With a population of over seven million people within a geographically very restricted territory, space in our neo-liberal capitalist metropolis is a particularly expensive and precious commodity. People are not evolving to become any smaller, however their living environments are. How can Hong Kong residents respond to such increasingly confined spatial constraints? A large collection of space-saving objects – some designed and sold in everyday department stores, others custom-made to make use of every valuable centimetre – speak for the unlimited ingenuity people develop to find solutions for their dilemma.  

With emphasis on practical skills, this course offers students an interdisciplinary entry point to creative design and problem-solving skills associated with space-saving, combining issues and approaches from the social sciences with methods and solutions from the visual arts. In examining space-saving objects students will initially explore the concept and principles of space as a (social) resource, which they will then apply through their creative projects into suitable places in Hong Kong. Related global design classics such as the Swiss army knife and Shaker furniture, are used to illustrate the relationship between physical and geographic space and the culture of tools.

A workshop introduction will assist students to construct their personal space-saving object thus inventing new possibilities of creative form.