Occupy Central
Urban Renewal, 2020
Hong Kong SAR, China
Design: ZHANG Jie, FAN Pinyue
2nd Place of Bubble Future Competition
As one of the world’s busiest international financial hubs, Hong Kong attracts millions of people with its wealth of opportunities and resources. Yet beneath this prosperity lies deep social polarization. The city’s extreme density enables incredible efficiency, but it also produces a highly compressed public realm—one driven primarily by spatial utility and commercial value.
Such a compact and efficient urban form benefits the elite and the wealthy, while leaving others behind. For groups such as migrant domestic workers, temporary laborers, and retirees, the city can feel like a barren desert. They serve the city, yet they are excluded from expensive communities with private gardens; urban space has not been designed with them in mind. In this way, the spatial dimension of Hong Kong starkly reflects the gap between rich and poor.
This project is situated in Central, the city’s most iconic commercial district. It begins with the observation of how migrant domestic workers creatively adapt urban space: on Sundays, unable or unwilling to remain in the cramped rooms of their employers’ homes, they gather in Central, occupying footbridges, sidewalks, and open areas, temporarily transforming them into communal living spaces.
Inspired by this flexible spatial logic, we propose a speculative “shifting ground” system for Central. This adaptable façade and ground-floor infrastructure would allow office buildings to open up on Sundays, creating a one-day home for all citizens without undermining their commercial value during the week. By softening the stark imbalance of urban public space, the project seeks to negotiate a more equitable balance between spatial justice and urban efficiency.
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Focus on the themes of publicness and theatricality within everyday spaces.
Outstanding Proposal (2023, China)Zhoushan Hello Islands Installation Competition
Honorable Mention (2023, Italy)
Reuse Italy Competition
Honorable Mention (2022, Estonia)
Tallinn Architecture Biennale-Vision Competition
Shortlist Nomination (2021, USA)
Ann Arbor Art Center-Alley Project
First Place (2020, UK)
Bubble Future Competition
Second Place (2019, India)
Archasm Competition
Members
ZHANG Jie / 张婕is a spatial designer and artist based in Shanghai. She trained as an architect at Huaqiao University and the University of Hong Kong from 2013 to 2020. Since relocating to Shanghai in 2020, she has focused on small-scale installations and spatial design, while continuously providing commercial interior design services for retail companies and government projects.
YANG Chen / 杨晨 is an architectural designer and illustrator based in Florence. He studied architecture at Huaqiao University (2013-2018) and Politecnico di Torino (2019-2021), and has worked at WNA Architects in Torino and ACE Srl. in Florence.
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