Unplanned: Public space in elevations

Public space has often been a planned entity, as pieces of land coloured on maps. In Hong Kong, public space is scarce, as most public space is privately-owned (shopping malls) and adds value to the private properties (circulation space and privately-owned open spaces dedicated to public). The remaining publicly-owned public spaces are either over-designed (parks and children’s playgrounds) or ill-defined (government owned but not dedicated to public).

The general public should not passively wait for such quality public space to “arrive” but rather should have the ability to create the desired public space themselves. The general public has self-initiated public space where it is needed by adding street furniture of their own, e.g. chairs at street corners, expansion of restaurants to pavements, and by filling in open spaces on a time basis (filipino maids at HSBC on Sundays).

The aim of the thesis is to create a new catalogue of  pop-up public space, shaped by designing deployable urban furniture.

Hong Kong has a rich history in hawker stands, and streetside stalls, which offer techniques and insights of how a boundary and elevation can be reconstructed and effectively reshape the street space on a daily basis. The thesis will study such flexibility and impact of enclosure and use such language to design and test a new species of pop-up public spaces.