Learning from Hong Kong: 'place' as relation

The Hong Kong-China border is slowly dissolving. In 2010 a part of the frontier area at Lok Ma Chau opened up for new urban developments. By 2047, 50 years after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China, the border will no longer exist. This project proposes an inhabited bridge at Lok Ma Chau, connecting Hong Kong and Shenzhen, that recognises both the global movement within the Pearl River Delta as well as the local sense of ‘place’. In an attempt to learn from Hong Kong I ask: What makes place in Hong Kong valuable? What is the infl uence of globalisation on the local experience of place other than ‘placelessness’? And how as designers can we work with this?