At architecture biennale in Hong Kong and Shenzhen resilience is the focus, with displays of urban nature, uses for bamboo and a blow-up chapel
- The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, the first since 2019, has as its theme resilience, with community, sustainability and inclusion as core values
- An inflatable one-person chapel, an installation of weeds that expresses the power of nature, and experiments with locally grown bamboo are among the exhibits
Think of some of the hardiest members of Hong Kong society and domestic helpers probably come to mind.
Their fortitude – underscored during the pandemic when discrimination left some who caught Covid-19 homeless and jobless – lies behind a reusable, portable spiritual space at the North Point Ferry Pier called the Inflatable Chapel.
The plight of domestic helpers prompted Napp Studio & Architects to come up with the silver-coloured, pyramidal, one-person structure once they learned that the theme of this year’s Hong Kong Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) is “Seeds of Resilience – Re(dis) covering the City”.
“We felt like somehow we could connect to the corrugated cardboard structure that they usually [use] on the street – which is already super Hong Kong and resilient – and [think] about flexibility and adaptability,” says Wesley Ho, who co-founded the studio with Aron Tsang.
Religion and spirituality were also factors in their 2.6-metre-tall design made from Oxford fabric, a lightweight woven material.