In the final quarter of 2019, AIA Hong Kong held numerous events catering for our Young Architects Group (YAG). The YAG programs kicked-off with a Smart City Design Competition co-organized with the two other architectural institutes in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) and the Royal Institute of British Architects, Hong Kong Chapter (RIBA HK).

The Smart City Design Competition was organized to provide a platform for emerging professionals of the three architecture institutes. Faced with the challenge of designing smart street furniture for the digital age, these young architects demonstrated tremendous creativity and insight, as well as refined presentation skills. A full scale prototype of the award-winning design has been made and is now on display at The Mills, in Tsuen Wan, as part of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (UABB) in Hong Kong. The #CallMe prototype, as well as the other 16 competition entries, will be on display until March 15, 2020. If you’re in Hong Kong, don’t miss the chance to check them out!

The joint efforts between the three institutes allowed for a series of events, culminating with the Smart City Symposium & Award Ceremony where guests enjoyed presentations from the finalists and a panel discussion with the finalists and our jurors. The series also allowed us to engage the community through a Smart City Community Workshop co-hosted with MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node. The workshop was designed for primary school students, sharing with them the concept of Smart City Design and providing a guided forum to prepare a charette to pitch their concepts to us. We concluded the Smart City series with Designing Human-Centered Neighborhoods: Strategies and Fieldnotes, a symposium that dealt with the Smart City in the context of neighborhoods.

The fourth quarter also saw the conclusion to another successful year of our Honors & Awards Program. After opening the Interior’s category to Associate AIA members, we received over 60 entries this year, which presented the jury with a challenging mission to determine our Merit and Honor Award winners. This year we were honored to be graced by Christohper Chan of AIA Shanghai, and Scott Gold of AIA Japan as members of our juror panel. We celebrated the awards along with our Annual Dinner on November 12th with Guest of Honor, President of AIA IR, Theirry Paret in attendance.

We look forward to an eventful 2020 with our new incoming Executive Committee. Vicky Chan, our incoming President, is working on a range of programs to further engage our community under the theme of Citizen
Architects.

We wish everyone Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year!