Tai Po has always been a unique neighbourhood in Hong Kong, with natural assets, cultural heritage, and a combination of urban fabric new and old, together with an abundance of public housing estates. It is a prototype of how nature and city can coexist in harmony. Lam Tsuen River, which runs through the history and identity of Tai Po, is often forgotten. The identity of the river and its quality to the urban fabric of Hong Kong has often been overlooked.

“Neighbourhood Commons @ Tai Po” presents a unique opportunity to rethink a human-centric urban design strategy for a neighbourhood with a focus on the river: its experience, its identity, and how it can enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors alike. In the process of place-making, our objective is to co-create a common vision towards Lam Tsuen River that is informed by a repository of insights and data about the neighbourhood, by the neighbours, for the neighbours.

From mid 2024 to early 2025, together with university students and youths in Tai Po, we began building knowledge about Lam Tsuen River through desktop research, on-site observations and social listening. Informed by desktop research and observation, the exploration is conducted under three themes: urban and nature, sustainability and resilience, and cultural heritage.

Quantitative data is collected through multiple street polling sessions and an online survey designed to understand the current usage and perception towards the river. While numerative data informs us on general themes and patterns, qualitative insights through interviews and focus groups provide an in-depth understanding of their experience and aspirations of the river. 

Co-creating possibilities with youth in Tai Po

With quantitative data and qualitative insights in hand, key challenges and opportunities were identified. They open various brainstorming directions for youth, community stakeholders and experts to ideate creative solutions collectively through workshops and dialogues.

Building on the innovative ideas, we co-created prototypes with youths to visualise different proposals for testing. The prototypes were then further developed into a comprehensive urban design strategy that is informed by community insights, and brought back to the public and experts for validation and prioritisation, formulating a collective urban design vision, objectives, strategies and suggestive roadmap for the next steps.

This project is the very first step of a long-term process of collaboration between multiple parties. Based on a cross-displinary approach, it starts to formulate how to identify issues within the urban environment and neighbourhood from a bottom-up process. Our vision requires the effort of multiple parties, public and private, institutions and citizens, to drive these ideas forward and to create a collective vision.

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Data is shaped by our perceptions. More than just cold hard facts, every piece of data is a unique manifestation of an individual, a living breathing human being. They are not static, yet open for interpretation.

100 initial samples are collected to reflect the community’s opinion on the neighbourhood of Central. Shaped by the participants’ experiences, background, language, preferences, they see central, a place of the same data inputs, in many different ways. The art of collecting their opinion intrinsically tries to catalogue this set of open data into different classifications, visualising data into personas.

The installation transforms these insights into a physical representation. Each column features a participant’s personal story and a secret, visualising data using eight materials that symbolise eight personas. The length of the column reflects the participant’s age, while the combination of materials reveals their personality and perspective.

The columns are carefully spaced to allow visitors to weave through them, much like navigating the busy streets of Central. This design mirrors the way we pass strangers in the neighbourhood, often unaware of their personal stories.

Secrets are revealed through specific lenses, offering visitors a glimpse into the hidden layers of Central, encouraging moments of discovery and reflection. It invites audiences to see how the same neighbourhood can hold vastly different meanings depending on the lens through which it is viewed.

Visitors are invited to discover their Central persona through a curated personality test and leave their unique memories about Central. This interaction allows participants to engage with the installation, reflect on their own perceptions, and connect with the diverse voices that shape the narrative of Central.

We attempt to shed a new light on data, to humanise data, to create new interpretations and experiences of data, and have the participant come up with their own lens or shift their lens to look at the same set of data.

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Disappearing Back Alley – Anywhere Door to the Neighbourhood is an exhibit featured in Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism \ Architecture 2022. The exhibit was showcased at the North Point (East) Passenger Ferry Pier from September to November 2022.

This exhibit presents a virtual neighbourhood experience designed to rekindle public interest in the disappearing back-alley store culture. It allows visitors to immerse themselves in the charm and uniqueness of these hidden urban spaces. It aims to celebrate the cultural significance of back alleys as vibrant hubs of community life, commerce, and history. By blending technology with nostalgia, the exhibit provides an engaging way to explore a fading part of the city’s identity.

Proudly presented with neighbours

The exhibit is proudly curated in collaboration with Mark Lau from Oi Kwan Barber, a beloved back alley store on Spring Garden Street, Wan Chai. Known for its deep roots in the community, Oi Kwan Barber represents the enduring charm of Hong Kong’s back-alley culture. We worked closely with Mark through visits and activations of a neighbourhood living room in the shop. To authentically capture and showcase the essence of these hidden spaces, we documented their barber tools with hand sketches. The exhibits offer visitors an intimate look into the daily life, traditions, and communal value of back-alley stores.

Immerse in the alley

The 1:10 AR model offers a scaled-down representation of the back alley shops by activating the webapp. Whereas the 1:1 full-size AR world takes visitors into an immersive experience of the shop through the “Anywhere Door.” It recreates the sight and atmosphere of these hidden gems, bringing them vividly to life and fostering a deeper appreciation for their cultural value.

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