Design Trust Studio Inaugural Showcase

From October 2022, the new Design Trust Studio has kicked-off with the Inaugural Showcase, a snapshot of key moments of time that brings together the regional and international design community together through Design Trust’s grants and community platform. With a sincere commitment to advance design competency, catalysing our programmes to benefit and inspire the public on the role of design, as well as supporting emerging designers and scholars’ research on urgent topics, Design Trust has supported 523 grantees, fellows, mentee designers and collaborative teams to date since 2014. Through charting and revisiting their research interests and outcomes, the Inaugural Showcase maps out a vast and expanding Design Trust Community Network supported and formed by Design Trust’s various funding schemes, fellowships and programmes, which contributes to active knowledge production and exchange across 47 cities internationally. The inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural collective research efforts continue responding to critical and urgent topics in the regional and global design ecology, including Architecture and Urban Culture of Hong Kong, Heritage Crafts, Education, Environment Sustainability, Curatorial & Design Experimentation, as well as the Greater Bay Area Expanded Network.

Curated by Marisa Yiu (Lead Curator, Co-founder/Executive Director) and Zheng Zhou (Associate Curator & Designer), the showcase is presented in a visual archive format displaying the visionary publications, exhibition documentation materials, research films, as well as design prototypes and research samples in a 9.5m-long adaptable shelfing system in the 3.15m high space according to thematic zoning, not only celebrating the works themselves but further creating new dialogues between adjacent works. Key themes include “Education/ Participation/ Play”, “Hong Kong Design, Heritage and Identity”, “Design Prototyping and Material Innovation” and “Design and Manufacturing in the context of Greater Bay Area”. Six visual works of modern architecture in Hong Kong are specially highlighted on the wall next to the shelf, forming new and ongoing conversations on the changing context of the city Hong Kong.

Through various schemes and programmes, Design Trust has been actively exploring a forward-looking understanding of “heritage”- not as a static subject but a dynamic living and inspiring process. The section “Heritage and Craft Innovation” features key design prototypes developed from material, craft and fabrication research projects. In a highly interactive format, the works displayed in this section allow the visitors to touch and play with the works while revealing the unlimited potentials of design.

As the flagship programme, Design Trust Futures Studio aims to make the role of the design process, visible in the creation of our cities, while transforming the ways in which designers participate, individually and collectively, in the production of urban space. With the Yi Pei Square Playground and Portland Street Rest Garden put into use, the Sitting-out Area under Flyover in Hill Road is softly launched in December 2022 and will be fully completed in February 2023, with the last micro-park Hamilton Street Rest Garden to follow. The section “Design Trust Futures Studio 2018 Micro-parks Initiative” shows the behind-the-scenes efforts of these four micro-parks through models and design drawings, shedding light on the complexity and opportunity of public space in Hong Kong.

More details on appointment-only tours will be announced soon. Stay tuned with Design Trust’s social media platforms and newsletter.