About DESIGN TRUST

Formatted as a three-day series of events, Storefront International Series: Hong Kong (Storefront IS Hong Kong) will showcase a series of events that will take place in contested sites across Hong Kong between 7th - 9th July. These events seek to address the nature of urban public life, and to highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by Hong Kong residents.

Local and global agents from various fields will present and discuss their ideas and observations about various places within the city, bringing to the forefront a larger conversation about the cultural and physical landscapes of the region.

As part of the Storefront International Series: Hong Kong, a public ideas review for Design Trust Futures Studio, DESIGN TRUST’s new flagship programme conceptualized by Co-founder and Executive Director Marisa Yiu, will also be held on 8th July.

Storefront IS Hong Kong is part of the Storefront International Series, a nomadic project that brings the experimental formats of Storefront’s events series to cities and territories around the globe. Establishing a transversal format of inquiry, Storefront International Series works with local individuals and institutions to identify and address the most pressing issues in a particular region through alternative frameworks of discussion. By bringing together agents from the fields of art, architecture, literature, politics, real estate, anthropology, economics, technology, design, and science with members of the public, the Storefront International Series aims to articulate local desires within a global context.

DAY 1: FRIDAY, JULY 7TH

Event: Reading Images Series: Transborder Territories

Time: 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Location: Ferry from Hong Kong to Shekou

Attendance: Open to public*

Meeting point and time: East Bridge, 3/F, Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal at 10:45 am

Details: Participants will together look at and discuss specific images and the landscape on a ferry ride. 

Strategically located in the Pearl River Delta region of southern China, Hong Kong, officially an “autonomous territory,” serves as the gateway to modern China. The border between Hong Kong and mainland China is crossed every day by thousands of people who work or study on the other side. The infrastructure of the daily commute and the service economy has developed into a third space, inhabited by migrant bodies and defined by financial and cultural exchange protocols. This transnational community represents a rich and diverse engine for the economic and cultural growth of the region. The Hong Kong-Shenzhen border will be the site for a critical discussion around questions of migration and exchange, learning from local conditions and reflecting upon geopolitical borders on a global scale. 

The Reading Images Series invites participants to closely look into images and construct arguments, narratives, and observations that produce incisive readings about form, politics, gaze, and representation. 

Participants: Ethel Baraona, Ole Bouman, Eva Franch, Christina Li, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Cole Roskam, Paul Tse, Evelyn Ting, Marisa Yiu 

Image contributors: Merve Bedir, Laurent Gutierrez, Venus Lau, MAP Office, Stanley Wong

*Members of public are welcome to attend if they buy their own ferry tickets (First Class session HKD180) and arrange a Shenzhen visa independently. The ferry from Hong Kong to Shekou departs at 11:30 am. Please be reminded that all participants will have to depart the ferry on arrival at Shekou and independently arrange further transportation back to Hong Kong, via the ferry (1:10pm / 2:15pm / 3:35pm) or alternative border crossing.

DAY 2: Saturday, JULY 8TH

Event: Definition Series: Smallness

(Design Trust Futures Studio Public Ideas Review Session 1) 

Time: 10:00 am - 12:30 pm

Location: Spring Workshop , 3/F, Remex Centre, 42 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Aberdeen 

Attendance: Open to public (RSVP required: https://goo.gl/forms/BR6ozkEX24MMFqYH3) 

Details: Definition Series: “In mid-2014, the population of Hong Kong was 7.24 million, including 7.03 million Usual Residents and 0.22 million Mobile Residents. During the period 2010 to 2014, the population grew at an average annual rate of 0.8%.” Hong Kong’s limited physical territory and its population growth have increased the development of spaces for micro-living, augmenting the already high density of the city. Definition Series: Smallness, part of the Design Trust Futures Studio Public Review, examines how “smallness,” also understood as a form of agility in the face of seemingly fixed structures, can be operative in architecture. Addressing both public and private spaces, participants will present a definition of the notion of “smallness” and its impact upon the development of the city of Hong Kong. 

Design Trust Futures Studio is a new cross-disciplinary initiative. Experts in design will focus on future-oriented thinking with outcomes that are impactful to society or public space in Hong Kong and the Greater Pearl River Delta Region. With an inaugural theme of “SMALL IS MEANINGFUL,” the exploration and research of the Design Trust Futures Studio will initiate with an examination of housing and parks in Hong Kong, and will address how space is utilised, subsequently developing a series of new prototypes of micro-parks for Hong Kong. 

Definition Series: Smallness is hosted in partnership with Spring Workshop. 

The Definition Series invites participants to produce their own definitions of a given term, constructing a multifaceted edifice around particular words and their contemporary usage in specific fields, contexts, and practices. 

Moderator and Curator: Eva Franch, Marisa Yiu 

Design Trust Futures Studio Mentors: Gary Chang, Stanley Wong

Design Trust Futures Studio Designer Mentees: Sylvia Chan, Zoey Chan, Jose Fu, Cesar Harada, Stephen Ip, DickWai Lai, Ricky Lai, Vivian Ng, Xavier Tsang, Samuel Wong, Wendy Wu, Fion Zhang

Guest Participants: James Acuna, Ethel Baraona, Arnault Castel, Donald Choi, Patrick Hwang, Tat Lam, Lesley Lau, Leslie Lu, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Duncan Pescod, Suhanya Raffel, Cole Roskam, Eric Schuldenfrei, Ada Wong, Eric Yim 

Manifesto Series: Scale (Design Trust Futures Studio Public Ideas Review Session 2) 

Time: 2:30 pm - 5:30 pm 

Location: Spring Workshop, 3/F, Remex Centre (enter on Heung Yip Rd), 42 Wong Chuk Hang Rd 

Attendance: Open to public (RSVP required: https://goo.gl/forms/BR6ozkEX24MMFqYH3) 

The notion of scale allows us to understand relationships between space and context; born out of historical precedents and conventions of knowledge production, scale is a shifting cultural construct. Discussions about scale during the end of the last century in Europe focused on reevaluating scale in accordance with emerging infrastructural spaces and typologies. With homogeneous city models appearing worldwide, ideas of scale have been disseminated as yet another force of globalization. What scalar conditions are endemic to the contemporary reality of global metropoli in Southeast Asia and elsewhere? What can be understood from this context in Hong Kong? Manifesto Series: Scale presents seven-minute manifestos by a group of participants who will each take a position on scale in Hong Kong. 

Definition Series: Smallness is hosted in partnership with Spring Workshop. The Manifesto Series invites participants to denounce a present or past condition; proclaim an alternative present, past, or future situation; and indicate a strategy or method of action. 

Moderator and Curator: Eva Franch, Marisa Yiu 

Design Trust Futures Studio Mentors: Gary Chang, Stanley Wong 

Design Trust Futures Studio Designer Mentees: Sylvia Chan, Zoey Chan, Jose Fu, Cesar Harada, Stephen Ip, DickWai Lai, Ricky Lai, Vivian Ng, Xavier Tsang, Samuel Wong, Wendy Wu, Ffion Zhang 

Guest Participants: James Acuna, Ethel Baraona, Arnault Castel, Donald Choi, Patrick Hwang, Tat Lam, Lesley Lau, Leslie Lu, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Suhanya Raffel, Cole Roskam, Eric Schuldenfrei, Eric Yim

DAY 3: SUNDAY, JULY 9TH

Walking Series: Legibility

Time: 9:00 am - 12:00 pm 

Location: Sai Ying Pun, Sheung Wan, Wanchai, North Point 

Attendance: Open to public (Details to be confirmed) 

The collective imaginary of a city is made up of recognizable icons, signs, symbols, ratios, chromatic palettes, smells, acoustic signatures, and other multiple modalities of perception. Moving through Hong Kong, from its continuous interior walkways to its sidewalks and onto the upper platforms of the city’s tram infrastructure, one perceives a city from particular types of vantage points. These perspectives, or geographies of perception, constitute an identitary signature of Hong Kong’s urban imaginary. Moreover, we now navigate the city with the aid of digital technologies that guide us each time through a different optimized experience. Our ability to read the city has shifted; neon signs are 

being substituted by pop-up ads, for example. In a time where the urban and the digital are colliding, how should we read the city? What forms of experiencing the built environment are obsolete, and which are emerging? Walking Series: Legibility is a series of city tours led by local and international experts that will each render visible and legible a particular layer of the urban fabric and public life. 

The Walking Series is an event that invites individuals both familiar with and foreign to a particular territory to lead a walking exercise through its streets or paths. Borrowing from examples of guided tours, the Walking Series unveils latent realities through a real-time experience of navigation and transit. 

Participants: Adonian Chan, Maggie Lin, Brian Kwok, Kevin Mak, Pauline Tsang

Event: Cabaret Series: Excess (To High Density) 

Time: 2:30 am - 5:30 pm

Location: Studio 9 design gallery and studio, Wong Chuk Hang 

Attendance: RSVP required (prior registration needed to gain access - https://goo.gl/forms/8ruejpnszqR0JnRs1)* 

Details: Excess, a fundamental term in modern aesthetic theory, enables the self but also annihilates it. The high density of Hong Kong constitutes one of its fundamental identities, but when is high density too high? Cabaret Series: Excess presents a series of performances about the costs and benefits of high-density urban living, as well as explorations on more sustainable ideas of growth and development. 

Cabaret Series: Excess is hosted in partnership with Studio 9. Refreshments are kindly provided by The Coffee Academics. 

The Cabaret Series develops modes of expression that engage with contemporary discourses, audiences, and physical space in a playful and humorous manner. These events aim to produce new forms of communication between speakers, performers, and spectators through provocation, seduction, and immediacy. 

Participants: Shane Aspegren, Ethel Baraona, Gary Chang, Eva Franch, William Lane, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Thomas Tsang, Ahlaiya Yung