Pictured above is the Zen “garden” at Indeed Tokyo’s offices

Last month, Herman Miller held its annual Liveable Office Award in Hong Kong, raising awareness of what great workspace design can look like. Demonstrating particular creativity and innovation were the Japanese entrants; four design firms from Japan made it into the final round, with all four going on to place and/or win across different categories of the awards. Here, we take a look at how Japan’s winning designers are changing the way we work.

People’s Choice Award

Tokyo-based Flooat Inc. won the People’s Choice Award for their work on the offices for Donuts Co. Ltd Inc., a fast-growing IT services company. For the People’s Choice Award, staff from the workspaces entered in the Liveable Office Award voted for their offices, and the office that was most popular with its employees won.

Different ways of working are available to staff at Donuts Inc.

Flooat Inc. met with the client three times a week over a four-month period, and one of the key words they heard was “factory”, which they felt reflected the idea that they were building products and services. Flooat Inc. gave the space a raw, industrial feel that has the potential to change and develop over time. At the entrance, there is even a shipping container that serves as a meeting space.

“Now they have a variety of meeting rooms, refreshment areas, and also more collaborative spaces,” says Yumika Yoshida, Designer at Flooat Inc. There are fixed workstations, there is a cafe area, a stand-up meeting space and an open area for hackathons and other events. “The office gives the workers lots of options and ways of working, depending on their projects, on the way they’re feeling, and whether they need to focus.”

Refreshment and cafe areas sit alongside meeting rooms at Donuts Inc.

Commercial Business – Workspace Design Award

Flooat Inc. also won the Commercial Business – Workspace Design award, and Cosmos More Co., Ltd took second place in this category for their work on Indeed Tokyo’s offices. Indeed Tokyo is a tech company with a leading jobs site, and the office Cosmos More was tasked with creating was purely for the engineers in the business.

“A lot of the engineers said they wanted to change their working mode, so we created the turn-on mode and turn-off mode,” says the Cosmos More design team. “Their office is on a high floor, on the 32nd floor, so it takes a while for them to get outside to take a break.” To resolve this, Cosmos More “put the work functions in the centre of the office space, and we put various set-ups around it that would make it look and feel like they were outside.”

The cafe area at Indeed Tokyo’s offices

Surrounding the central workstations are refresh and relax spaces, designed with “OFF-Time” in mind. Here, there is a Zen-style “garden” complete with pebble cushions and lights, there is a ping pong table, a pool table, and there are pinball machines and hammocks. In addition, there is a special zashiki area for guests to wait in; there is a climbing wall, and a resort-style restaurant area. We tried to create a space that was completely different from the atmosphere you would find in an office,” say the designers about the resort area, which benefits from stunning views over Tokyo.

To separate the spaces for “ON-Time” and “OFF-Time”, Cosmos More used latticework and different types of flooring. The resulting spaces let the engineers switch modes very quickly, say the designers. “For the first 30 minutes, they might work on coding. The next 30 minutes, they might go climbing. The next 30 minutes, they will work again. And then the next 30 minutes, they might have lunch with their colleagues. They mix work and lifestyle together, and it helps them communicate better with each other.”

Ping pong and pool are on offer at Indeed Tokyo

Small Medium Business Award

This year’s Liveable Office Award also included a Small Medium Business award that applied to offices and co-working spaces. Draft design & artplay Co. won this award for their design for the Tokyo offices of Wantedly, Inc. The client in this case has a social recruiting platform and they provide support services for job seekers and students. They wanted to redesign their existing space so that they could expand their career support seminar and workshop offering, a challenge Draft met and surpassed in creating a large, open area that would cater to varied numbers of people, and various conference rooms. Now, there is space for collaboration and communication, as well as focused individual work.

The second prize in this case went to Signal Design for their efforts on Tenoha Daikanyama. This Daikanyama, Tokyo, based facility is only temporary, here for five years until Tokyu Land Corporation redevelops the area.

To make use of this area in the interim, Tokyu Land Corporation brought Signal Design on board, tasking them with “creating a new style of work, a new style of living,” says the Signal Design team. The resulting facility features a co-working space, interiors stores, galleries, a restaurant and cafes that change their look from day to night.

Interiors shopping at Tenoha Daikanyama, with views onto the central courtyard

Initially, the Signal Design team weren’t sure who would come to Tenoha Daikanyama, or if anyone would come at all. “Now it’s a really popular place,” they say, with corporate parties, photo shoots and filming happening here on a regular basis.

Signal Design works out of the co-working space so they have had the opportunity to see firsthand how people use Tenoha Daikanyama. Says the Signal Design team, “It’s really encouraged us to go further.”

The co-working space at Tenoha Daikanyama

The Liveable Office Award was held on 19 May 2016 in Hong Kong. It is an independent award instigated by Herman Miller Asia-Pacific, and it sees submissions from all over Asia – entrants come from Japan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Australia and more.

Herman Miller
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Liveable Office Award
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The above image is of Jiang Wu’s ‘Cloud Walk’

Scarcity of land, overwhelming real estate prices and fast-paced life are just a few of the issues that affect Hong Kong’s cityscape, resulting in an often-homogenous skyline. In response to this, Sky Spaces brings a breath of fresh air to our high-rise setting. An exhibition of works by architecture firm Benoy’s global staff, Sky Spaces challenges the repetitive nature of vertical construction in the city.

The exhibition is the result of an internal competition at Benoy, and it is part of the Peter McCaffery Fellowship, in memory of the architecture firm’s former Global Director. The competition is based around a live site located in Kowloon Bay; supported by Swire Properties, the competition required participants to design a mixed-used tower embracing green planning principles from Singapore. Designers from Benoy´s offices all around the world participated in the competition, and the two winners and two runners-up have just been announced. The first winning entry is by Jiang Wu (Benoy’s Shanghai Studio), entitled ‘Cloud Walk’. It is based on the idea of innovative, sky-high shared greenery for the general public. The second winning entry, by Jess Wilkinson and Clarissa Wenborn (Benoy’s Newark Studio, UK), is called ‘Street in the Sky’, and it takes the streetscape to higher levels, with a sky park and more.

Winning entry ‘Street in the Sky’ by Jess Wilkinson and Clarissa Wenborn

There were 42 submissions from Benoy’s global offices, with the two sets of winners receiving £7,500 to travel wherever they want in the world, and the runners-up receiving a two-night Tokyo trip that allows them to discover the city’s approach to high-rise architecture.

“Swire Properties kindly offered their live site in Kowloon Bay as the basis of our fictional studies for this competition,” says Simon Bee, Managing Director of Global Design at Benoy. “Kowloon Bay is a great setting for the competition, as it is undergoing its own transformation as a regenerative district and future CBD for Hong Kong. The twist to the brief was obviously the introduction of Singapore’s planning principles. Bringing this into the brief means we can see the impact of these planning principles within a new context.”

Hieu Dao and Javier de Santiago, from Benoy’s Singapore office, were runners-up with ‘Amethyst HK’

The competition is based around hypothetical ideas, but perhaps the ideas that come out of it will start shaping Hong Kong’s future urban landscape. “For Benoy, this process has been about exploring the concept hypothetically and experimenting with the idea as designers,” says Bee. “We see our initiative as starting a conversation and sparking interest in how we shape and humanise tall buildings now, and in the future.”

Kin Chun Ma and Charlotte Law, from Benoy in Hong Kong, were also runners-up, with ‘Green Torque’

Sky Spaces will be on show at the Anita Chan Lai-ling Gallery, the Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, on 15 and 16 June 2016. From 20 June to 1 July 2016, the exhibition will move to the Link Bridge at Lincoln House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay.

Benoy
benoy.com

The Fringe Club
Hkfringeclub.com

Taikoo Place
Taikooplace.com

Founded in Melbourne in 1987, Aesop has always been about creating beautiful skin and hair care products using plant-based materials and laboratory-made ingredients. Its scents are distinctive and recognised all over Asia, as are its brown bottles. Something Aesop is also known for is its approach to the design of its stores; authenticity is key, particularly with respect to the culture and craftsmanship of the environment each of their stores sits in. Here, the brand’s design team gives us the inside scoop on what it takes to create an authentic Aesop store. They talk us through the process behind Aesop Fashion Walk in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, and Aesop Galaxy at Galaxy Macau’s shopping mall.

How does the design process usually start at Aesop?

Usually the architect on each store project will receive a document from Dennis [Paphitis, Aesop’s Founder]. Mostly it’s about two literature readings. The first is In Praise of Shadows, by Junichiro Tanizaki.

The second is by Dennis himself, he writes about what he thinks good design means. There are three key terms here: being sincere, being authentic, and being timeless. Timelessness is mostly about looking at the culture of a place in a broader sense. Materials that have come from the region that store is located in, and a culture of technique that has been cultivated in that region. It’s about craftsmanship.

A hand-made copper basin at Aesop Fashion Walk

How did this happen with the Aesop Fashion Walk store?

Our store at Fashion Walk has been there since 2014. We were thinking we should give new life to it. We knew that we had a very large facade, and that the facade needed to be ventilated, as our shop is right under the shopping mall’s exhaust fan. If we wanted to have a cool façade, we had to make it as porous as possible so that the mall would allow us to place something over the exhaust fan. We also had to do lots of technical drawings to show the mall how it would look and function.

The team of contractors was thinking about using metal. These days, people use metal that has been pre-fabricated in factories. These talented young contractors felt it didn’t really showcase what they could do – they can really bend metal!

They bend it by hand using a crank. If you want to put a 90-degree turn in the metal, you have to turn it one full crank. Of course, you can’t control the curve; metal is very lively, especially brass and copper. This is where the whole idea for the facade started.

The curving metal facade at Aesop Fashion Walk

What inspired the design for Aesop Galaxy?

Galaxy Macau a nice shopping mall, but the context is not very relevant to Aesop. We like wine, but gambling is not really on-brand. So from the beginning, we wanted to make ourselves disappear but more aggressively. We wanted to “aggressively disappear”!

We looked at the work of Doug Wheeler, [among others]. He’s a very well-known installation artist, who knows how to make things disappear by manipulating light.

Manipulating light at Aesop Galaxy

How did you apply these ideas to Aesop Galaxy, and what was the build process like?

We started exploring materials once the concept was confirmed. We knew we would have this white plaster wall with a mirror that disappears, but this is quite standard. What was different was that we invented our own terrazzo. We needed something unique at Aesop Galaxy, but also something safe and polished, given the high traffic coming through the store.

In Guangzhou, a lot of the architecture features terrazzo, but the people there no longer make it. We wanted our efforts at Aesop Galaxy to be the most traditional execution, using on-site plastering.

We wanted to have our own unique composition, one that is relevant to Aesop. Our thought process was, If terrazzo is just concrete, then can we put our own Aesop bottles in it? We crushed Aesop’s brown bottles, testing the terrazzo with big, small and large pieces from the bottles.

The terrazzo-covered bench at Aesop Galaxy

We worked very closely with the contractors, and we failed a lot of times. We started to understand the techniques behind terrazzo. And finally we achieved a good result that was very promising, so we deployed it on the site.

The easy part was doing the floor in terrazzo. It was our ambition to make a complex geometric shape using the terrazzo, so we created cardboard models of the shape we had in mind. We then coated the final form on-site in our terrazzo mix.

Aesop
aesop.com

On 24 June 2016, Herman Miller’s design festival, REACH, will take over Nuo Hotel Beijing. This is the first time REACH touches down in Beijing – previously it occurred in Hong Kong in 2011 and Singapore in 2013 – and the first time the international furniture manufacturer takes a multi-city approach to the event.

“Each event location – Beijing, Manila, Bangalore, Tokyo and Melbourne – will have its uniqueness in terms of invited speakers, market focus and business drivers,” explains Georgina Zhou, Head of Marketing, Work Business, Herman Miller Asia Pacific. “This year, we will focus on business drivers and how we can help turn the workspace into a strategic tool for organisational prosperity.”

REACH is all about connecting the design community in each of the cities where it is happening. In Beijing, those attending will have the opportunity to test new products, including Herman Miller’s next-generation smart desking solution, T2; they will experience Living Office and Passport firsthand; and they can trial new products from POSH, a Herman Miller company, such as Activity and Optimis.

Herman Miller’s next-generation smart desk, T2

In addition, attendees will be able to interact with thought leaders and hear what they have to say about key industry issues and trends. Speaking in Beijing are Richard Stevens of Forpeople, Ray Yuen and Amanda Stanaway from Woods Bagot, Jun Xiao from ID Workplace + Strategy, among others. An invitation-only dinner on China Innovation will also feature talks by several speakers. Alexander van Kemenade from the Economist Intelligence Unit will speak about artificial intelligence and its impact on business, Samantha Giam, Director of Marketing and Living office, Herman Miller APAC will speak about logos and branding, and Shaun Rein of China Market Research Group will speak on the end of copying in China.

“REACH takes a holistic approach to design, not only in terms of products, but also by acting as a platform for exchanging insights and knowledge with the A&D community,” says Zhou. “REACH will look at how design affects and improves our environment, including working, living and healing.”

Visitors to REACH Beijing will have the opportunity to experience POSH’s Activity chair and Optimis desking solution, both pictured above

Under discussion at REACH will be trends Herman Miller and fellow industry leaders are seeing in the workplace. “The trend is shifting from separating work from life to combining work and life in the liveable office,” says Zhou. “In our recent Liveable Office Award competition, we were happy to see that a growing number of both global companies and local enterprises are aware of the importance of the workplace environment in driving productivity and retaining talent.”

REACH will run from 10am to 6pm on 24 June 2016 at Nuo Hotel Beijing. REACH will then head to Manila on 21 July, followed by Bangalore on 28 July, Tokyo on 4 August, and Melbourne on 15 September. Attendees at each event will be able to plug in to wi-fi-equipped Jumpspaces so they can work, play, connect and listen.

Herman Miller
hermanmillerreach.com
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Top Image: Motional In-Architecture – Circle by Gary Hon 

The Hong Kong Designers Association (HKDA) marks 40 years of design advocacy with a new award incepted to spur on local design students. Titled HKDA Design NextGen Awards (DNA), the new scheme is essentially the student version of the coveted HKDA Global Design Awards.

Young designers were given the opportunity to flex their creative muscles. Submitted works spanned multiple fields of design, including Spatial & Environmental, Product and Graphic design. Out of over a hundred entrants, seven students emerged winners. Lai Yiu Sing received the Gold honour for his creative typeface, inspired by the architectural features of the Chinese temple, while Charles Lai received Silver for his branding proposal revolving around the simple fishing village culture of Tai O.

Temple-Type by Lai Yiu Sing

Gary Hon received the Bronze award for Motional In-Architecture, which comprises public seating inspired by basic geometry. The project generated three playful platforms designed for people to interact with one another, as well as with a physical environment that escapes the confinements of small living quarters in Hong Kong. The emotional experiment was born out of Hon’s views on the decline of the human touch and face-to-face communication due to the rise of virtual connections. Hon is a registered architect in Hong Kong and the co-founder of WOWOW Studio.

Motional In-Architecture – Square (patent pending) by Gary Hon

Izk Chan was awarded Excellence for Tranquil Resonance, a prototype of the Multi-Faith Space (MFS) Cultural Centre of Religion. The MFS is located at Tuen Mun River estuary – the birthplace of many early religious developments in Hong Kong. Chan extracted patterns from a synthesised track bearing traditional and popular music derived from various religions to form the geometric layout of the architectural design, resulting in an environment that promotes cultural unity.

Other winners of the Excellence award were Sophie Tang for her branding design of a tea merchandise and Kelly Lau’s fashion design inspired by Wu Zetian.

Tranquil Resonance by Izk Chan

Bagging the Full-Brain Innovator award, Gap Chung’s Unplanned Green Block centres on the use of unremarkable, but adaptive wild plants for urban landscaping. Having observed that the city currently uses purchased ‘ornamental plants’ that rarely survive harsh urban conditions, Chung’s Unplanned Green Block revolves around wild vegetation, such as moss and fern, which are self-sustainable and tolerant to urban pollution. His landscape designs of pavement blocks, alley and highway interventions offer a cost-effective, low-maintenance and ecologically viable solution for greening in the city.

Unplanned Green Block by Gary Chung

An output of DNA 2016, the Next Design Exhibition showcases the works of 20 finalists. Encouraging students and young designers to constantly refine their work, the ‘Next Design’ theme was borrowed from Argentine architecture and industrial design master Emilio Ambasz, who famously said, “when an architect [and a designer] is asked what his best building [and work] is, he usually answers, ‘The next one.’”

The Best Design Educator Awards also made its debut this year, recognising motivational design tutors.

The Next Design Exhibition is held from 22 June to 5 July 2016 at the Art Mall Atrium, G/F, K11, 18 Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

The above image is of collaborative areas at one of J.P. Morgan’s offices. Merx was engaged to work on this project

Some of you may have participated in the Merx Wellness Insight we posted a while back. Driven by Merx, an independent consultancy specialising in project management, construction management, cost management and more, in conjunction with Indesign Media, the Wellness Insight was designed to gauge how workplace wellness is manifesting in businesses across the Asia-Pacific.

Merx compiled the results of the Insight in a whitepaper, which they recently released. Titled Wellness in the Workplace, the paper shows how wellness is coming through in the workplace in Asia, as well as looking at how it impacts on staff physically, psychologically and sociologically. The whitepaper also provides examples of industry benchmarks and standards that will show companies across the region how they stack up against their peers.

Ergonomics in the workplace is one of the issues the Wellness in the Workplace whitepaper addresses. There is, says the whitepaper, “a real opportunity for organisations to focus on enhancing ergonomics.” While 68 percent of respondents to the Wellness Insight said their company provides some sort of ergonomic set-up, there are still 32 percent of respondents who say their company provides no ergonomic at-desk set-up. And 48 percent of respondents stated that their company provides no sit-to-stand desks.

Ergonomic seating at EDB’s offices. Merx consulted on this project

“There is a direct correlation between ergonomics and productivity. If you’re comfortable at a desk, you’re going to work more efficiently,” explains Paul Scroggie, Director, Hong Kong, Macau and PRC, for Merx. “Why wouldn’t an organisation make absolutely sure that ergonomics were factored into their workspace? It’s such an easy hit.”

He does, however, point out that 20 percent of respondents said their companies provide sit-to-stand desk facilities for all staff. “They are typically twice the price of a normal desk, so that’s pretty amazing,” he says.

Scroggie was particularly intrigued by the results in relation to flexible working. “Nearly 40 percent of respondents said their organisations did not have a formal or informal flexible working policy in place,” he says. Indeed, only 32 percent of respondents said their company provided formal flexible working policies. “To provide some sort of flexible working policy is really a no brainer in this day and age,” he says.

There are plenty of ways of working at WPP. Merx was also involved in their Singapore project

The Wellness Insight conducted by Merx in collaboration with Indesign also looked at attitudes to flexible working, asking respondents to state whether they agreed or disagreed that it’s a commonly held belief that flexible working increases productivity. “Only 32 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed – there’s a big blank area there,” says Scroggie.

This is something the Merx whitepaper addresses. “Flexible working is clearly the way of the future. Both in terms of access to a variety of settings combined with a more informed view towards working hours and location,” it says.

Flexible ways of working at BHP’s offices, which Merx consulted on

According to the whitepaper, organisations that struggle to retain talent will find it harder to stay competitive. “Effective wellness programmes will become increasingly more important in retaining top talent,” states the report.

A third key finding from the Insight related to employee value. With 36 percent reporting that employee value is not a core consideration at their organisation, there is plenty of room for growth. This was a result that surprised Scroggie. “How could it not be a core consideration?” he asks.
Other findings related to work-life balance, collaborative spaces and more, with 79 percent of respondents saying their company offers some form of collaborative space, and 54 percent of respondents saying their company provides no snacks or fresh fruit. “Coffee supply is universal,” says Scroggie. “But at what quality? Providing a really good coffee machine in your collaborative area is a gravitational pull.”

Placing a great coffee machine in your collaborative area is a gravitational pull, says Scroggie. Pictured are LukOil’s offices, which Merx worked on

Scroggie and Merx as a whole have plenty of suggestions for how organisations can improve staff wellness – physically, psychologically and sociologically – and therefore retain and attract talent. These are summarised in the whitepaper as determining the needs of your employees; developing a structured action plan and measuring the effectiveness of that plan once actioned.

As part of the Wellness Insight run by Merx and Indesign, several participants will receive one of three fantastic prizes. Alice Chan from Hong Kong will receive the Disc or Horizon light, courtesy of Humanscale, while Owen Warne from Singapore will receive the ON chair, courtesy of Wilkhahn, and Alexander Bangel from Hong Kong will receive the Panton C1 chair, courtesy of JEB. Prize recipients will be contacted directly.

To read Merx’s whitepaper, Wellness in the Workplace, click here.

Merx
Merxcm.com

Pictured above is “In Matter and Memory”, 2016, which will be on show at Art Projects Gallery from 25 June 

Hong Kong’s public transport system was the source of inspiration for Singaporean artist Sarah Choo Jing’s latest exhibition, Flights of the Mind. The exhibition will be on show at Art Projects Gallery at PMQ from 25 June, and it is the artist’s first in Hong Kong.

A graduate of London’s Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, the artist is widely regarded as one to watch. She works with photography, videography and painting, and her powerful multimedia works have seen her win various awards regionally and internationally.

Multimedia installation “Waiting for the Elevator”, 2014, looked at “the social purposes of … sheltered environments”. This image and others were projected around the Esplanade Tunnel in Singapore

“When Art Projects Gallery invited me to do an exhibition here, I wanted to do a body of work about Hong Kong,” says Choo. Her haunting work focuses on spaces and time and the relationship between them, so it seems quite natural that Hong Kong’s MTR and tram system sparked the idea for this particular show.

“We share common issues in busy cities like London, New York and Hong Kong: it’s about being in transit, starting somewhere and ending up somewhere else,” she says. “The act of traversing through time is not just physical. A lot of times, people leave their bodies mentally.”

Sarah Choo Jing

One of the main pieces in this show is a work titled “In Matter and Memory”. This haunting image is a composite of many different MTR stations, showing everyone from clowns to businessmen gravitating towards a map of the MTR’s stations. “Everyone was facing the map as if it was telling them what to do. They were searching for direction, but not going anywhere,” she says. “Over time, you begin to construct a mental map, a collection of favoured destinations and preferred routes: a labyrinth no other person could ever precisely duplicate nor reproduce. Loneliness, I began to realise, was a populated place: a city in itself.”

Flights of the Mind runs from 25 June to 24 July 2016 at Art Projects Gallery, Unit S510, 5/F, Block A, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central. The gallery is open from 1 to 8pm daily.

Sarah Choo Jing
sarahchoojing.com

Art Projects Gallery
artprojectsgallery.com

Pictured above is a composite building located on Hoi King Street, photographed by Hoyin

Composite buildings are a core element of the everyday cityscape in Hong Kong, and they form the basis of photographer Michael Wolf’s book, Hong Kong Corner Houses, and of a talk by architectural conservation proponent Dr. Lee Ho Yin on 16 June 2016.

Defined in Hong Kong’s Buildings Ordinance as buildings that are “partly domestic and partly non-domestic”, composite buildings belong in a category where Architects with a capital A don’t matter that much. The reality in this case is that architects whose names we may never heard of probably struggled with regulations and practicalities to provide housing in a city where undersupply has been a problem ever since the 1950s.

Mei Wah Building, photographed by Hoyin

Wolf’s book offers a fresh perspective on these sometimes-mundane buildings, categorising them by their soft, rounded corners. It was through this project that Dr. Lee Ho Yin (‘Hoyin’), Head of the Division of Architectural Conservation at The University of Hong Kong and Associate Professor, started a collaborative friendship with the photographer. This friendship has even inspired lectures by Hoyin on the building typology and its relevance in Hong Kong. The most recent of these talks was held in June; it was run by the Hong Kong Institute of Architectural Conservationists (HKICON) and hosted by The University of Hong Kong.

According to Hoyin, the Buildings Ordinance definition refers to buildings designed for mixed use, with shops on the ground floor and residential units on the upper floors that are also used for production or service-based businesses. Sitting at about 10 floors tall, these buildings feature cantilevered balconies and the distinctive, round corners Wolf highlighted in his book.

1 Babbington Path, photographed by Hoyin

The corners have their own story, explains Hoyin: “They are just the projection of the sidewalks in what had originally been the verandahs of the units. Because they were not closed, the owners and developers didn’t have to pay a premium on the land. As time passed and the housing shortage continued, policy makers decided to tolerate this enclosure of the balconies. That’s why what we see today seems to be a continuous façade with roundish corners.”

The reasons for the existence of these composite buildings in the first place are political, economic and spatial. The first relates to the Communist liberation of China and the influx of Chinese refugees into Hong Kong. There was also the import-export embargo that the city suffered after the outbreak of the Korean War, marking the beginning of the era of industrialisation – an occurrence that turned Hong Kong from entrepôt to factory.

Tung Fat Building, Kennedy Town, photographed by Hoyin

From a spatial point of view, the existing Chinese buildings (or tong laus) were not big enough to solve the housing needs of the time. In 1955, the Buildings’ Ordinance allowed construction to rise up to nine floors without a lift; developers therefore saw huge potential and they didn’t hesitate to invest in the construction of composite buildings.

Parmanand House in Tsim Sha Tsui, photographed by Hoyin

Today, it’s estimated that there are more than 50,000 of these across Hong Kong. Their existence is threatened, however, due to the compulsory sale of buildings over 50 years old, which has seen many of them knocked down. Despite this, solutions are coming to light: some examples have been renovated to cater to new needs for urban dwellers. Tung Fat Building in Kennedy Town is now home to a series of apartments and a Mexican restaurant, Chino, while Parmanand House in Tsim Sha Tsui has been revived by Sino Group.

Hong Kong Institute of Architectural Conservationists
hkicon.org

The University of Hong Kong
hku.hk

Pictured above is the entrance to one of the buildings at St Olav’s Hospital, Norway. Here, wheelchair ramps and steps intersect in a design that is both functional and beautiful

This year, Hong Kong’s Knowledge of Design Week (KoDW) was all about the impact good design can have in the healthcare and wellness industries. Onny Eikhaug, Programme Leader, Design for All, at the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DOGA), was invited by Hong Kong Design Centre and event sponsors such as Create Hong Kong to be one of 20-odd speakers on this subject.

KoDW is an annual event that sees experts and stakeholders come together to share ideas, present best practices and debate the ways in which design can and should benefit the world. Under discussion at this year’s KoDW, hosted at Hotel ICON, was how design can enhance sustainability and quality of life in the face of rising urban density.

Responsible for promoting design for all as a tool for innovation through programmes such as The Innovation Award for Universal Design, Eikhaug spoke at KoDW about the value of design that’s accessible to everyone – no matter how old or young they are, and no matter what their physical or mental capabilities are. Here, she talks about why inclusive design is so important, and the many benefits that can come from taking this approach.

Onny Eikhaug

What is universal design, by your definition?

It’s a philosophy, a strategy and a process, and at many levels. You can have the ideological level based on human conventions. It can also be a very powerful tool for innovation. When you know your customers, you will get insights you can translate into concepts and new ideas. It’s a very rich source of inspiration for innovation.

When you talk about universal design in the official sense of the word, it’s about making sure products and environments are designed in a way that includes the widest range of people without any special adaptation. These solutions should be compatible with the mainstream solution. When you take into consideration that people have different levels of mobility, and different backgrounds, your solutions will be more robust and more inclusive. That in itself is very cost effective and efficient. As someone said in the St Olav’s video, it’s necessary for some, but better for everyone.

And when you start designing this way, you realise that your solutions are smart and better for everyone, and there’s no stigma involved. It’s easier to use a solution when it’s intuitive, and when you have different ways of accessing it. There’s also a lot of time saving with smart solutions. It’s really logical: why should you make solutions that only a part of the population can use?

St Olav’s Hospital, one of winners of Norway’s 2015 Innovation Award for Universal Design

What is the value of statistics versus emotion?

You cannot avoid statistics, and big data will give you a lot of information. You can get data about the fact that everyone is travelling at 10am, but you don’t know why or how. When you start asking people these questions and finding out why, you will end up with solutions that are much more innovative.

But I think that both are important… I think you really need to start with user research.

St Olav’s was one of the winners of the Innovation for All Award in 2015. It was a huge, 10-year project; how did they successfully deliver on their promise to create an inclusively designed hospital?

They had a very dedicated project team involving management from the very start. They agreed on a vision, on guidelines and design principles that were not to be debated. You have to have stamina and fight for those guidelines. Sometimes there were conflicting interests, and sometimes they had to involve other people in solving those interests.

To give you an example, in Norway, there is a lot of snow and slippery ice; we have very cold winters. St Olav’s had this parking for people with disability. They had agreed there needed to be these ice- and snow-free zones so that anyone could get from the parking to the hospital with ease. But in the end, they hadn’t done that. How can you have an inclusively designed hospital when people can’t get from their car to the hospital? Not acceptable, so they had to redo it. And sometimes the wall-hung toilets were at the wrong height. So they had to tear them down and do them again.

The St Olav’s team said, however, that because they were really well planned, most of the time they got it right first time. They didn’t compromise, and they stuck to their guidelines. The people representing the user groups were always on the project team – they were there making decisions. If they were just consulted and other people were making the decisions, they would probably have compromised when it came to those really difficult decisions.

Accessibility for all at St Olav’s

In your talk at KoDW, you also spoke about a hypoallergenic hotel in Norway. Tell us more….

The hotel’s design had positive impacts they didn’t foresee. They did this allergy friendly design with the guests in mind, but they didn’t anticipate the impact it would have on their staff. The staff found they didn’t need to take heavy allergy medicine, so they ended up taking less sick leave.

This hotel has become very popular for conferences because it can accommodate all sorts of guests, and also for staff as well.

It is also a good example because it busts one of the myths about universal design, which is that universal design is ugly and not aesthetically attractive. This hotel proves that it’s not true. It’s just perfectly designed, it’s beautiful.

Knowledge of Design Week
kodw.org

The Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture
doga.no

Pictured above is The Blue House by Choy Yat Chun Anthony, pen on paper, Wan Chai, 2014

SKETCH Hong Kong’s 2016 exhibition will open tomorrow, 1 July, at Pacific Place, presenting a fresh perspective on Hong Kong’s architectural and cultural heritage. The exhibition showcases 58 works of art, from sketches to watercolour paintings, that demonstrate the talent of a range of amateur artists, and they depict historical buildings all over the city, as well as restaurants, markets and traditional Hong Kong dishes.

SKETCH Hong Kong is an original initiative dreamed up by Calvin Hui and his team at Arts in Heritage Research. Hui is an avid supporter of art in Hong Kong: in addition to being the Founder and Chairman of Arts in Heritage Research, he is Co-Chairman and Director of Fine Art Asia, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of 3812 Contemporary Art Projects, and much more.

Fung Kin Fan’s Red Cover Cloth of the Fruit Market, watercolour on paper, Yau Ma Tei, 2016

“When I started Arts in Heritage Research, the mission and vision was to build awareness in local communities of Hong Kong heritage and culture,” says Hui. “My team and I did some brainstorming, and we found that sketching is a good activity: it’s easy to participate in, it’s very engaging. We can also spin off many different multi-dimensional products, book launches and exhibitions.”

Since its launch in 2014, SKETCH Hong Kong has taken sketching enthusiasts on cultural and sketching tours to sites all over Hong Kong, including Peng Chau, Sai Ying Pun, Lei Yue Mun, and many more. This year, the tours have taken a different route, zooming in on Hong Kong food and its cultural significance. This year’s food theme is the result of a unique programme sponsored by leading German home appliance brand Miele.

Tai Wing Wah Restaurant in Yuen Long, pencil on paper, by Irene Flanhardt, 2015

“We like to invest in initiatives that are a little bit different, and we like to give back to the local community,” says Richard Green, Miele’s Marketing Director. “Miele being quite involved in the food scene, we thought this programme would be a lovely way to reflect the old cooking techniques and heritage of Hong Kong cuisine.”

Estate’s Appearance, pencil on paper, Leung Shui Wan, Shatin 2014

Adds Hui, “Sometimes I think people forget our old, unique identity, they’re searching for it everywhere, and actually it’s all around us. This is our home. For me, SKETCH Hong Kong is about education, especially for the younger generation. We’ve grown up in this fast developing city, and a lot of our heritage and the city itself are being washed away because of development.”

Green agrees: “If there’s that recognition of Hong Kong’s unique identity through small projects like this, you do start to build and education and an awareness of how unique Hong Kong is.”

SKETCH Hong Kong Exhibition 2016 will run  from 1 to 10 July 2016 at Level 2, Pacific Place (near Kelly & Walsh), 88 Queensway. From 15 to 30 July 2016, the exhibition will be on show at 3821 Gallery, G/F, 118 Queen’s Road West, Sai Ying Pun. Limited edition prints of each of the 58 sketches are available for sale at both exhibitions, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Hong Kong Society for Education in Art.

SKETCH Hong Kong
sketchhongkong.org.hk

Miele
miele.hk

Pictured above is the former runway at Kai Tak, now set to be home to a cruise terminal, public park, hospital and more

Until 1998, Hong Kong’s international airport sat right on Victoria Harbour, and those on the waterfront on Hong Kong side could watch planes as they landed. By the time it closed, the airport was showing its age. It had been built in the 1950s, and even as early as the 1980s there were issues with overcrowding, as well as curfews imposed due to its urban location. Finally, a year after the Hong Kong Handover, the city’s airport facilities moved to Chek Lap Kok and the reclaimed land the old airport was situated on lay dormant for well over a decade.

It might not have looked like much was happening on the site until 2007, but discussions were well underway about how the land could be repurposed. “Ever since Kai Tak Airport moved to Chek Lap Kok, there has been debate about how the area could be used. It’s a very long public discussion,” says Li Kiu-yin, Michael, Chief Project Manager, Architectural Services Department, HKSAR.

Michael Li

Li spoke at this year’s Knowledge of Design Week (KoDW), an annual event that sees experts and stakeholders come together to share ideas, present best practices and debate the ways in which design can and should benefit the world. Under discussion at this year’s KoDW, hosted at Hotel ICON in June 2016, was how design can enhance sustainability and quality of life in the face of rising urban density.

In his talk at KoDW, given in conjunction with Dr. Simon Kwan, Chairman of Simon Kwan & Associates Ltd., the architecture firm designing the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital, which will be located within the 3-hectare zone that is the runway park at Kai Tak. The hospital is one of the key aspects of this project, an area now referred to as Kowloon East. The regeneration project is due for completion in 2017, while the hospital, which will be the Hospital Authority’s main source of paediatric care in the city, is set to open in 2018.

The Hong Kong’s Children’s Hospital will house research and admin in one wing, and paediatric care facilities in the other

Kwan pointed out in their talk that the Hong Kong Government has set aside HK$200 billion over the next 10 years to implement hospital developments, growing the number of public hospitals in the city to 320, adding 90 additional operating theatres, and increasing the number of hospital beds by 5,000.

Kwan and Li both expressed concern over  whether the development and design process can keep up with technology. “For hospitals, technology is moving much faster [than other industries]. It’s like your iPhone; in a few years, your technology will be obsolete,” says Li, speaking to IDLHK after the presentation. “Will it be state of the art after 10 or 20 years? As Dr. Kwan was saying, things like MRI could be out of date – there will be something newer.”

When it comes to other aspects of the Kai Tak regeneration project – such as the promenade that will run the length of the runway park and beyond, extending for 11km – technological developments are not so much of an issue. And, as Li points out, parts of the promenade are already open to the public. “We’re building it in stages, you learn in the process. We can see how people enjoy it and we can improve along the way.”

The promenade at Kowloon East 

As well as the promenade, the area will feature a large, open green area, a centralised district cooling system and a museum showcasing ancient artefacts found in the area.

Kowloon East’s history as Hong Kong’s international airport will not be forgotten, either: the shape of the runway will be left intact. “There was a suggestion that they should fill the channels in between, but they didn’t in the end,” says Li. The yellow-and-black checkered squares that acted as signals for incoming and outgoing airplanes will also stay put.

“If you get rid of them, people will say, ‘Why are you knocking this down? It’s part of my past’,” says Li. “We have to think about how you deal with these collective memories.”

KoDW
kodw.org

Energizing Kowloon East
ekeo.gov.hk

Pictured above is the cafe area at Indeed Tokyo’s offices, designed by Cosmos More. This project came second for Workspace Design in Herman Miller’s 2016 Liveable Office Awards 

Millennials are set to dominate the workforce by 2020, and with 71 percent of them either not engaged or actively disengaged at work, according to a 2015 Gallup Poll, things aren’t looking good for companies looking to attract and retain the best talent. The solution is not as simple as offering better financial rewards, however; while pay is important to Millennials, says a 2016 Millennial Survey by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, there are 14 other factors that come into play – including good work-life balance, flexibility, all of which contribute to a “creative and inclusive culture.”

The Deloitte survey looked at 29 markets, and found that open communication and investment in technology were likely to increase job satisfaction among Millennials.

But embracing digital isn’t everything. A recent Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) report said that millennial-friendly environments should also be creative and comfortable. “Millennials expect to work hard, but they don’t want to sit in a bland cubicle all day. They will be drawn to organisations that offer an engaging, comfortable, and stimulating atmosphere that creatively blends work and life,” says the report, which surveyed 4,364 graduates from 75 countries.

Siren Design created a creative, collaborative workspace for JustCo in Singapore. Siren won the Liveable Feature Award at Herman Miller’s 2016 Liveable Office Award

It’s a finding that is reinforced in a whitepaper produced by project management consultancy Merx off the back of a regional survey conducted in conjunction with Indesign Media. “To build a successful brand today, companies need to show a real commitment to the wellbeing of their talent. It is no surprise, therefore, that the leaders in workplace wellness and agility are also the most respected and admired brands of our time,” argues Merx in Wellness in the Workplace.

According to Wellness in the Workplace, 68 percent of respondents said that their company provides some form of ergonomic desk set-up, an area Merx sees as offering plenty of opportunity for companies to improve their brand image in the eyes of current and potential employees. “There is a direct correlation between ergonomics and productivity. If you’re comfortable at a desk, you’re going to work more efficiently,” explains Paul Scroggie, Director, Hong Kong, Macau and PRC, for Merx. “Why wouldn’t an organisation make absolutely sure that ergonomics were factored into their workspace?”

One easy way to introduce ergonomic set-ups into your workspace is via a desk chair that provides comfort and the best possible support for the human body.

Comfort was a key word in the design process for Activity, a chair created by POSH Design Lab (PDL), a Herman Miller company. Activity’s form maximises comfort by following the human spine and mirroring its movements. “We studied how the body moves and how people interact with each other during their daily work,” explains Jack Liang Wang, Head of Design and Development at PDL.

POSH studied how the human body moves when designing Activity

One of the key outcomes of PDL’s research was Activity’s backrest, Activeback™. Made from MPA (Modified Polymite), a material uses on tires and in activewear, the backrest allows for flexibility in those places where the human back needs maximum range of motion, and rigidity where it needs stability.

The backrest may be an exciting innovation for the industry, but it was also the most challenging aspect of the design and production process, says Wang. “No matter how flexible the human body is, it still requires different levels of support at different locations. It’s not enough to simply create a backrest that wraps around the human body; the backrest also needs to show flexibility where the body needs to move and rigidity where the body needs protection.”

In the end, the PDL team came up with an innovative solution to this problem. “The Activity backrest consists of many vertical stripes that echo body movement. The whole platform is curved, yet it also comes with a thickness that gradually decreases from the outer rim to the centre in order to fully wrap, embrace and secure the user’s upper body,” says Wang.

Activity is designed for movement

Along with the backrest, Activity also features a weight-sensitive tilt mechanism that sees the chair adjust to the body automatically. The armrests also contribute to user comfort, “scaling in all dimensions to fit the user’s individual needs,” says Wang.

Along with ergonomics, another factor that contributes to workplace wellbeing and productivity is sufficient sleep. A NASA study of tired astronauts and military pilots found their performance improved significantly after a 40-minute nap: by as much as 34 percent. Their alertness increased by 100 percent, too.

In addition, a British study found in 2008 that naps were the most effective way of getting over the natural slump in activity that happens in the afternoon. This is a part of our biological circadian rhythm, and using naps to deal with it is apparently more effective than more nighttime sleep or caffeine.

Activity has already taken this into consideration: it comes with an optional, add-on headrest that was designed with daytime snoozes in mind. The headrest comes in padded and non-padded versions, enabling the user to snap padding onto the back of the chair at any time for additional comfort – something that’s sure to appeal to the Millennial in search of a workplace that values their wellbeing and that caters to their comfort.

Activity, pictured with the optional headrest

For PDL, Millennial needs were top-of-mind when they were designing the Activity chair. “New ways of working are leading us to cutting-edge environments that promote collaboration, creativity and productivity. Some of the research out there shows that Millennials spend significantly more time devoted to the discussion of new ideas and ways of working,” says Wang. “We believe flexibility helps to build self-empowerment – especially when it comes to where you work. Activity can help you to focus on those precious moments, by not only letting you concentrate on work on your own, but also providing opportunities to collaborate with other colleagues, and therefore spark great ideas any day, any time.”

Watch this video to find out how one user makes Activity work for him, and find out more about Herman Miller’s Liveable Office Award 2016 here.

POSH
poshworkspace.com

Herman Miller
hermanmiller.com/asia
hermanmillerreach.com

Top Image: The Women installation

‘A Stitch In Time’ showcases the artistic flair and traditional roots of Lebanese design and craft studio Bokja. From now until the end of August, visitors can visit the 3812 gallery to marvel at Bokja’s artistic installations that tell cultural stories, alongside its iconic furniture pieces adorned with ancient textiles and intricate embroidery.

Curated by colourliving, the initiative runs in tandem with the addition of Bokja’s Classic collection to colourliving’s catalogue. Inspired by the textiles, patterns and colours from around the world, Classic include favourites such as the Couture armchair and Eye Candy chair.

Lolita armchair

‘Bokja’ is a Turkish word that refers to a piece of cloth used to wrap the dowry of a bride. The Lebanese brand was founded in 2000 by two women designers Huda Broudi and Maria Hibri, who are respective collectors of ancient textiles from Central Asian and Levantine, and mid-20th-century furniture sourced worldwide. With a mutual passion for fabrics, furniture and handcrafted beauty, every masterpiece by Bokja is made by hand. Employing old material and craft in new methods, the duo seeks to portray the traditional world of Levantine textiles in a contemporary context.

Eye Candy chair

“With the use of colourful and traditional materials, each product portrays careful embroidery and highlights a historic tradition, adding an unprecedented touch of art and heritage to colourliving’s contemporary furniture offerings,” says Denise Lau, the Executive Director of colourliving, of Bokja’s addition to the list of brands it carries.

Happy Tree installation

Visitors to the exhibition at 3812 gallery can also check out the Happy Tree and The Women installations by Bokja.

Based on ancient traditions of hanging wishes on a tree, the Happy Tree was handcrafted in Bokja’s atelier using manipulated fabrics of recycled silk and thread strands, resulting in an intricate wall piece. The Women comprises of four unique pieces: Mother Nature, The Seductress, The Guardian and The Warrior, celebrating the contributions of women.

Bean sofa

The duo’s signature assemblage of fabrics form the artistic skin of its furniture and installations, resulting in bold pieces, be it sofas, armchairs, poufs or decorative installations that imbue spaces with live and beauty.

“We are looking forward to witnessing how Bokja’s playful twist to furniture design will bundle up new stories in Hong Kong homes,” Lau concludes.

‘A Stitch in Time’ exhibition will be showcased at 3812 gallery from now until 31 August 2016.

Bokja furniture is carried by colourliving in Hong Kong.

A Stitch In Time

#1 RHODA: The Power of Three

A talented trio comes together to create this new restaurant in Sai Ying Pun. Joyce Wang and Yenn Wong speak to Tamsin Bradshaw about the ups and downs of designing the neighbourhood eatery, as well as the personality behind the space. Read more.

#2 A Modern Framework For Street Food

Shanghai-based studio Linehouse drew inspiration from a greenhouse to design the spatial narrative of garden-to-plate eatery BAOBAO. Read more.

#3 Urban Barriers As City Connectors

When appointed by the Shenzhen Metro Group to develop a master plan for the Shenzhen Route 6 Chang Zhen Station, Woods Bagot Hong Kong conceived a plan to unite the massive site to enliven the experience of city transits. Read more.

#4 What Millennials Want in the Workplace

The world’s future leaders and CEOs aren’t interested in the traditional, boxy office cubicle and career path. Here’s a glimpse of what it takes to keep Generation Y engaged and happy at work. Read more.

#5 The Future of Kowloon East

At this year’s Knowledge of Design Week, Michael Li, along with Dr. Simon Kwan, spoke about the government’s vision for the area that was once home to Kai Tak Airport. We get a glimpse of what’s to come. Read more.

Pictured above is one of Sino-Ocean Group’s offices, designed by Woods Bagot

“Work is what we do; it’s not where we go.” These words graced a slide that formed part of Ray Yuen’s talk at REACH Tokyo on 4 August 2016. Yuen, a Principal at the Beijing offices of international architectural design studio Woods Bagot, spoke about The Decentralised Office, giving the crowd his insights into how the concept of work is changing, explaining that, these days, it’s about much more than just desks and meeting rooms.

“Mobile technology has allowed us to work anywhere and anytime, which has decreased the need to work in traditional office environments,” said Yuen, speaking after his talks at REACH. “We need to stop thinking about workplace design in the context of simply installing a few desks and meeting rooms. Naturally, most of us now spend at least half of our workday away from our individual desk because we are mostly communicating and collaborating with others. Today’s workplace therefore needs to evolve into a collaborative platform for socialising, knowledge sharing and learning.”

The workplace will become a place to collaborate, said Yuen at REACH Tokyo and Beijing

REACH is a Herman Miller event; it’s a design festival that aims to connect the design industry in each of the cities it visits through open discussion, knowledge sharing, speaker events and playful interaction between people and products. REACH has already visited Beijing, Bangalore, Manila and Tokyo. The next stop for REACH? Melbourne on 15 September 2016.

Yuen spoke at REACH Beijing on 24 June 2016, followed by REACH Tokyo. His experience means he’s perfectly placed to see how approaches to work are changing, and how design can adapt to support this. He has spent over 15 years designing retail, hospitality and workplace interiors. Yuen and his team’s design methodology is about creating unique spatial experiences that are highly functional and that integrate with their client’s cultural values. He is currently working on Tencent Beijing’s headquarters and CCTV’s headquarters in China’s capital, alongside HP Inc.’s new flexible workspace in Beijing.

Different workspaces at Sino-Ocean’s offices by Woods Bagot

“Tencent is creating and developing Smart Cities, with everything controlled and tracked from an app on your mobile – this will change the way their workplaces function,” said Yuen. This is one way a company is dealing with what Yuen sees as a growing need to have a lifestyle offering within corporate offices. “It’s increasingly important to have F&B and wellness spaces within an office design; mainly to attract talent, especially for the IT giants, where talent is in short supply. It is common for clients to request that we create workplace environments that have a focus on hospitality,” he said.

According to Yuen, these spaces have a bigger purpose: “Whether they’re creating F&B spaces, a gym, games room or flexible, multifunctional spaces, workplace designers are actually designing a wide variety of spaces in order to retain workers within a workplace environment, and to fulfill the organisational need for interaction and collaboration that will in turn lead to innovation.”

Indeed, “innovation is now the key to success in most organisations,” said Yuen. “Innovation requires communication and collaboration between the brightest minds. And they need a workplace environment that enables that or they will need to go elsewhere outside the office. Not that there is anything wrong with getting out of the office, but what the company will lose is that opportunity for spontaneous knowledge sharing between team members.”

In his presentation, Yuen looked at where we are most productive, and it’s not at our desks

Also important for organisations is building a sense of community, said Yuen. “This attracts staff and encourages them to stay with a company.”

What are Yuen’s predictions for the workplace of the future? “I think this idea of workplace being a place in which to produce work will disappear,” he said. “Technology will continue to advance rapidly, eventually deleting the need to physically go to an office to work. The concept of the workplace will then change to a place to share, learn and also to represent an individual’s beliefs or values.”

Herman Miller
hermanmiller.com

Herman Miller REACH
hermanmillerreach.com

Woods Bagot
woodsbagot.com