New Grants Cycle with 2024 Theme “Archiving Futures” | Design Trust 2024 January Cycle Grant Recipients

Since its establishment in 2014, Design Trust has been offering grants to individual designers, curators, collectives as well as non-profit organisations, supporting over 200 research projects supported by Seed Grants and Feature Grants on a quarterly cycle. To continue advocating for the positive role of design facing the ever-changing context of urgent topics, Design Trust is pleased to announce the new grants cycle of April 20th and October 20th every year for applications for Design Trust Seed Grant and Feature Grant supporting projects and research responding to the 2024 theme “Archiving Futures” to examine innovative, thought-provoking investigations in various design disciplines including but not limited to graphics, media, wearables, architecture to the built environment, as well as focused research on local and regional design archives. Share with us your ideas and proposals by 20 April 2024! We are also pleased to announce the Grant Recipients from the 2024 January grant cycle including research topics on urban culture, material upcycling and architectural research. 

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 the region to international applicants to apply for this grant to support their research projects and prototypes focusing on Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area issues to be showcased at international venues, symposium or international biennales.

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, as well as research efforts on Hong Kong and regional modern and contemporary architectural design archives. 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 2024 January Grant cycle:

“Deploying alternative water source harvesting in the countryside of Kuk Po” led by Francis Lam, explores methods of water harvesting, deployed in the traditional agricultural village of Kuk Po. Being a Hakka village with a peak population of over five hundred in the 1910s, Kuk Po has an intricate and developed water infrastructure full of traditional wisdom. The proposed water harvesting installation is an initiation to rediscover and reconnect into this water system, and to promote awareness of the importance of water resources to our livelihood. The installation will be a live demonstration for rainwater and fog harvesting, serving its educational purpose for a wider community.

“e-Co Architecture: A Cooperative Fab-Lab Exploring Ecological Community Facilities” led by Provides Ng, aims to explore how salvaged windthrow and other solid timber wastes can be repurposed and seamlessly integrated into architectural processes. The cooperative fab-lab initiative works with local communities to innovate how this would impact and change the way the public can design and fabricate public facilities. It contributes to fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility, more inclusive and adaptive designs, leading to socially-sustainable and environmentally-conscious architectural and community practices through upcycling the timber wastes.

“just-a-furniture” by ZOU-MAT, challenges the socio-cultural norms and significance attributed to vernacular furniture. While furniture traditionally shapes the behaviour within societal expectations, there are instances where it has been creatively repurposed to meet the distinct needs of urban environments and their inhabitants. The project begins with an urban research and photo survey, documenting examples of adaptive urban furniture. The project culminates in an engaging exhibition of adaptive furniture, providing participants with an interactive experience to explore how furniture shapes their spatial environment.

“Hong Kong Soil” led by Niko Leung will examine the formulation of clay bodies from discarded soil, and the making of ceramic works out of them, which expands from her earlier project supported by Design Trust Grant. As a result, a series of samples, maps, objects and installations will be exhibited, and engagement activities will be organized, to demonstrate a possible economy where a circularity and empowerment could be found. Through inquisitive research and experimentation, the project unfolds the charm of dirt, transforming it into a body of work at a variety of scales.

“After Life Design for Lost Wings Theatre Land Art Festival” led by Olivia Yan collaborates with sustainable practitioner Kay Wong to explore upcycling costumes and fabric materials for a series of natural art education activities and a theatre festival scheduled from 2023 to 2025. The project team will collect all props and costumes created during the programs and repurpose them into designer items including coasters and bookmarks for distribution to the public in addition to a series of exhibitions, seminars and workshops on the natural art education practice.

“Market Life: Understanding Domesticity in Public Space” led by Veera Fung and Melody Yiu, addresses the topic of gendered domesticity as manifested in public market space. This project is an urban archaeology on public markets in Hong Kong through the lens of a female homemaker to build a spatial and design narrative of market life. The female as a “homemaker” is traditionally associated with the household setting, yet domestic life is not confined to the private realm but actively extends to urban public places such as the market. The project further questions how the design of public markets could challenge the existing gender distinction in the city.

“By Us, For Us: Hong Kong Co-operatives, Future-proof Narratives Goals” led by Architecture Land Initiative, continues the first stage research on Civil Servant Building Societies (CBS) as an alternative housing model and expands upon their previous Design Trust granted project. There was a period in Hong Kong when the public had a stake in the formation of our urban settlement in the model of CBS, extending from the apartment to the yard, street front, block, and collective neighborhood. The project will unfold as two public forums, publication, and international exhibition, which will together chart a roadmap towards pilot proto-projects for implementation and public dissemination.

“Plugin Housing” led by People’s Architecture Office, is a research publication exploring a bricolage within the realm of housing policy. Quasi-manifesto, quasi user manual and graphic novel with critical perspectives, this book presents a vision for a modular prefabricated architecture designed to address housing crises across diverse localities and populations. From transitional housing communities in the US to fragile, historic neighborhoods in China's inner cities, it investigates built projects, historical legacies, policy experiments, and the lived experiences of inhabitants. It demonstrates how the modest act of incrementally "plugging into" existing conditions that can bring about social change through architecture-as-product.