Design Trust 2021 October Grant Application is now open. Share with us your ideas and proposals by 20th October 2021. Design Trust offers grants to designers, curators, collectives and non-profit organisations for project proposals that are relevant to the context and content of Hong Kong and the region.
2021 July Cycle Seed Grant Recipients:
The book publication 'HONG KONG MODERN Architecture of the 1950s-1970s' by Walter Koditek will give a comprehensive overview on the modernist architecture in combining photography, detailed background information and academic essays. In the post-war decades, Hong Kong architects, many of them emigrated from Mainland China, embraced the modernist principles when forced to face the problems of housing shortage, mass construction and limited budgets. Although economic efficiencies often prevailed over design, their buildings were rooted in time and place, reflecting the local climate, social values, materials, technique and use in an often unique and pragmatic fashion. With more than 300 buildings and ensembles documented, this book aims to serve as a reference and enhance knowledge on modernist architecture of the post-war era in Hong Kong, and will contribute to the discussion of its architectural merit, historic and cultural values.
“Human-planet Public Objects” by Wai Chun Tsang and Rosalia Leung probes us to rethink: How human beings share the planet with other species. "Human-planet Public Objects" is a research design project which looks into our extremely close yet incredibly far relationship between human and other species within our Hong Kong urban landscape. The project reflects on the conventional way of user-centric design approach, which is human focused and may not be a sustainable approach in long run due to rapid urbanization and climate change. By focusing on the scale of street objects in the city, it reveals the juxtaposition of the original design intention for human use and the accidental accommodation by the biodiverse culture of Hong Kong.
CROWD-LISTENING: RESEARCH + PROTOTYPE OF CIVIC TECH. INNOVATIONS IN NEIGHBOURHOOD ENGAGEMENT by Lick Fai Eric Ho investigates the potential applications of civic technology in neighbourhood research and engagement towards “commoning”. The team believes in human-centred neighbourhood research with defined design objectives: people first, then principle, then production. In this project, the team intends to develop a dual RESEARCH + PROTOTYPE initiative, questioning “How do we better listen to our neighbours’ pains + gains?”. Operating under the Neighbourhood Innovation Framework - a joint-effort enlisting support from Neighbours, Service Design, government, corporations and Property owners, the project will be conducted in phases Conceptualization, Prototype and Adaptation.
Drawing on the format of “floating exhibition”, “Liquid Homes: Living, Building, and other Stories from Hong Kong Fishing Villages” by Chang Su is a research, curatorial, and design collaboration about the culture of Tanka (Cantonese boat people) and their fluid state of living and building in Hong Kong fishing villages. Liquid Homes explores new narratives about the architecture of Hong Kong. Rethinking the common narrative of Hong Kong as a city of highrise living, Liquid Homes redirects our attention to the fringe of the city and excavates the less-told stories from the fishing villages and Tanka communities. Steeped in geography, historical events, building typology, and folk culture, trajectories that this project takes are idiosyncratic, through the villages as ecological territories, houses as amphibious species, and homes as liquid bodies. Inspired by this fluid state of being, the project draws on the format of “floating exhibition” in collaboration with emerging designers and curatorial practices across and beyond the Greater Bay Area. Archiving as research, curating as construction, exhibiting as viewing, cataloging as critical discourse, the project searches for possible design techniques that are unique to the Area.
“Home-Brewing Small-Gauge Filmmaking” by Chung Ling Jolene Mok critically observes the fact that how we are living in the grand digital era, everything is made fast with low cost and easily accessible. Analog filmmaking is a challenging art form due to its cost, time and labor intensiveness which causes the threshold to become high, driving people with interests and skillsets away. This project offers a friendly, constructive, encouraging, user-friendly web-based platform for the local community who has the interest in knowing more about and engaging with small gauge analog filmmaking (16mm & 8mm). Jolene's proposition is to contribute to the repositioning of marginalised analog filmmaking through an experimental DIY approach, and research in use of sustainable materials and educational approaches to benefit the large public on the culture of production.