Pang Jai (棚仔)

Design Brief

Pang Jai (棚仔) is a 44-year-old grassroots fabric market located in Sham Shui Po – a neighbourhood that has supported Hong Kong’s fashion, soft products and performing arts industries for many decades. The market’s physical structure started as a simple steel frame construction, but over the decades it has been tailored by fabric sellers to become a richly textured architectural feature, surrounded by and embedded in different ecologies. It is likely that the fabric market will be relocated in 2023 to Tung Chau Street Temporary Market, and some of the fabric sellers will retire.

 The students who participated in this design project were tasked with a set of design goals that included understanding and documenting a place, community and ecology. They aimed to facilitate cross-generational knowledge sharing, convivial encounters and creative collaborations between all stakeholders and organised a public event to foster community-building with existing stakeholders and the public. Additionally, they sought to establish relations of mutual support and projects that had the longevity to persist regardless of the fabric sellers’ location. This project allowed the students to gain practical experience in creating collaborative and sustainable design solutions, and to understand the role of design in community-building and knowledge sharing.

Design Outcome

The student creators were invited to generate a set of deliverables that required comprehensive field research on the place, community and ecology inside and around Pang Jai, and co-designing directions with the fabric sellers. The students who worked on this project held the belief that storytelling portraits would serve as the key visuals for the memory kit. They aimed not only to create a simple portrait but also to use meaningful objects and places to present a more holistic understanding of the backgrounds and personalities of the fabric market sellers. The ultimate goal of this approach was to capture the essence of the fabric market sellers’ life experiences and create a more profound depiction of their unique identity. The students shared their design journey and outcomes through an informal sharing session arranged as a final project presentation to the stakeholders at Pang Jai.

The project was designed to encourage fieldwork, situated practice and social engagement, and it allowed the design students to gain practical experience in the use of design as a tool for community-building and knowledge sharing, and in co-designing with stakeholders.

Participating Year 4 BA students include - 

/Advertising Design
LI Hiu Yan
WONG Ka Ying

/Communication Design
CHOI Kwan Yu
FANG Jen-hung
NGAI Po In

/Environment and Interior Design
LAI Tim Yu
NG Sze Wing

/Product Design
CHAN Chun Kit
CHOI Wing Sing Foster
LEUNG Hok Sze

/Social Design
CHEUNG Ho San
FONG Mei Ying
LAM Simon
LEUNG Wing Yiu
LO Sze Yam
TAM Sze Man

 
/Project Tutor 
Michael LEUNG, Visiting Lecturer, School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University