A group of talented students from the Da Nang University of Science and Technology has found international fame with their refreshing concepts and tremendous design quality for the embellishment of the existing public spaces in Hong Kong (China). They took runner-up position in the UrbanactionsHK Competition 2019 recently held in the special administrative region.

Da Nang’s runners-up in the UrbanactionsHK competition’s awards ceremony.

Co-organised by UrbanactionsHK and the School of Architecture of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the annual international public space design ideas competition received a total of 49 entries from 20 countries worldwide.

This international competition challenges undergraduate students of schools of architecture, landscape, urban planning and design to propose alternative and innovative design schemes to revitalise 4 public open spaces in the Central district of Hong Kong, namely Wa On Lane, Kau U Fong Children’s Playground, Cochrane Street and Lok Hing Garden.

The runners up from Da Nang are Tran Minh Sang, Phan Ngoc Tuong Vi, Pham Dinh Ho Trong An, and Tran Nguyen Gia Han, all of whom are studying at the Faculty of Architecture. Their ‘Vision - Awesomeness - Soul - Happiness’ entry focus on turning the existing Lok Hing Garden into the impressive architecture work.

Lok Hing Garden hasn’t been used to its full potential: The outdated and bulky public space has some small-scale areas which are available but empty and unused most of the time.

The Da Nang contestants have worked towards solutions to the space, and here are what they ended up with: making transformations in terms of circulation, design and amenities; refurbishing the unused spaces, and last but not least attempting to turn the space into the story-telling architecture.

The design themed ‘Vision - Awesomeness - Soul - Happiness’ gained high praise from the competition’s judging board.

On the spotlight of the design are the pedestrian area and the pavilion. For the pedestrian area, there will be small podiums on which there are the historical stories of Hong Kong are interleaved between the blank spaces of the wave benches. The space is hoped to tells the stories, conveys the knowledge as well as provokes the space users into curiosity and inspiration.

As for the pavilion, on the small lane leading to the side entrance of the bridge, there will be rounded pavilions in different height and density welcoming the pedestrians to take a seat and relax.

“No man purchases a book if it does not have any words. The same for architecture, who will genuinely love a place if there is no story being told and no feeling being touched?”, the message the Da Nang team wanted to spread through such a design competition. 

Sharing the joy with his students, Mr Nguyen Anh Tuan, the Dean of Architecture Faculty from the University of Science and Technology, remarked the ‘runner-up’ prize brought home by Da Nang’s students is indeed higher- than-expected result which considerably motivates their creativity in designing and coming up with more meaningful projects for the sake of the community.

By HUYEN TRAN – Translated by A.T