The temporary nature of the Main Pavilion lead to the decision to create a Paper Tube Structure that also strived to minimize foundation requirements. The design had gone through many challenges and alterations to arrive at the final design.

The original allocated site of the Pavilion was on a triangular site which drove the form of the first design. The plan is a 30m equilateral triangle broken up into a finer grid of 3m triangles. The perimeter of the Pavilion composed of large columns at a 3m pitch create a colonnade that defines the interior space of the open-air structure. These columns support the entire roof structure which is a series of trusses composed of smaller diameter paper tubes. Atop the truss is a light translucent corrugated polycarbonate roof. The structural innovation for this design is at the column-to-roof-truss connection where wooden joints are inserted into the paper tubes to create a moment resisting joint; a first-time challenge for a paper tube structure.

The second design kept the same plan form of a 30m triangle but the paper tube structure was a three dimensional dome structure that would come down to meet the ground at the three corners. Because there is a minimum number of supports to carry the whole load of the roof, it is necessary for the foundations to become very large and heavy (concrete) and has to support large beams that span between the foundations. The hexagonal steel plate joints of the roof grid has to be made of inconsistent angles and the paper tube segments would be of differing lengths. The predetermined geometry of the geodesic roof makes this structure a sleek low lying form.

When it was then determined that the location of the Pavilion would be elsewhere within the larger Biennale site, there was no longer a restriction to make a triangular structure. The third design proposed a square plan using shipping containers as foundations. Shipping containers are very much a common sight in Hong Kong, and are appropriate for creating temporary foundations, firstly, because they can be leased and returned after use, and secondly because they themselves are rigid structures with a broad surface coverage for bearing and they can be filled with sand bags to achieve the necessary resistance against uplift forces. Three containers per side are spaced at approximately 6m intervals for an even arrangement of walls and openings. A continuous steel beam is secured to the top of the containers using standard container connection joints to make up the perimeter support for the paper tube roof. The paper tube roof is composed of four equilateral triangular faces that lean against each other to make a pyramidal form. Each equilateral triangle, similar to the first design, is composed of a smaller grid of triangles using all similar steel plate connections.

The form of this design creates a prominent presence within the landscape and also as seen from the skyline from across the bay. The plan encloses a large regular shaped interior accessible from all sides with a high ceiling. The openings can be closed off in numerous arrangements to flexibly accommodate the various events that will be held. Additionally, there was a second option to this design that reduced the number of containers to two per side, resulting in a smaller interior space and a lower overall height.

The final design was a take-off from the previous design but incorporated a trussed paper tube roof in the form of a vault. The vault roof has a broad span of 30m, a depth of 30m, and is supported by two rows of evenly spaced out shipping containers. The roof covers the same regular 30m by 30m plan as in the previous design, but is open on either end of the vault. Within the Biennale site, the structure is oriented so that the open ends of the roof frames the view towards Hong Kong Island.

Throughout the design process, discussions and inputs from the building authorities had made the design process quite difficult. Because this was the first paper tube structure to be built in Hong Kong, there was a reluctance to approve the building as other typical temporary structures in other cities. Therefore the built structure was compromised to meet the demands resulting in an over engineered structure and finally the depth of the
structure had to be shortened to compensate for the extra costs incurred. The realization of this project was made possible by the tireless efforts of a collaborative team of architects, engineers, curators, consultants, and builders.

The Dutch Design Chair was created by Five Spices for BODW/InnoDesignTech 2009. Using sustainable and re-usable materials, the chair is meant to showcase the values of Dutch design: open-minded, pragmatic and resourceful. The chair is made out of three different parts and weighs a total of 900 grams. 70% of the material used is recycled cardboard which is 100% recyclable after use. The Dutch Design Chair can take the weight of 200 kg.

Formica is a global leader in surfacing materials. This project experiments with color and translucency and spray technology to highlight the capability and versatility of the material. Highlighting the potential of furniture as an object that is not only defined by a certain function, but rather, improvised by different users to activate its possibility.

Hyberbolic Rattan Bench is a crossover between a planter and a bench with a circular general form. It offers eight seats with two different positions and a planter at the centre. The form comes from a series of studies of hyperbolic geometry. The circular positions of the bench allow various views of the site and the shadow created by large leaves of the plants provide shade. The entire bench is made out of rattan: a traditional and natural material, suitable for outdoor use.

While variation is apparent in the style of Hong Kong’s civic furniture, there is a lack of uniformity in the formal expression that could potentially foster a unique Hong Kong character. The contemporary civic bench seeks to provide multiple design solutions instead of just one single arrangement. The “Urban Adapter” is based on a virtual parametric model and uses data to interact with surrounding environment, therefore, rather than having a fixed form, the furniture can generate into various shapes with the same DNA dependent on different site conditions. While each design serves primarily as seating, other values may be added so that multiple communication arrangements are arranged.

Inspired by a fascination for machines and nature, the project brings the qualities of a tree recording nature cycles and turning it into a product. Driven by solar energy, the machine starts producing when the sun rises and stops when the sun settles down. After sunset, the finished object can be harvested. This ‘industrialized locality’, is not so much about local culture, craftsmanship or resources, instead it deals with the climatic and environmental factors of the process’ surrounding.

High Line, a collaboration between Diller Scofidio + Renfro and James Corner Field Operations (Project Lead), is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of this post-industrial ruin, where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interprets its inheritance. The High Line is a work of agri-tecture—part agriculture, part architecture— employing a paving system of individual pre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth like wild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. The park accommodates the wild and cultivated, intimate and social.

Andrea naturally purifies air via a whisper-quiet fan to propel air through the leaves and root system of a plant, then out through water and soil filtration and back into the room environment. Since the late 1980s, scientists have sought to improve the efficiency of living plants to naturally clean the air of harmful pollutants. Andrea passes polluted air through living surfaces, eliminating pollution with world-class design and elegant simplicity.

The Sichuan earthquake last year devastated huge areas of Sichuan. Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan, is taking a leading role in the earthquake rebuild and urbanization as a China Urban and Rural Integrated Experimental Zone. South China Morning Post’s Homes For Hope and Aedas Architects Foundation have organized this design competition, open to students in China, to submit creative, sustainable and quake-resistant designs for affordable housing in Sichuan. 10 entries have be shortlisted for public exhibition at 2009 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture.

Forest A multi-screen live installation, Forest is a visual enactment of outdoor childhood games. Virtual children play hide- and-seek among the tree-trunks, while the parallel projections play a similar game as they try to elude and then catch up with each other to create a dynamic disequilibrium. The installation is further bolstered by “visual physics” embedded in the custom 3d renderer created for the work, which, for example, can conjure up the moving image out of the propagation of its own grain.

Pedestrian In this 3D digital animation, the imagery is projected directly down onto the rough surfaces of the city sidewalk, where virtual pedestrians, seen from bird’s eye view, wander through the simulated city. The viewers, tall and dark bodies in the projections, stand in for the buildings of Manhattan’s verticality. First presented in 3 public spaces in New York City, Pedestrian has since been exhibited in numerous locations in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Play-ground is an artificial landscape that provokes its visitors to discover its spaces (the chambers) and change them. Each chamber (a hole) can be planted, eventually turning the artificial landscape into a host of a natural landscape, blending the artificial with the natural. Planting is encouraged as a form of public participation that creates an ecological consciousness and reclaims the public space. Walking through the play-ground, views of Hong Kong’s waterfront are framed and juxtaposed. Radio receivers (the soundspots) will allow visitors to experience the rhythmic change of the light-scape of Hong-Kong’s waterfront at night.

In the process of 3D modeling, the computer sometimes does unexpected things. The parameters given sometimes generate outcomes that are unforeseen and undesired. These mistakes are very similar to genetic mutations in nature. These so-called ‘freaks’ either die out on their own, or are deselected. Normally, designers and CAD operators discard their mistakes, but I decided to collect them as study objects. They became fossils before they saw life. Through computer experimentation, these fossils are manipulated and transformed, aiding us in our on-going search for a new design language and form.

In architecture, one cannot detach form from light, modernism from electricity. Glow encapsulates a series of projects davidclovers studio has designed which engage energy in a distinct way – it is never pure and always bound to or partnered with material. Using artificial lighting like LED’s and materials like Corian Solid Surface (in collaboration with DuPont), the two projects included in this exhibition, Lunar House and Yud Yud, are studies of energy effects. In a preternatural manner, these projects attempt to resituate energy as something to be molded, formed and synthetically materialized out of that which is immaterial.

Strongly’s Green Panel System (GPS) is an innovative solution to vertical planting. The design is versatile and can suit various artistic designs. Strongly’s design enables high protection to plants and easy maintenance. The lightweight structure enables installation at almost all locations. It can also act as noise reduction panels. Strongly’s Eco-Turf System (ETS) is a lightweight soil mix solution to green turfs on any horizontal or inclined levels at roofs or slopes. Its oil free and highly absorptive components result in thinner and lighter breeding. These properties allow for a much broader application and is suitable for both extensive and intensive green roof application.

“Form follows Function”. Modern city values everything by their functionalities and we build our city in the most rational, functional and non-contextual way. Regulated by systematic thinking, we are unconscious about the spirituality of every being. “GREENACTIVITIES” brings back the spirituality and interactivity between human and nature by exploring the configuration of green wall. We create an undulating wall that not only resembles the organic form of nature, but also highly adaptive to wide range of scenarios like lying down, sitting, leaning, of human ergonomic. Eventually it generates a “ground” and become an everyday activities generator in our inevitably expanding urban context.

In the simplest terms, Noise Barrier is a device that seals off noise of the traffic from the environment. But it is not just a noise barrier, but a visual barrier, a physical barrier and a psychological barrier. Conveying a sense of placelessness, the generic container-tunnel like barrier seals off noise as well as views from the commuter. Developed in Tai Po, it questions whether it is possible to transcend a noise barrier in the urban fabric into a centre of focus of the community.

Meta4: Meta4 believes that Green architecture is not just a dream, and the more we take part, the more we can change the world. The Eco Farm project wishes to create an interactive and enjoyable process by asking participants to plant seeds into recycled egg crates that other participants had previously made. People can pick their own crops to grow and bring home them home at the end of the Biennale. Meta4 wants to remind urban dwellers, through planting and passing, of their respect for and responsibilities to the natural environment. The Organic Farm: Emphasizing teamwork, participants to plant seedlings into recyclable paper mache pots done by other participants. These paper mache pots are made from recyclable paper:biodegradable and soluble. Everybody is welcome to take the pot home; as long as they themselves make a paper mache pot for a future participant. This way of planting and passing serves to inspire urbanites to respect nature as well as each other.

farmScape is an eventscape, an involved pavilion that requires the visitor’s help to re-imagines the traditional pavilion as a prosthetic landscape that simultaneously hijacks and implants within a local ecosystem. A device of both nature and synthesis and a platform for the community, it takes cues from the temporal nature of the Biennale and the rapidly changing landscape of Hong Kong as a whole. Visitors will be allowed to ‘rent’ individual plots within the dia-grid field and encouraged to plant seeds of their choice from a catalog of local crops.

Leisure & Work, Nature & Manmade, Rural & Urban, juxtapose to form the unique characters of Hong Kong. This pavilion attempts to create a setting to taste the joy of living under a tree! Sections of home lives are abstracted to sculpt this pavilion, tree crown replaces concrete roof, to shelter for sleeping, dining & conversing, among the soothing sunlight, singing birds and swaying shadows.

In the city there are many ways to get from A to B. All the technology and clever designs still do not match the universal power that is Human Power. We will construct a pedal powered stage that will be powered by four stationary bicycles to illustrate the hidden power within all of us, that can be translated into motion, music, lights and much more…http://rockthebike.com/power/bikerbar

“Bottom Up” is the result of a collaborative exploration into the world of performative driven Building Skin Design. Form, Structure and Environmental expertise are here employed in the definition of the “rule” driven design process. Each facade module/cell has been programmed to interact and respond to structural as well as environmental constraints. Structural member sizes as well as cladding mullion orientations are optimized in order increase the performance of the overall building skin assembly. This exercise is driven by the desire of understanding and confronting with the intrinsic properties of Hong Kong’s “Genius Loci”. The resulting Form represents the material expression of such ambition.

The booth is a disease scanner. It is designed to detect a single disease and its repercussions. When used as multiple booths, it creates a corridor of cleansing filters with an addition of a recovery booth to replenish user’s systems before continuing travels. The booth can vary in shape and size and can be used in any location, constructed and easily disconnected on site. Light, elements of construction, recycled material and plants create an interesting volumetric space, and the pipe work that links the booths add structural value.

These sitting devices are the creation of 1st year students of Environment and Interior discipline, School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The students were divided into team of 2, each team were limited by using only 2 pieces of 4’ X 8’ plywood as building material. The students spent 2 weeks to design and build their furniture and exploring ergonomic, joinery, and form expression during the design process. The project was part of the exercise of Material and Construction subject taught by Dr. Kacey Wong, Mr. Sebastien Saint Jean, and Dr. Valerie Portefaix.

The Urban Picnic is a flexible furniture system designed for the public spaces of HK. It seeks to explore new combinations of materials and techniques that can visually and socially enhance the public. In consideration of ecological sustainability the units are manufactured from a combination of durable DuPont™ Corian® and green certified, laminated bamboo plywood. Upon completion of the exhibition, the Corian® furniture will be recycled again. Modules are designed as a series of platforms and surfaces that when configured, the units can flip, rotate and connect depending on site specific conditions and programmatic requirements. This allows the furniture to accommodate different sizes of groups, and groups of different people.

Sit and ponder the urban future! PLANCH™ is a planter-bench that combines potentially toxic chemical products from urban construction waste with a plant. Phyto-remediation is one way to deal with the toxins we produce daily. While sitting on a PLANCH™ , enjoy the view of he Grand Resource, a scaled model/installation that rethinks the future of large-scale urban infrastructure that integrates renewable energy systems within the existing urban fabric to simultaneously generate clean power for the city, provide programs and spaces for social activity within the community, and attract tourists from other parts of the city, the country and abroad.

The stories behind abandoned furniture are precisely what makes them come alive. Their mystery and layers of history creates sentimentality, and perhaps extra eagerness and meaning. In terms of public usage, are the stories of abandoned furniture not more meaningful in comparison with the rows of monotonous and dead ‘public’ benches lined at the park? BRING YOUR OWN BACKREST! Join us with the chairs or sofas you don’t need anymore! Share your memories and history with the public and contact us to add your piece to our project. You are also invited to simply come and sit down and enjoy the environment.

BOND is a connection that brings different people together. BENCH is different from chair. It allows several people to sit together and stimulates interaction. BAMBOO is widely used as scaffoldings, temporary structure, furniture and more. The power of bundling makes bamboo a unique material. Inspired by the seesaw, ‘BOND’ rethinks the function of the bench and searches for a balancing point through communication. The bamboo bench that creates bond never wants us to sit alone.

“Trees that are planted today are a reflection of our social values. The tree is an amazing life form which transforms energy into the basic essence of life. Energy is omnipresent, intangible, invisible, and it governs all forms of life, sustaining the existence of our civilization. Can these free energy be captured, transformed and re-utilized in better ways? To capture the intangible through the wind, turning it into light, and transforming the state of water, creating a sea of mist, nurturing the surroundings. If one is willing to look at nature from an empirical level, the possibilities are limited only by your own imagination…”

This exhibition is an informal performative project where a local Hong Kong design architecture practice will work with volunteers to collaborate and build this ad-hoc football pitch. A location is designated on the raw open landscape close to the Austin road exit of the Biennale site. The openness of the biennale site will juxtapose and bring familiar dense city patterns of HK and reflect how informal play spaces are often appropriated by the public to use in HK. This project is a call for collective team work and public participation in the making of recreational spaces. The public is invited to build the pitch and Nike will be providing football gears (balls and t-shirts) to encourage design empowerment for youth participation. The team will be consulting with LCSD and Hong Kong Football Association.

The HKSZ Bi-city Biennale is set up on a piece of urban wilderness that, although it may be natural habitat to various animals and vegetation, can cause discomfort to those that are not often associated with such an untamed environment. ‘Second Skin’ aims to domesticate this wilderness by use of simple and abstract symbols that reiterate the history of the land in contrast with its past and its future as a cultural district. Visitors, attracted to walk through and between the various clusters that make up the installation, are unconsciously drawn into a more intimate interaction with nature. The juxtaposition of the symbols in the natural environment, and the visual tension between the trees and the skyline, turns the site into a sculpture that changes with time and weather. «One only understands the things that one tames.» Antoine de Saint- Exupéry. The Little Prince.

A fence may not only divide areas but can open up to create unique spaces. Pocket Fence is a perimeter barrier for the exhibition and three semi-enclosed areas featuring different plantings and programs. Visitors can weave materials through the chain link, and once inside they can even enclose the space from above. It offers an architectural experience for those entering or leaving the exhibition.

Responding to the theme of BYOB, “Interconnectivity” emphasizes public participation. Continuous fabric represents the connection between Shen Zhen and Hong Kong, and visitor interaction creates movement through the fabric.. As the existing recreational facilities in reality fail to provide interaction between the users, we aim to reuse and improve it, by encouraging public participation through the movement of the fabric.

CZ attempted to design “indefinite” furniture in public space. The idea of “No definition” means that it can be a bench, or a table, or a fusion of different things. It means endless possibilities. The fluid behaviour of the modular timber construction allows the furniture to be changed, demolished and transported easily. Thus, instead of abandoning inappropriate furniture, it can be re-shaped, recycled and re-used.

Imagine you are eating a bowl of soup noodles at a dai pai dong. Halfway into the bowl, you sense that your food is glowing and that there is a scrolling LED message at the bottom of your bowl, and the message is a provocative observation written by an architect from the Biennale. Encouraging micro-exchanged mixed with the element of surprise, Street Life mobilizes existing street life and creates unexpected interactions between international participants and local citizens.

Natalie Jeremijenko’s work is described as experimental design, hence “xDesign” , as it explores opportunities presented by new technologies for non-violent social change. Her research centers on structures of participation in the production of knowledge and information, and the political and social possibilities (and limitations) of information and emerging technologies — mostly through public experiments. In this vein, her work spans a range of media from statistical indices (such as the Despondency Index, which linked the Dow Jones to the suicide rate at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge) to biological substrates (such as the installations of cloned trees in pairs in various urban micro-climates) to robotics (such as the development of feral robotic dog packs to investigate environmental hazards).

The Glaciarium is a portable interactive instrument engaging visitor’s senses through the sight and sound of a melting ice core. Somewhere between a microscope, acoustic device and atmospheric peep show, the Glaciarium allows one to observe, quantify and participate in the changing phases of ice melting. The more one looks through the viewing aperture the more one participates in the degradation of the ice core. The Glaciarium employs interactivity and the senses to turn an abstract global issue into an intimate, almost visceral experience.

The SCAPE / Design for the Anthropocene Era exhibition threads together three SCAPE projects illustrating the joint natural and human habitats generated by new construction and earth work. It is vital to expand architecture beyond “design for us,” or beyond a built environment conceived exclusively for human consumption and comfort, to address the wider global ecosystem as a shared space for all species. Urban design can be recast as a form of new, activist, joint urban and environmental stewardship in order to manage biodiversity and begin to reverse the trajectories of mass extinction on a hot, crowded planet.

G.O.A.L. is a community-based soccer, education and health-care facility envisioned for Langa Township in the Western Cape, South Africa as part of FIFA’s “20 Centers for 2010″ initiative. “20 Centers for 2010″ aims is to achieve positive social change through football by building twenty Football for Hope Centers across Africa. The centers will address local social challenges in disadvantaged areas and improve education and health services for young people. The design intention for G.O.A.L. is to simultaneously create a clearly defined, inwardly-focused space for soccer as well as outward-looking, expandable facility that recognizes and integrates with the local landscape.

‘Hong Kong Fantasies’ proposes a series of visions for the future of Hong Kong. It points that city’s spatial restriction as limitation could creatively brings in inventive solutions, for instance the vertical extension of hills to enlarge the ground space; a new housing typology to reduce migration to Shenzhen; a combination of living, working, retail and culture along the waterfront to create attractive marina development; new building guidelines to create canopies and increase shaded areas could counteract Hong Kong’s need for cooling and to reduce its high energy demand.

m.i.r. is based on the statement “why design when you can redesign?” It utilizes the traditional red light domes that can still be found throughout Macau and China markets as lighting devices, and reinvents them by joining two together in a new lighting object.

An intervention of the official Biennale t-shirt, 50 black t-shirts have been specially produced for the staff of the Biennale with a single blue LED on the back. Stitching electronic circuitry into the fabric using conductive silver threads and conductive silver Velcro, it’s complete with a detachable power pack. It affects both the wearer and those around them.

Dreamgrove is a virtual, ongoing, participatory project. It connects a database of dreams to an interactive garden, recording narratives in a public field, organized by mood, writer, number, or color. Currently accessible from a webpage and, on occasion of the HKSZ Biennale, an iPhone App, it contains clusters of over 350 texts. A temporary garden, narrating dreams through an interactive soundscape, was last installed in Athens in 2008: on December 2009, the project virtually engages the visitors of the Biennale in West Kowloon. Dreamgrove interfaces the collective unconscious: it combines the digital and the botanical, transforming text into public space. www.dreamgrove.org

This exhibition is an on going physical bulletin board posting the process of the biennale, photo documentation, newspaper cuttings, stories and public contributions. The basis of the exhibition will showcase the timeline history of the preparation, workshops leading up to the opening of Dec 4th. A section will be allocated to announce future programmes and events that will be taking place at the Main Pavilion, open park zone area and the waterfront promenade. The bulletin board will also act as a way for the public to drop in notes, render recommendations, photographs and comments that showcase their creative ideas for architecture and urbanism topics for this 2009-2010 vision of BYOB.

When the curatorial team asked us to BYOB, we decided to step up to the challenge. By using old Time Out magazines, we built an installation that is a giant B. Besides old magazines, our only materials were one writer, 2 interns, 6 hours, and a whole lot of tape and string. Our project was one of participation and outreach to our readers to do the same.

“Mock-ups in Close-Up” is a video compilation of footage from eight decades of film history, consisting only of scenes showing architectural models. Presently, it comprises clips from 110 different feature films from 1927 to 2008. This archive contains obvious classics from architectural cinema, such as “The Fountainhead” (1948), but for the most part, it consists of films that do not primarily deal with architects´ planning practices. And yet, these films – from German crime drama to the X-Men, from Sergio Leone to Jia Zhangke – show models for some dramatic or symbolic purpose, or for no discernible purpose at all.

	UNStudio An overview documentary film that provides an introduction to UNStudio’s practice from 1988 to 2007. With interviews with Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, they discuss their output, from publications to exhibition design, product design, building projects and commentary on the studio and nature of the practice over a 19-year period.
	The Changing Room ‘The Changing Room’ combines filmed footage of the built structure with animations of the diagrams made during the design process. The video of the installation depicts the physical structure, combining with visitors to the Venice Biennale interacting with the installation. This exploration of the transformative potential of the material world was a concept behind the ‘switching on and off’ of values inherent in the design.
	Music Theatre This is a faculty building of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. UNStudio’s approach to the project was to design a building about music as a building can be. The video of the completed building depicts the design solutions incorporated, from daytime when it is used for rehearsal, to the twist structure weaving through the three floors, to the facade in the evenings during performances.

Computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine tools have revolutionized the design process of architecture, urbanism and creative practices. This lab is supported by eskyiu Ltd., a design practice that deals with the intersection of digital and manual tools. This lab is set up to allow exhibitors, students and collaborators to use, in support of their installations. Other media workshops and educational workshops will be led by various invited architects and designers to enhance the dialogue of the making of the biennale. Other explorations will include material testing, technique exploration or the public to interact with.

The Action + Repose Workshop is a one-week design workshop, which is part of the first-year architecture design studio at the University of Hong Kong. The workshop uses a number of specific and highly regimented design techniques to explore the social, material, structural, and geometrical conceptions embodied in a pavilion enclosure. Contrary to the modernist model, where structure and support are typically articulated, this workshop proposes that the two are linked and continuous. Continuity, however, is not achieved through continuous surface models, but rather through the complex repetition of discrete components found from everyday objects in Hong Kong.

Playing with visibility and invisibility, the distorted image of a skyline is the mere illustration of capitalistic development to become its best representation. The two binoculars are mounted on a fix pole overlooking towards the skyline. The skyline is the physical graph of a successful economic development of Hong Kong. The two binoculars are pointed at the same direction; one is positioned in close-up mode while the other is offering the large open view – excluding each from the range of perspective.

A major component of the Biennale is the exchange of creative ideas and design education. Collaborative educational practices form the basis of cultural enhancement, in the nourishing of the youth and publics exploration in creative possibilities. The classroom is not a central enclosed zone in the biennale but outward and extended to the site of WKCD waterfront and linkages to other academic and cultural institutions. The Classroom project would not have been possible without the generous and kind support of Aedas (donation of computers), eskyiu Ltd, software support from Adobe and Autodesk, Furniture designed (BYOBench: FLUX) by Catherine Ying Xiong. On the walls of the classroom will be exhibition display of drawings from Xu Bing’s ‘Forest project’.

Forest Project seeks to establish a self-sustaining system that links art lovers in developed countries with local communities in developing Kenya. The two worlds are linked symbiotically through online auctions of artwork created by students from primary schools in the Mount Kenya National Park area. The income and price disparities between more developed nations and Kenya form the basis for the success of this project. Two dollars is a pittance for many in the West, just enough for a one-way subway ride, but when used to purchase a piece of art created by a student in Kenya, it can be converted into 10 newly planted seedlings.

As Hong Kong and Shenzhen citizens are becoming more and more integrated in their daily lives and work, education has increasingly become an important issue. Many people began to lead a cross-boundary life; with the rate of cross-boundary marriages growing rapidly, the majority of their children have opted to live in Shenzhen and study in Hong Kong resulting in ‘cross-boundary students’. A great opportunity is represented by the Lok Ma Chau Loop and Hong Kong’s boundary closed area: a dense development corridor could be realized along Lok Ma Chau BCP and its connecting roads, while the Loop itself could host hi-tech production activities and tertiary education facilities. But due to the “One country, two systems” policy, these ‘cross-boundary students’ here could simultaneously face the fundamental issues of ecology, globalization, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, and responsible growth and development in their everyday life.

This project is in collaboration with the HK Curatorial Team of the HKSZ Biennale and Domus China. The BYOB Reading Café is designed by Studio Off. Reading Café There has been a series of large-scale urban renewal scheme undertaken by the government (Urban Renewal Authority, URA) in conjunction with a number of private developers in the West Kowloon area. Whenever a unit in a “target building” is vacated and taken over by the URA, all the windows of that unit are taped in a “X” array in order to signify from the outside that the unit is now a government asset. Urban Renewal is then the notion of symbolic, momentary urban fabric of the city. The “X” Frame is a basic, modular unit as the major partitioning material, to make the BYOB Reading Café an indoor space to withstand the outdoor weather conditions; to act as the entrance doors to the café; and to become the display rack of the books. BYOBooks Donation from the HK Curatorial Team In collabroration with Domus China, the Curatorial Team has invited architects, designers, critics, exhibitors and professionals from over the world to donate ONE book that inspired them to help build this waterfront library. It would be then amazing to see what makes everyone tick and also which books are relevant to their work.

The exhibit is an installation to record where our biennale visitors come from. The visitor is presented with a selection of tags which he/she can choose and write on to express his/her place of origin/identity. The visitor can then apply the tag onto any of the poles standing upright on the exhibition ground. As more tags appear on the poles, the exhibit becomes a vibrant collection of identities as well as a meeting point of communities. In the center of the exhibit is an empty common space offering a different perspective from the inside.

The walking path shall be illuminated with poetic blue colored light leading people to the exhibition, making for a more integrative visual journey. There will be two totems transformed into a *dreaming canvas* for people to map out their thoughts and desires of their ideal neighborhood for the future. A trace of their own character and feelings towards Hong Kong will be recorded under light and shadow. The canvases will project different experiences between day and night.

“Fa Pai Rides WKCD” is a joint effort of Mr Wong Lai Chung and HKSC students, integrating traditional craftsmanship with innovation. The artwork attempts to explore the relationship between West Kowloon Cultural District and urban development, as well as cultural conservation. Mr Wong, a local Fa Pai (traditional red flower plaques) master takes a 3-month residency at HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity as a craft artist from September to December. During the residency, Mr Wong shares his story and Fa Pai craftsmanship with students.

RAD looks to discover urban clues and logic that contribute to the living fabric of the city. ‘The missing floor number’ formula has always been intriguing, and rather than seeing this merely as a result of superstition in the East Asian culture, is there possibility to turn this trend into an urban opportunity? Can we save endangered numbers like 4 and 44 from disappearing in our numerical ecosystem? Can we create a new urban catalyst? We must begin our journey to the new urban Tetraphobia.

The rapid urbanization of the Pearl River Delta has been shaped by top-down planning along with profit-driven architectural production, often resulting in cacophonous collages of homogenous and generic buildings. OCEAN.CN’s agenda challenges urbanism formed from featureless, non-specific, bland – and most worryingly, disposable architecture. OCEAN.CN has documented sets of urban and architectural information related to one city from all nine prefectures of Guangdong province, as well as the two Special Administrative Regions (SAR), Hong Kong and Macau. The spatial characteristics of these 11 cities were embedded into 11 computational models, with an interface for visitors to this exhibition to “design their own city”.

A 30 minute video/music piece with the projector suspended from the ceiling of the shipping container and projected onto a screen on the end wall. Trying to find the potential in everyday things to become more than what they appear to be – their hidden selves with highly visual soundscapes and suggested cinematic landscapes. Ideas of isolation, nature, wilderness and a relationship with the immediate environment run through, drawing on both artists’ experiences in Hong Kong.

China Tracy has built a city dubbed RMB City within Second Life. This is a condensed incarnation of contemporary Chinese cities with most of their characteristics; a series of new Chinese fantasy realms that are highly self-contradictory, laden with irony and suspicion, and extremely entertaining and pan-political. China’s current obsession with land development in all its intensity will be extended to Second Life. A rough hybrid of communism, socialism and capitalism, RMB City will realize, in a globalized digital sphere, the collision of the overabundant symbols of Chinese reality with cursory imaginings of the country’s future.

In 2000, Zheng Guogu bought nearly 5,000 square meters of land in the suburbs of his hometown Yangjiang. It had been increased to 20,000 square meters when he started his construction of “Empire” in 2004, expanding to a total of 40,000 square meters today and it’s still growing illegally. Reflecting the computer game “Age of Empires”, “Empire” in the reality integrates more complicated spatial modalities and social relations. It is not a fixed, viewable work enclosed within an interior space, but a project that extends into an even truer living space, which comprises the entire process of dwelling in a spatial location, from conceptual ideal to practical implementation to day-to-day living.

As the Hong Kong harbour narrows, bringing the noise and frustrations of Kowloon and the sophistication and wealth of Hong Kong Island irreversibly closer, Hong Kong’s community is becoming increasingly divided. The Hong Kong middle class, a group generally defined by income and consumption patterns, is disappearing. The loss of this core socio-economic group leaves the vast majority of Hong Kong’s population in an inescapable position of low earnings and simple living. Even education can no longer be relied upon to create career prospects. With average incomes between HK$12,000 to HK$20,000, the full range of opportunities this great global city has to offer are becoming increasingly inaccessible to the vast majority of its population.

Jël Ndam (Take the Prize) is a feature Cantonese-Wolof comedy about winning currently in development. Chang Chang is a down-on-his-luck Hong Kong taxi driver who, through a series of mystical signs, learns that he must go to Senegal to win the lottery. Drawing inspirations from insider worlds such as the ubiquitous diaspora of reggae, Chungking Mansions’ microcosm model of globalization, and the hyper-commercial Chinese contemporary art market – the film creates its own semi-mystical universe, its own language of references, and the audience necessarily becomes fluent in this symbolic order through viewing.

This project is an experimental short film inspired by the surreal space of Chungking Mansions, and its unique position in Hong Kong as a center for immigrants, travelers and refugees from Africa and South Asia. Many Mansions combines reality, fiction, and improvisation to play with notions of “truth” in a place that is itself based on myths and dreams. The tale of a young African man navigating Chungking Mansions is told through several perspectives and forms an exploration of the very nature of identity and reality in the globalized world.

Nønspace is a 2-channel video work that attempts to probe at the puzzling and elusive space. The creators of the film revisit their memories from collected materials of time spent in Hong Kong in a dialogue with the city. Through interwoven voice interviews with artists, academics, architects, it approaches notions of space to reveal aspects of a city and culture that is difficult to underpin.

Let´s celebrate Rain HK / Shenzhen = Monsoon climate We love Rain, we hate Rain, we Cantons LIVE Rain Have you ever seen the colour of Rain? A shelter shields us from the weather. A shelter can be simple, a house, a cave, a space suit, an umbrella. The hawker centre embodied the simplest manifestation of a shelter – a shelter to cook, eat and interact. Have you thought of an inverted umbrella, the nature of the umbrella changes radically when it is simply invert it became a rain collector. We are creating a collective Rain Collector, let’s flesh out the true colour, the sound and the poetics of Rain.

A hyper-realistic metropolitan texture is mapped onto an extremely localized labyrinth. As we look upon the urban fabric of Graham Street Market in Central and its evolution throughout the decades, we want to consider the theme of cultural fabrication from the meanings and practices of Hong Kong’s self-made urban vernacular. Our interest is twofold. First, we are inspired by the existing textures and community character as manifestations of incremental cultural process, and concerned at their disjuncture with the legacy of Hong Kong’s modernity. Second, we want to make sense of the ongoing situation through creative ‘architecture’ and using re-/inter-/trans- actions.

MOST’s “Winter-worm Summer Herb” structure is curated by Andrew Lam and designed by Berlin based Hybrid Space Lab (Elizabeth Sikiaridi +Frans Vogelaar). It contains 9 video works from world’s acclaimed artists including Yang Yong, Jiang Zhe, Xu Tan, Eric Van Hove, Leung Meeping, Kwan Ng, Urbanus, and Hybrid Space Lab. The works focus on the “heterotopia” situation in an transforming metropolis of Hong Kong + Shenzhen, in an era of post-colonial assimilation.

Economic stratification, urban fragmentation, and social polarization have turned Hong Kong into a city of extremes. Saturated with propaganda but deprived of real opportunities, individuals aspiring to dreams that can never materialize are withdrawn from reality and the social fabric. The Cloud is a model for socially, economically and environmentally sustainable development, where individuals are free to explore, express and improvise, once again germinating cultural diversity and reintegrating individuals into society. Hopefully, the institutional urban infrastructure can be reconceived to regain individual identities and reduce the polarization of society.

What is the indigenous architecture of Hong Kong? Which are the buildings that best represent local culture? The answer lies in the legendary Kowloon Walled City, home of Hong Kong’s untouchables and social outcasts until it was demolished in 1993. It was Hong Kong’s forbidden city, built not by royalty but by the city’s underclass. Yet people were still able to survive and thrive. It is the story of Hong Kong itself encapsulated in architecture, a place that has succeeded despite the odds.

In Hong Kong and Shenzhen, where space is at a premium, where do we find a place for public space? “Hole in the Wall” cuts a ribbon of space into a vertical wall. Inspired by the flourishing Frontier Closed Area that separates the two cities – a strip of no-man’s land reclaimed by nature – we want to reclaim a strip of space as a niche for the city’s inhabitants. This bench is a public space in which people can lie down, sit, take a break, or even take a nap. The bench seat is made of renewable bamboo poles and grass areas. Businesses would sponsor the space above the bench as a billboard for art, acting as a “sign” of culture in the bustling urban streets.

The Projecting Window (后窗), is designed as a discourse of current conditions of cross-border residential/ property development and the construction industry. Comprising of a group of precast bay window panels, the proposed installation will be displayed on the external grassland near the coastline of the West Kowloon Promenade, creating a novel spatial experience for the viewers. It will function not only as a simple landscape installation but also as an introspective representation of prominent urban phenomenon, projecting a view of the future of the generic architecture and urbanism and hence, provoke the conventional perception of the built environment of the city.

The premise of face[GUARD], is that it hybridizes the cough guard of a typical retail establishment with the traditional hawker booth. The cut and perforated plywood can be easily transported and assembled. This exterior skin allows the level of transparency to be controlled by the person inside the booth. Moveable even by bicycle, the booth takes its mobility origins by cultural transportation systems, and upon completion of the exhibition, the structure’s modular system can be added upon over time, to extend the booth into an upgraded residential unit.

Excavation uses Hong Kong’s urban furniture to demonstrate the impact of absence – when things we know in our public space disappear – by fabricating a future archaeological site on the West Kowloon peninsula. At the “excavation” site, remnants of a former market place are discovered along faded lanes where a few remaining artefacts sit in the larger shadow of what was once there. This site of future archaeology presents a kind of interactive parallax across time that facilitates the contemplation of present day urban development issues.

In this city where nothing seems to last however, bamboo scaffolding remains our only remaining form of traditional architecture. The Stage intends to celebrate bamboo construction by re-contextualizing and re-exploring the material with the goal of creating a newfound appreciation, understanding and respect for a tradition that is unique to Hong Kong. DE-sign is collaborating with visual artist Teddy Lo, founder of LED artists. The incorporation of LED lighting, blends the old with the new showing that the two can coexist, creating a structure that is entirely new yet with its ties to tradition still intact. The lighting installation aims to provide a dynamic and interactive luminous layer for the bamboo structure. An important element for the subject to complete its morphological form. With the use of High Brightness LED technology and interactive sensory system, the installation provides a compelling lighting platform and visually (at night) keeps track of the number of people in the performance space. The colors and patterns will evolve based on the data accumulates from the digital sensors and human interactions. 2 sets of lighting arrangements will be set to accentuate the rotating geometric structures and the various lighting sequences of the dmx programming will provide an intriguing motion experience and atmosphere for the space. This colorful installation also acts as the backdrop of the performance stage, as it can be manipulated according to the performer’s preferences. For the actual installation, additional platforms, housing and trunking are needed to be built for the lighting fixtures, computer equipments and cabling around the structure.

Paddling Home by Kacey Wong Paddling Home is a 4’x4’ apartment floating on the sea. The concept of this project was inspired by the extremely expensive living condition in Hong Kong where people can only afford a tiny apartment, having to spend their lifetime repaying the mortgage. The artists think the image of a helpless little house paddling away in a vast dangerous ocean towards the infinite shoreline is similar to using 20–30 years to repay a huge mortgage loan; it is dangerous and creates feelings of helplessness. Paddling Home is about mobility and compact living, freedom and the search for a better place.

Heaven on earth / installation / by anothermountainman mirage in his eyes / oasis from your angle / for me… it is heaven on earth painting by god / installation / 2009 / by anothermountainman Seeing the light, I believe in divinity. Seeing the land, I believe in time: the past, present, and future., Seeing the wind move, I believe in the breath and life Seeing tears of sadness and of gladness, I believe in the communication of the soul. Believing that life is beautiful, I see the light ahead. I see, therefore I believe. I believe, and so I see.

This project challenges the dominant type of generic cities in China’s contemporary urban development produced by centralized government standard control plans. The Dynamic City Model, generates multiple scenarios, manipulated by sets of tactical urban interventions that allow the generic and specific to co-evolve. 13 people types and routines are mapped in personal and spatial scenarios, with their routines weaving unique personal experiences and overlapping spatial configurations in this rapidly transforming metropolis.

The long history of street trading is one of Hong Kong’s most significant and unique attributes. How the street market can continue to thrive in a city that is becoming increasingly compact and space holds exceptional value? There is an urgent need to save the remaining markets, and street markets should be reassessed and reconsidered as a valuable source of both maintaining skills and a dynamic mean of creativity support, with potential to become successful enterprises. Are there spaces in the city that can become markets of specific and interesting character, without taking away the current attributes of the space? Can we test this concept and develop it to see if it can prove itself to the community?

The Crisis Fronts Sampler is an interactive exhibition interface and includes components that collect, display, and leverage collective intelligence and social feedback for the purpose of generating proposals for future infrastructural development in the Hong Kong-Shenzhen urbanized region. The primary site of inquiry is the “Closed Area” interstitial border zone immediately opposite the boundary between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and adjacent to Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau. In the context of the increasing interconnectedness of the two cities and the transition from Special Administrative status in 2046, this area is a political and territorial gray area.

What do we gain (or lose) if we have a Victoria Bay instead of a Harbour? Tabula Rasa Reversal explores this possibility. Urban development on the western part of Hong Kong over the past decade represents a desperate attempt by the HKSAR to incorporate itself, at least infrastructure-wise, to the Pearl River Delta Region and Greater China; just consider the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the Western High Speed Train. Tabula Rasa Reversal imagines an urban plan connecting West Kowloon with Hong Kong “island”, providing new ground for theoretical urban expansion as well as physical extension of the Pearl River Delta?

The term ‘collective memory’ has become a political catchphrase to denote the prevailing public sentiment attached to a specific locale, but how ‘collective’ is it really? The Sunbeam Theatre in North Point has been portrayed as the sanctuary of Cantonese opera which must be preserved, whereas closer scrutiny reveals that the theatre was purposely built as a political education/congregation venue – it was a product of a direct response to the leftist’s defeat in the riots of ‘67. This work goes beyond the clichés of nostalgic aesthetics, unveiling the past only to create new possibilities for the future.

A Cabinet of Curiosities is a space to keep objects whose categorization is yet to be defined. A museum, despite its connection to thinking (a space to muse in), is often shaped by the underlying forces of curatorial screening; a Cabinet of Curiosities, in contrast, offers genuine freedom of thought. How does this reflective space of a Cabinet of Curiosities reposition the effort to provide cultural facilities in Kowloon? Can we imagine Kowloon culture through a different trajectory from that of an economy of goods? What is the connection between culture and land? How can we remake culture?

Here visitors can find information and view a video about the West Kowloon Cultural District, its vision, planning and public engagement.