Image Credit : Oval Design Limited
Project Overview
The Exhibition Centre of Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) draws inspiration from a tree to create a warm and vibrant exhibition hall that serves as a multi-purpose community hub. Trees, symbolizing home and shelter, are an indispensable element of communal spaces in Hong Kong's public housing estates, depicting a harmonious coexistence between neighbors.
OVAL uses a lush tree as a medium to build communication and consensus, helping people feel the warmth of housing policies and develop a passion for building better homes. This sense of participation and recognition drives the sustained development of Hong Kong's housing endeavors.
The exhibition showcases the history and evolution of public housing in Hong Kong, highlighting the architectural styles, community spirit, and shared experiences that have shaped residents' lives. Interactive displays, oral histories, and multimedia installations allow visitors to immerse themselves in the stories and memories of Hong Kong's housing, fostering a sense of pride and belonging.
Symbolised by a big tree, the Exhibition Centre represents HKHS's people-oriented approach and commitment to quality housing. The surrounding exhibits, likened to nutrients, reflect HKHS's efforts to create better homes for residents.
To serve the community's needs, HKHS actively engages residents to determine the usage and programming of the space. Through forums, surveys, and workshops, community members share their ideas and preferences, empowering them to shape the center's direction and purpose, creating a dynamic and inclusive space for all.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Dennis Wong, Vic Chan, Kong Hui, Kai Cheng, Eva Leung, Kaitlyn Leung, Karina Li, Adrianne Chong, Frankie Fung, Klorence Wong, Tiffany Lau
Project Brief
The exhibits revolve around a majestic "tree", symbolizing HKHS's people-centric approach and dedication to providing quality housing. The surrounding exhibition areas, likened to nutrients, showcase HKHS's efforts in policy and execution to create better homes for residents. The lush canopy represents the vast number of citizens who live and work happily under HKHS's care.
To effectively convey this concept, OVAL employs innovative display techniques. The entrance features a breeze-block wall with captivating light and shadow cast, evoking collective memories of public housing estate corridors.
Interactive game machines engage visitors, educating them on the concept of "The Housing Ladder”. Immersive LED dome with VR technology provides a comprehensive experience of HKHS's projects, while 3D naked-eye projections and MiC interactions highlight the innovations in construction technology.
An interactive archive showcases HKHS's milestones, resonating with the future vision in the "tree", where visitors symbolically participate in sustainable development by "irrigating" it. This hands-on experience encourages visitors to actively engage with the exhibition and feel a sense of connection to HKHS's mission.
The Exhibition Centre extensively incorporates natural elements like wood and greenery to create a fresh and comfortable environment. The perfect blend of knowledge dissemination and interactive experiences guides the public to pay more attention to housing issues and understand the Housing Society's relentless efforts to improve people's living conditions. By fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of HKHS's work, HKHS aims to inspire visitors to become active participants in shaping the future of Hong Kong's housing landscape.
Project Innovation/Need
OVAL designed “Ageventure” in which visitors can learn about various elderly housing projects and elderly-friendly facilities by using an Immersive LED Dome with 360 VR technology. The technology combined two modern presentation technologies (an immersive VR cave and an LED dome) into one solution, the first of its kind in Hong Kong.
The integration of these technologies presents unique challenges that OVAL has successfully overcome. Repositioning and recalculating motion sensors to fit into a dome space originally designed as a cubic space required careful calibration and execution. Additionally, creating customized LED wall content added another layer of complexity to the project.
Visitors can now enjoy an immersive experience that closely resembles real-life visuals without the need for traditional VR goggles. The dome structure provides a more expansive and immersive effect than a conventional cave setting.
To better explore the concept of Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) for building homes, the game "Building Your Own MiC Home" has been designed. However, a purely narrative approach to describing these concepts can be boring and hard to grasp.
Therefore, the game combines physical objects with a virtual representation on the screen. Visitors can use the physical blocks to practically construct their own houses, while the screen reflects the corresponding building structure in real time. This hands-on, bridging of the physical and virtual elements provides a more engaging and intuitive way for visitors to understand the MiC concepts.
Design Challenge
The project faces many challenges. Firstly, the limited and irregular space in terms of the site presented design challenges, such as the height of the interior which limited the possibilities for tall designs, requiring careful planning and optimization of the available area.
Additionally, conveying complex and abstract content is another challenge. The exhibition content encompasses over seventy years of work by HKHS, and OVAL needed to understand the content before they could employ creative strategies to simplify and visualize the concepts so that visitors with different knowledge levels could understand them. This increases the time the team spends processing the material.
Furthermore, the program operates on a tight schedule. Design development and detail drawing submission were limited to two months to complete. Then, fabrication, installation work, and complex interactive program and game development and testing all had to be completed within two months. In addition, the development of Hong Kong's first immersive LED dome with 360 VR technology increased the complexity of the project. This compressed timeline adds pressure to the project.
Sustainability
Environmental sustainability is a focus of the project. Considering the exhibit content that needs to be updated periodically, OVAL uses digital screens and projectors to display exhibit information to reduce physical material wastage on each update.
On the material choices, such as the breeze blocks in the reception area, OVAL chose to use bricks made of recycled materials. By repurposing waste materials into bricks, it reduces the need for virgin resources and promotes a circular economy. This conservation of natural resources minimizes environmental impact and reduces waste by diverting materials from landfills.
For energy saving, a Central Control and Monitoring System in the air-conditioning system is adopted, which can achieve maximum efficiency with low power consumption. Installing a central control and monitoring system may reduce power consumption. The system can perform interactive calculations to determine the most efficient operating conditions by considering the cooling plant layout, the number of series and parallel chillers, etc.
There is a multi-purpose activity room that has also been specially planned and equipped with unique features to support sustainability. The room is designed with flexible, multi-functional furniture that can be rearranged into different configurations to accommodate a variety of uses. This adaptable setup allows the room to serve multiple functions. By consolidating various activities into one adaptable space, the project minimizes the overall resource requirements compared to constructing separate specialized rooms and reduces wastage.
Pop-Ups, Display, Exhibit & Set Design
This award celebrates innovative and creative design for a pop-ups, temporary buildings and interiors, installations,exhibition, fixture or interactive element. Consideration given to materials, finishes, signage and experience.
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