Annette Chu, Tommy Yeung, Willy Lam, Chloe Su

The project is a renovation to a 12 storey commercial building from 1980s in Castle Peak Road, Cheung Sha Wan, a residential community with many small local businesses. The design begins with the search for transparency and articulation in a chaotic urban setting. The material of rattan, a conventional and domestic material, is being explored to be the key material of the interior space.

The main façade articulates with randomised configuration of a modular glass curtain wall system to maximise exposure to daylighting. The materiality expresses the juxtaposition of contemporary and traditional elements through the tectonics of weaving. The façade reminisces the weaving language of rattan with metal mesh intertwining with the glass panels.

The design challenges the materiality of rattan, being perceived as a conventional and domestic material, by creating a contemporary interpretation with respect to its organic behaviour.

by Annette Chu, Loky Leung

Situated in a Hong Kong neighbourhood with plentiful wine shops, the design of a 30m2 small wine and food shop attempts to create a sense of cinematic space where customers step into a different reality from the everyday life.Inspired by the movie Shirley - Visions of Reality where the director transforms thirteen Edward Hopper paintings into three-dimensional scenes, the design plays on this ambiguity by abstracting the interior and furniture into planes of colours.Daffodil yellow, grey pink and light grey paints highlight the various sides of the existing structures inside the shop; the furniture, adopting the same palette of colours, simultaneously dissolves into and protrudes from the background.This interplay idea is also adopted in the design of display shelves. A set of trays and asymmetrical display containers are introduced. They could be arrayed to the blue steel frame at the centre of the shop, or to be placed along the continuous yellow storage along the long wall under the alternating yellow frames and blue open shelves, or to be positioned on the yellow display shelf near the shop front. Except the two pendants, all lights are hidden. Similar to movie set lighting, it focuses on the lighting and shadow to accentuate the overall spatial effect.At the front, the shop adopts a back-lit individually mounted signage that resembles that of an old cinema. Together with the startle azure blue shop front framing the interior, it is hinting this switch between reality and cinematic.Endnotes: The shop owner has purchased a print of Edward Hoppers painting for the shop.

by Annette Chu, Raymond Leung, Joshua Leung

The client is young company which promotes anything and everything bike related in the rather non-bicycle friendly city of Hong Kong. To increase their market exposure, we were approached to design their first retail shop (SPREAD by GUM). The client ’s brief aims to shift away from the traditional "bike-shop" model, but rather operates closer to a "Gallery / Event Space" which is more in-tuned with their marketing direction. They need a space which can be dressed up holistically every month in a different theme to showcase their products, messages and events.

Inspired by the Pin Art toy, the PLAY and DISPLAY wall was developed as a concept to amalgamate the functional need of a shop and the fluidity of a gallery / event space. 5412 recycled paper tubes of 38.5mm Ø was used to create a display wall which can be totally customised to suit the products on display or the theme of the month (may be just a bold message!) Products can be indented into, leaned against, cradled in or hung on this wall like a 3D wall mural. To contrast this, the rest of the space was treated simply with bare white walls and a dark grey polished concrete floor. The table is hinged which can be turned and rest on top of the floating cabinet to create a bigger space in the shop for events or display use.

The space is also used as a socialising hub for like-minded customers and friends, where film nights, parties and cycling related events will be held regularly. An extendible concrete plinth (known as the STAGE) was introduced by the open-able glass shop front, allowing activities to spill out onto the street and videos projected onto the adjacent walls.  The STAGE will double up as a shop window display box, like a stage set in theatre in front of the unobstructed glass shop front.

To be consistent with GUM′s green ethos (GUM stands for Green Urban Mobility), the facade was simply dressed with hand creased recycled laminated paper, from the same supplier which produced the paper tubes. All light fittings used in the shop are LED to reduce the dependency on A/C. Bike parking will be provided in the light-well at the back of the store to encourage customers to visit on 2 wheels!

by Annette Chu, Wendy Hui, Tommy Yeung, Gabriel Lee

We are fascinated about the intimiate relationship between space and industrial process in this "tailor-made" glass factory. Reading and tracing the existing built fabric reminded us George Perec′s "Life a user′s manual". Can we dream of another alternative and create a tapestry of colourful diverse hotel-dwellers′ stories?