Activating underutilised urban spaces to nurture and develop local creative communities
Very Hong Kong (VHK) is a series of tactical placemaking projects that seek to activate underutilized urban spaces around the city with a citizen-centric approach. It aims to address the urgent needs for more community spaces for the public, and at the same time, provide opportunities for budding local artists, designers and local community groups to thrive with their creative placemaking ideas.
Our Approach
Various stakeholder engagement methodologies were adopted, including public open call for ideas, community visioning exercise, co-designing workshop and other community outreaching exercise. The team then curate selected public ideas together as “Very Hong Kong Festivals”, which was held at underutilized public spaces in various districts of Hong Kong. It successfully demonstrated how community creativity could activate spaces of different urban characteristics and qualities in different parts of the city.
Our Value
More than 30,000 people have attended various VHK programme at different locations in Hong Kong from 2013 - 2017. The events have been widely reported both in Hong Kong and overseas. Many of the community-led ideas have served as a prototype for long-term urban planning, design projects and events by government agencies, non-profits and the private sectors, including the Central Waterfront, Kowloon East Promenade and Star Street Precinct. The projects were completed when Billy was Curator of Very Hong Kong Foundation, supported by the Oval Partnership.