Exhibition: More than High Rise, Ginza, Tokyo (2018)

More than High Rise is an exhibition co-organized by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) and the Tourism Association of Hong Kong in Fall 2018 with the sincere objectives of promoting the younger generation of Hong Kong architects to Japan, and to deliver a message that high-rise buildings are not the only architectural scene in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has more curiosities for one to discover, besides the high-rise prototypes.

The exhibition venue is at the Tsuyata Bookstore at the GINZA SIX, Ginza, Tokyo. I am one of the 16 invited exhibitors, and am honored to bring the project “Viva Blue House – Repairing Heritage, Repairing Community” to the Japanese audience.

The venue is designed by another young architect Jane Luk, who poetically decorates the venue ceiling with soft layers of fabrics, reminiscent of the Hong Kong mountain landscape. The various exhibitions are placed on plywood stands masked with mirror papers so as to create an illusion of exhibits floating in the air.

A walk through of the exhibition venue:

As each exhibitor can only work on a pretty small space within a limited time, I decided to make a model of the Blue House Cluster and printed a set of post cards, and have them organized within a handmade wooden box. The idea of doing a layered wooden box to carry things come from the traditional Japanese cabinet. The box is then tailored made to exactly the same allowable size of a luggage that can be hand carried to the flight, so that I can make the best use of production time in Hong Kong. The post cards are a gift to the visitors. Each post card is printed with an illustration found inside the Blue House Cluster, and a QR code that links to a video that tells the entire story.

The transformation of a luggage size wooden gift box to an exhibition set: