OPEN HOUSE

Open House is the culmination of 2 weeks research of shop-houses while studying abroad in Hong Kong. These important yet often neglected pieces of Hong Kong’s history often remain disengaged from their dense urban context. Through study, documentation and then adaptation, Open House seeks to reengage its context. Moves of addition and splitting work together to open the shop-house’s facade to its adjacent ally, becoming a community space the light of which spills and invites its context to look inward and re-investigating neglected histories of Hong Kong’s early 20th century. Nested among the towering skyscrapers of Hong Kong’s financial district, Open House challenges antiquated ideology concerning preservation, arguing that to preserve memory often requires a revitalization which engages the contemporary with the historic.