Image Credit : Kris Provoost & Kevin Mak (Photographer)
Deploy Media & Kelvin Ng (Videographer)
Project Overview
In a city as densely populated as Hong Kong, breathing space is critical to our social well-being. The Arts Pavilion at the East Cost Park Precinct brings the community of Hong Kong together in an open outdoor park that has benefited the mental health and wellbeing of the residents in these unprecedented times.
The Word Art installation creates an eye-catching landmark signage for Victoria Harbour that invites the visitors to openly interpret and interact with the hollow mesh letters to become a part of the art work, and to increase their sense of belonging.
The Breakwater Pavillion extends this concept while spreading a strong message on sustainability through its use of 30,000 colourful plastic bottle caps to create a wavy immersive experience that encapsulates the waves of this iconic waterfront.
Project Commissioner
Harbour Office of the Development Bureau
Project Creator
Team
Arnold Wong
Tat Lai Wong
Ching Man Tai
Vince Lee
Charmaine Lin
Project Brief
Through crafting pockets of intimate spaces with a hollow mesh lettering design, the Word Art enables people from all walks of life to enjoy the installation in ways that suit their fantasies. To sit and catch a breath, to cuddle or for a stretch, the design is more than just a photogenic artwork, and rather one that allows people to creatively interpret and interact with it. The mesh design resembles a traditional screen bearing on local cultural roots, while functionally it displays names of local districts that surround Victoria Harbour as a reminder of our locality and to enhance one’s sense of belonging.
Taking cue from the colours and lights of Victoria Harbour, the Breakwater Pavilion extends from the Word Art, inviting people to enjoy the sights and sounds of the harbour. The roofscape of the pavilion is composed of over 30,000 colourful plastic bottle caps to demonstrate that beautiful art can be made from recycled materials. At night, the installation takes on a new life with an ever-changing lighting design that encourages visitors to immerse within a surreal tapestry of colour and motion that takes the users into another dimension and away from the intensity of city life.
The palette of colours of the art installations are inspired by the night time reflections of our skyline off Victoria Harbour, are applied to the Arts Pavilion to represent the colourful diversity of our social fabric.
Project Innovation/Need
The artwork has demonstrated the power of interactive artwork to bring the community together. Countless number of people have visited the park, to interact with the artwork along with their friends, families, or even meeting complete strangers. While the brief of the Word Art installation was to create a signage of Victoria Harbour, we challenged the brief and created 3 dimensional spaces within the hollow letter design to allow the design to be highly interactive and open to interpretation by each individual user. The art installations also made a strong contribution to the community by encouraging visitors to leave their homes, and explore the natural beauty of the waterfront, in an outdoor space full of sunlight and fresh air.
The latest augmented reality technology is utilitzed at the Word Art to allow users to experience the illusion of travelling to famous tourist hotspots around the world at a time where travelling has been limited for most people.
The art installations have also aided the incremental approach advocated by the government for the early opening of public waterfront areas, through its speedy fabrication and efficient installation – the process from initial design proposal to completion took less than 2 months. This has allowed partial opening of the park for public enjoyment 15 months ahead of the official completion of the entire park.
Design Challenge
One of the biggest challenges as designers, was to first understand the social situation of Hong Kong, and how the densely populated city doesn’t allow much room for the public to breathe. We then had to try and understand what would interest the people of Hong Kong to want to go visit the art installations. What we discovered, was that people want the freedom to be able to choose what they can do, and explore by themselves how to interact creatively with public art. We therefore created hollowed letters design that provided the framework for the users to interact freely through, sitting, leaning, climbing, doing yoga, posing for photos, or bringing their pets to the installation. The success of this can be demonstrated by the overwhelming popularity and the vast amounts of visitors on a daily basis.
Another major challenge was the short time that was allowed to fabricate and install the art installations. In particular, for the Breakwater Pavilion, we were required to pre-fabricate and install the works on site within 1 week during limited hours of the day, to allow the normal operation of the park at night time. In order to achieve this, all elements were prefabricated and reviewed beforehand off-site. This allowed the on-site installation time to be reduced to 1 week.
Sustainability
Sustainability is at the heart of the design for this engaging public project. The Arts Pavilion is composed of over 30,000 colourful plastic bottle caps to demonstrate that beautiful art can be made from recycled materials. Hong Kong disposes of over 8.3 million plastic bottles on a daily basis - more than 6 times the area of the East Coast Park. The bottle caps are unable to be recycled, and more often than not, end up in landfills or indeed into the harbour, thus destroying the beautiful waterfront of Victoria Harbour. Our design has been important in educating the public on the damage to the environment caused by plastic waste, and to encourage the public to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. After dismantling, the plastic bottle caps are to be upcycled to create colourful and creative artwork through community art programs to further educate the younger generations.
Similarly, the mesh and perforated design allow the Word Art installation to withstand adverse weather conditions and to create an environmental-friendly work of art. Each of the 15 letters can be easily dissembled and re-assembled, giving it the flexibility of extending its life at different locations. The art installations are designed with simple construction and common materials to ensure it is sustainable, with high buildability and short construction time.
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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