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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Hong Kong faces unique challenges in public housing design due to its high population density, with over one-third of residents living in public housing developments. The Housing Bureau and the Hong Kong Housing Authority have continuously enhanced public housing quality. Beyond the goals of “Enhancing Quantity, Speed, and Efficiency” to promote increased public housing supply, they have evolved toward a more comprehensive vision of “Enhancing Quality,” improving residents’ well-being by focusing on their psychological, social, and environmental needs. The Well-Being Design Guide represents a new approach, transforming public housing from basic shelters into environments that actively nurture holistic well-being.

“Well• Being” is led by the Housing Bureau and the Housing Authority of the HKSAR Government, with the Neighbourhood Innovation Lab bringing together a group of experts including design thinking and innovation consultants, architects, landscape designers, visual designers, urban planners, real estate scholars, engineering and management experts, nursing professionals, and social workers. They employ “design thinking” and “participatory design” approaches to systematically research and integrate human-centred well-being design guidelines, aiming to create public housing that is simple yet comfortably livable, making residents feel at ease and well-being.

We employed multiple complementary methods, visiting seventeen districts across Hong Kong, conducting extensive professional discussions, research analyses, literature reviews, resident interviews, and community surveys, collecting input from 3,000 public housing residents and 630 professionals. Combining qualitative research, literature reviews, and case studies, they transformed academic findings into practical design solutions that effectively address community needs.

This initiative challenges conventional architectural practice in three fundamental ways: replacing top-down planning with collaborative co-creation that recognises residents as experts in lived experiences; expanding planning beyond physical structures to include community activities, addressing both “hardware” and “software” needs; and shifting evaluation from quantitative measures to qualitative outcomes like well-being. The “Wellbeing for HA” design guidelines serve as references for new public housing and renovations of existing estates and aim to promote innovative developments in planning, design, and implementation across all housing types in Hong Kong.

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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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High quality public open spaces can bring physical and mental wellness benefits, improve quality of life for its residents and users, and cultivate an inclusive and harmonious relationships in the diverse neighborhood. In Wan Chai District, each person only enjoys 0.7m2 of open space, which is the lowest among all districts in Hong Kong. A comprehensive research on the usage and conditions of open spaces in Wan Chai and how to improve and better utilise them becomes a striking question to address in the community. Neighbourhood Innovation Lab was commissioned by Wan Chai District Council to conduct open space research in the district on the quality and its correlation to building an inclusive neighbourhood among diverse residents and stakeholders in the community.

From October 2020 to February 2021, we conducted a series of quantitative and qualitative research, macro analysis and micro data collection to develop evidence-based insights and long and short term recommendations to improve open spaces in Wan Chai District to address and enhance inclusivity in the community.

On the largest scale, GIS analysis was conducted to provide an overview of open space distribution in Wan Chai based on existing spatial data and spatial analysis. This is complemented by a survey with 1000 Wan Chai open space users to understand their usage habits and opinions towards open spaces. The survey covers topics including opinions towards existing open spaces, interest in different kinds of future activities and concept testing based on different kinds of inclusivity. These large scale analysis, based on existing spatial data and newly collected survey data, provides a general overview and feeling of open spaces in Wan Chai in the scale of the district.

In addition, 408 1-1 interviews with open space users, and 4 focus groups with elderly, wheelchair users and visually impaired persons in the community were held to obtain qualitative insights into people’s views. With a focus on inclusivity in the research, 28 open space sites were selected based on its location, scale, urban type and user demographics to conduct specific site observation, user counting and activities data collection. Based on the observation data, 14 out of 28 sites were selected to conduct on-site polling with open space users on topics of inclusivity

Our vision with our community engagement is to use open spaces as a means to engage local community and stakeholders. The project presents a perfect opportunity towards private – public cooperation with the community as the focus of the user research. It fills a gap between city-wide topical research, and design studies around specific public space(s). Parks, privately owned public spaces, streets, and public facilities are all elements of public life that are connected to local culture and businesses serving residents. It allows us to draw comparisons between spaces of similar typologies, and understand how spaces can be studied in clusters against different kinds of data.

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Facing the undercurrents of rapid neighbourhood change, Tsuen Wan is presented with the challenge of a new-old divide. This project is an iterative process with an ambitious aim of realizing a neighbourhood commons, where neighbours in Tsuen Wan would come together as a whole to share and manage resources with a shared identity. With an in-depth research on the concept of commoning, the principles of developing an urban commons are introduced. Based on the principles, this project is downscaled to a neighbourhood scale – creating a neighbourhood commons. Eight local and international case studies are featured as a comparison through the lens of scale, depth and complexity.

Together with 40 civic design fellows and 39 corporate fellows, NIL embarked on a journey. Neighbourhood Commons@Tsuen Wan was carried out from October 2020 to June 2021. Over the eight-month period, NIL has reached out to stakeholders across sectors in Tsuen Wan, including neighbours, businesses, civic organisations, social innovators and corporate.

Following the three ideation tracks, three prototypes were developed and experimented with the public and corporate teams, namely Space As Commons, Neighbourhood Friendly Businesses Ecosystem and Neighbours-for-Neighbours Experiences. On open space, a piazza was selected as a site to experiment and test how public spaces (privately owned or publicly owned) can be co-managed by multiple parties. We co-hosted two co-creation pop-ups together with local NGOs and social enterprise, including Newlife 330, Green Common, Green ladies and HKFYG. On business collaboration, a questionnaire survey is designed and conducted with small scale businesses across sectors to validate and test the feasibility of the scheme.

The engagement process included 3 street polling sessions, an online survey, 5 focus group discussions, 40 1-1 interviews, 8 ideation and prototyping workshops, 17 co-creating experiences and an exhibition, engaging over 5800 audiences.

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We believe that every community space is a to-be living room for us to chat, share, rest, and do things we like. In the coming 2 months, we will have a series of Neighbourhood Living Room activities revolving around different neighbourhood stores.

The first Neighbourhood Living Room took place in Oi Kwan Barbers! Featuring the authentic “Cantonese Barber Shop”, Oi Kwan Barbers is probably one of the most classical, yet very active local barber shop.

You are going to meet Mark, the second generation of Oi Kwan Barbers there! He will be sharing stories about the shop that you probably can’t hear elsewhere.

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From an intuitive digital journey to a captivating in-store user experience, an organization that truly prioritizes its users requires dedication from the whole team.

St. James Settlement launched two pioneering green projects, Green Ladies and Green Little Shops in 2008 and 2016 respectively, with a mission to make an environmental difference while also providing empowerment opportunities for middle-aged women – increasing employment chances and training prospects. As part of a system renewal, Green Ladies partnered with Neighbourhood Innovation Lab to explore ways to enhance the user experience for their retail and consignment services. We were honoured to help inspire their retail transformation and lay the foundation for an exceptional second-hand retail and consignment user experience.

We dived into the digital journey of the second-hand retail and consignment store. How can we integrate the digital services in a more seamless way? What are the possibilities of a new booking system? A streamlined interface? Intuitive navigation? The workshop was a catalyst for inspiration to push beyond the boundaries of the current user experience.

Unboxing the customer journey

We conducted user interviews, brainstorming sessions, and prototyping ideas to enhance the second-hand retail and consignment experience. Research across surveys, interviews, store observations and workshops revealed a consistent pattern: people love Green Ladies’ mission and unique second‑hand finds, but often struggle with the practicalities of using its services.

At the heart of the project is a clear mission: keep quality fashion in circulation while creating meaningful employment and training opportunities for middle‑aged women, especially the 35–64 segment that already makes up over three‑quarters of its customer base. From conceptualizing a user-friendly booking system to formulating a personalized membership dashboard, we brainstormed innovative ways to improve the customers’ shopping journey.

This collaboration was about more than just improving the functionality of Green Ladies’ services. It was an opportunity to redefine second-hand retail, creating a future where digital innovation and sustainability come together to inspire meaningful change.

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This project is the first Hong Kong project to integrate caregivers’ needs into public playspace designs.

In the 2019 Policy Address, it announced the revitalisation of 170+ public playspaces under LCSD. We therefore hope to redesign Shek Yam Lei Muk Road Park, creating a caregiver-friendly playspace from the bottom-up, and eventually submit our opinions to the relevant authorities. From October 2021 to February 2022, we and 9 Civic Design Fellows conducted a 5-month community survey and engaged a total of 378 participants.

This project serves to supplement the scarce research on local caregivers. It explores in-depth about the pains and gains of caregivers, and proposes 9 design principles and 3 park services, offering validatable hypotheses that are applicable to other caregiver-friendly designs.

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