Hong Kong’s design summit is set to thrill with diverse, accessible offerings

“This year, it’s all about diversity,” says Amy Chow Yuen-mei, project director of BODW in the City, a new wing within the mother ship. In previous years, BODW’s public-facing programme was oriented more towards a design-savvy audience, but Chow says the Hong Kong Design Centre – which organises BODW – wanted to make it more accessible, with events taking place in a variety of retail locations, shopping malls and other spaces. “We want to reach the general public with venues you can see at street level.”

All told, there will be 60-plus BODW in the City public events taking place from December 2 to December 16, and some of them will be hard to miss. French motion graphics designer Kook Ewo has worked with students from the Gobelins school in Paris to bring a series of animations to the illuminated facades of the Empire Centre and Tsim Sha Tsui Centre on the Tsim Sha Tsui East harbourfront. The designs were conceived specifically with these two buildings in mind, “so you might see a character walking and then leap across the street between them”, says Chow.

Most of the events will be staged on a more intimate scale, though. In Cheung Sha Wan, non-profit art organisation ZLAB will be hosting an exhibition of geometric sculptures by designer Ban Zhang. In Central, Alfred Lam, of homeware store L’s Where, is showcasing hand-painted and embroidered wallpaper. Just down the street, from December 12 to 16, high-end furniture shop Atelier A+ will host a 25-person tour of 12 pieces of furniture by some of the world’s most acclaimed designers.

Highlights include Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Willow Chair, an Art Nouveau piece with a distinctive geometrically patterned back that has made it a symbol of early modernist design. There are also two pieces designed by pioneering French designer Charlotte Perriand, who was influenced by the years she spent in Japan during and after World War II. “I really admire her innovative approach to materials, influential collaboration with Le Corbusier and unwavering commitment to functional, accessible design,” says Atelier A+ founder Anita Lin. Perriand’s work spanned nearly 70 years and it “significantly shaped modern interior design, particularly in the realm of open-plan living spaces”, she notes.

Perriand’s Nuage Cabinet, which debuted in 1956 and is still produced by furniture brand Cassina, is a storage system inspired by traditional Japanese architecture, with sliding panels and modular components. The Mexique Table, designed in 1952, was created for student dormitories, reflecting Perriand’s commitment to high-quality design for everyone.

Across the harbour, another exhibition highlights grass-roots Hong Kong vernacular. Design office Bone Studio has transformed the Yau Ma Tei neighbourhood’s buildings and cultural artefacts into a series of needle-felt handicrafts that will be exhibited in the Tung Nam Lou Art Hotel, where studio founder, Boni Chow, will also lead felting workshops. “My first visit to Yau Ma Tei’s Temple Street was with my father, who took me to eat claypot rice, and it was also my first time experiencing face reading,” she says, referring to physiognomy, the art of using facial features to judge a person’s character.

But when she started to research Yau Ma Tei’s architec­ture for her exhibition, she realised there was much about the neighbourhood she didn’t know, and she was inspired to delve into its history as a fishing village that became Kowloon’s trading hub after the peninsula was ceded to Britain in 1860. She notes that its name, which translates to “oil and jute ground”, refers to how fishermen would lubricate their woven jute ropes with pine oil.

Chow says that representing Yau Mei Tei through needle-felt crafts, each piece of which is made with “about 150,000 hand stitches”, is a way to bring the area’s visual and material culture to life. Among the design objects represented in felt are classic cha chaan teng-style teacups and street signs, along with architectural landmarks such as the Yau Ma Tei Theatre, the Gwo Laan fruit market and the 160-year-old Tin Hau Temple.