, to shape and question impacts of cultural tourism, as a space of innovation, and engagement for Hong Kong’s future.

Participating designers, artists and researchers include Toshiya Hayashi & Hokuto Ando of We+, MAP Office [Gutierrez+Portrfaix] (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), Chi Chun Tang and Leroy Yuen of Island Lights (Design Trust Seed Grant recipient), Inter-Island Festival (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), Islanders (Design Trust Seed Grant recipient), Island Studies Network (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), Leroy Cheng & Vanessa Ma of Project: As If __ (Design Trust Seed Grant recipients), Niko Leung of Hong Kong Soil (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), Lidia Ratoi (Design Trust Seed Grantee), Elaine Yan Ling Ng (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient, Design Trust Futures Studio 2019&2022 designer mentee), Jacqueline Chak (Design Trust Futures Studio 2022 designer mentee), Florian Wegenast & Christine Lew (Design Trust Seed Grant recipient, Design Trust Futures Studio 2019&2022 designer mentee) and Donn Holohan (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), and Kevin Mak (Design Trust Feature Grantee and Design Trust Arts Prize Dynamic Duos recipients 2024) & Ken Fung of Street Sign HK in collaboration with local master Chi Kai Wu.

Design Trust Collaborative Space: “Transformational Exceptions” is a multi-function space for cultural tours sharing, participatory workshop, talks and events. The space features a newly created illustrated map of Murray House and Stanley area by artist Connie Maoshan. The space will also transform into workshop for Design Trust Futures Studio Special Murray House project mentored by Elaine Yan Ling Ng (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient, Design Trust Futures Studio 2019&2022 designer mentee)  and Julie Progin & Jesse Mc Lin (Design Trust Futures Studio 2019&2022 designer mentees), whose community participatory work will be unveiled in May-June 2025. A series of public programmes will be presented including community heritage tours in collaboration with Open House Hong Kong (Design Trust Impact Grant recipient), book launch of Breaching Sanctum from Ingrid Pui Yee Chu (Design Trust Feature Grant recipient), sharing from Hong Kong Ghost Signs (Design Trust Seed Grant recipient) and many more.

Opening Date and Hours:

March 29th – June 18th 2025

Wednesday – Thursday: 2 – 6pm,

Friday: 2-9pm,

Saturday: 11am-9pm, Sunday: 11am- 6pm

Closed on Public Holidays unless announced for special programmes.

Address: Murray House, Stanley Plaza, 23 Carmel Road, Stanley, Hong Kong

For more information on Design Trust Futures Festival 2025, please visit its website via link here.