Hong Kong is Dead, Long Live Hong Kong

The city now known as Hong Kong will lose its semi-autonomous status and be fully integrated to China in 2047. However, most of the people living in the city do not want to be part of it. As of December 2019, more than 75% of the Hong Kong population considers themselves more as Hong-Kongers than Chinese. The contradiction between the Hong Kong nation and the totalitarian Chinese state has resulted in various frictions between the city and its host, reflected by the continuous civil unrests in the city, such as the on-going protests in the city since mid-2019. With no signs of reconciliation in sight, more than 40% of the Hong Kong population, which converts into 3 million people, considers leaving the city. The most popular emigration destinations are Canada, Australia, Britain, and Taiwan. 

Seeing the assimilation of Hong Kong into China in 2047 and the related large-scale emigration as an inevitable future, this project explores the possibility of a stateless, networked new ‘Hong Kong’ outside of its original territory and proposes the construction of new Hong Kong fragments located in each of the migration hotspots as manifestations of its presence. Programmatically each of the fragments house administrative, archival, commercial and residential functions, coordinating a future Hong Kong identity while archiving the city's memory before they are rewritten. The project further explores the design of a fragment, taking form in a high-density, mixed use complex, using Brisbane, Australia as a site, due to its mirrored but similar climatic conditions.