Projects

Letterboxing

In the past, when writing letters is the only way to communicate long distance, letterboxes, as the receiver of letters thus play an important role in the communication, especially in China, where people seeks letters as a media to express their emotion and maintain relationships. However, due to the invention of telegraph, phone, and eventually electronic mails, letter and letterboxes become less and less important. When I first...

Blurred Boundaries

It is not a freakish phenomenon that most of the people see Pok Fu Lam Village as a shanty town. When people walking around the alley or the main street, they often find that there are stuffs scattered around and the building materials are mostly iron-hides and wood planks. The scene gives us sense that the village is disordered and dilapidated. One of the reasons that people have such a sense is because the boundaries of private...

RUINS

Fade of culture To me, the most memorable element in Pok Fu Lam village is the ruins. Most of the houses and slots there are still occupied by villagers, but several abandoned houses catch my eyes and I would like to document it. The reason why I found them memorable is that when I looked at the ruins,  it gave me a new angle to look at the history of the village. As Daniel had told us, some villagers felt ashamed of being a villager,...

THE MAZE WITH OVERHANGS

Looking from a distance, Pokfulam Village seems dense and unorganized. It’s hard to find a clear way out in the village even looking from a high point since streets or paths can be barely seen in such a dense area. In fact, the maze created not only owing to the densi- ty, people maximize the usage of space by extending there huts from ground to the air. Overhanging structures which is commonly found in Pokfulam Village has made the...

Identities

‘XH/22C/G6/156’ These are the registration codes which identify all the legal squatters within the village under the Squatter Control Policy. The villagers openly show these temporary identities to the government, so no one could demolish their shelters. The numbers and letters are proving their legality and protecting their own properties, therefore villagers can keep their stable and peaceful life in the village. ‘107A’ Later, other...

Community Bonding

Walking through Pokfulam village, one can easily be attracted by the narrow passage there. The passage includes corridors and stairs. One of the features of the passage is narrowness. The passage is so narrow due to the high density of the houses in the village. When we look at the passage, sometimes we can only see the turning but not the end of the passage. The passage is a pedestrian link which form a whole system of public space....

Who Crafted the Village?

Villagers in the Pokfulam Village solved many daily life problems by their own hands. Ranging from making a small letterbox for their house to constructing an entire retaining wall on the slope, they make use of their wisdom and build structures out of common daily life materials which you would never expect. Although some may regard these village crafts as primitive techniques which do not match the modern Hong Kong society, none can...

Trust Circle

The historical setting of the village has created a circulation of people and information. The connected pathways and roads make people meet and know each other, they have built a network between them. The houses are closely packed to each other, making the distance closer, no matter physically or mentally. Trust between people is never easy to be built, however, what I can observe and feel among them is that kind of unbreakable...

WATER

In Pokfulam village, no matter in which places, people can find the traces of water. It is everywhere around the village, including in the hill, ground and underground. Though water is in forms of liquid, it could have different expressions and create different visibilities.   Water could sometimes be visible and sometimes be hidden. When people are walking around the village, they could see some trenches around the squatters....

Who own the land ?

Who own the land ? There should be a forest 300 years ago. When the settlements reached the lands, they shaped the lands and announced that they owned the lands. Till now, there is lots of argument about the ownership of the land pieces in Pok Fu Lam Village. However, without a doubt, the change of land ownerships will never deny the individuality of the lands.   Pok Fu Lam Village has lots of abandoned areas where only...

Utility Wire

Village Connection Pok Fu Lam Village has its own unique and intrinsic wire network which connects different houses in an intrusive way. It is very common to see all kinds of linear structures when you look up in the air. Electric Poles and satellite adaptor are scattered all over the village randomly which indicate different spots. Meanwhile, almost all houses in the village is short and individually built. As the wires extend from...

Visible Plastic Pipelines

Due to the fact that Pok Fu Lam village is not connected to the public sewage system, a lot of their pipelines have to be installed above ground as an addition to make sure that their sewage is transferred safely into the river, unlike other parts of Hong Kong where the pipes are hidden underneath the ground. Therefore it is quite clear that from looking at the images, most of the pipes were installed after the village was...

From Slum to Green Oasis

What would you think of when you heard the word “slum”? A very dense living environment where people live in small squatters? Or a place that is very squalid? This is mostly what normal people would have as first impression of a slum. Pok Fu Lam Village, however, changed my perception towards it. Once I entered the village, apart from the squatter huts, I also noticed about the amount of greenness in the village. Comparing to the...

Chaos and Tranquility

When I first arrived Pokfulam Village, my first impression towards the village is that it is a chaotic village with crazy lanes and unorganized houses. People can put their personal everywhere. I thought it is a place for the poor or homeless, because of the houses which are made of old and rusted metal plates or other materials many people would think are garbage. However, after few trips to the village and had some opportunities to...

Integrated space

In Pokfulam Village, we can easily spot out that there are many items, furniture and structures all over the public space. These private properties are not used to occupy the public area but served to provide service or offer better spatial quality to the villagers. Long benches and rain shelters are the most common examples of private properties that appear in the common area. Tiles spread out to the road is a special example we can...

INTRANET

When one looks up, one could obviously spot the overhead power cable in Pokfulam village. Clustered around the electric pole, the wires radiate through the air and manifest themselves across the squatter huts. Together they produce irregular overlapping and attachment, yet certain pattern can be observed. The electric poles are located at regular intervals along the main street, each acts as a radiator and projects the wires outward....

The Forgotten Settler

With little knowledge of Pok Fu Lam Village, the first impression I got upon visit was the feeling of isolation. The unique setting and architecture of Pok Fu Lam village had separated itself from the surroundings. Its sunken landscape had also made it more enclosed and detached. The history of Pok Fu Lam Village could be dated back to the 17th century, when Mainland Chinese fled China and settled in this area. There are a lot of...

Chair x Person

Is the government sitting out area what the villagers need?   Visiting Pok Fu Lam village, the first things caught people attention maybe the “abandon” chairs scattered all around the village. However, after paying more attention, visitors would realize that the chairs are not discarded but intentionally be put there. Most of them are components of a sitting out area. In fact, there are total four major sitting out areas in the...

Patch-Up

Along the Pokfulam Road lies an indigenous village, which is distinctive from the other areas in the metropolis. !e village is adjacent to the well-developed urban areas, but it is sensationally distant from them. !is is Pokfulam village, a historical village with early constructions that is occasionally mistaken as a shanty town. This series of photos represents the identity, culture and movement engaged in the Pokfulam village....