Neon signs witness the history of Hong Kong, says Brian Kwok from PolyU’s School of Design

Hong Kong has been renowned for its night scenery for many years, and one of the reasons is undoubtedly the neon signs that have lighted up the city in the evening. Brian Kwok, Associate Professor at the School of Design of PolyU, who is particularly interested in the neon signs, will share more about his research project on this subject.  Brian had his training in visual communication design in the United States, after which he worked in various multimedia design firms and advertising agencies. He then pursued further studies and obtained an MA degree in Design from PolyU and an MA degree in Visual Culture Studies and an MPhil degree in Communication from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Brian started his teaching career at PolyU in 2006 and he is now the leader of the BA (Hons) in Communication Design programme and the Information Design Lab...   Read full story

"Private Banking and Wealth Management Futures 2030" by Jorn Buhring

Jörn Bühring, Assistant Professor of PolyU Design, has published a book "Private Banking and Wealth Management Futures 2030". This book engages the reader around different perspectives between forecasting and foresight in strategic design, drawing insights derived from a futures study that can be applied in form of a design-inspired foresight approach for designers and interdisciplinary innovation teams increasingly called upon to help envisage preferable futures.   Now available at Springer: https://www.springer.com/in/book/9789811633942

#IASDR_2021: Graduate Consortium, Workshop and Panel Deadline

#IASDR_2021: Graduate Consortium, Workshop and Panel Deadline

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Meeting with the PolyU CMT

All staff of PolyU Design welcomed the CMT in their visit to the School last Friday. The meeting was organized in both physical and virtual manners to communicate between the management and staff of the school. It covered different topics for discussions were covered including the review of achievements and challenges, feedback on the Planning Exercise Proposal and university policies, and more. Look forward to our next meeting in the future!

Daniel Elkin's Tai O Project won Smart50 Award

We are proud to announce that ‘The Tai O Village Pedestrian Traffic Monitoring Project’ has recently won the Smart50 Award! It is a collaborative initiative of PolyU School of Design and the Department of Applied Social Sciences partnered with the Tai O Village Rural Committee and various community groups to collect pedestrian traffic flow data in Tai O Village in Hong Kong. It monitors pedestrian traffic into the Village using infrared passage gates installed in eight major infrastructure connections. The project is led by Mr Daniel Elkin, Assistant Professor and Deputy Discipline Leader of BA(Hons) in Environment & Interior Design of PolyU Design. The Smart 50 Awards, in partnership with Smart Cities Connect, Smart Cities Connect Foundation, and US Ignite, annually recognize global smart cities projects, honouring the most innovative and influential work. This year’s winners came from nine regions including three from Hong Kong. Learn More

Dr Clifford Choy and his robot educational programme for secondary schools

Our Assistant Professor Dr Clifford Choy has been devoted to promoting STEAM education and maker culture in Hong Kong. He was recently interviewed by Ming Pao to talk about his robot educational programme for secondary schools. The programme includes the course, the robot training kit, and a training for instructors and helpers who deliver the workshops to 30 schools. 理大學者教初中生嵌機械人 動手學物理編程 (26 May, 2021, Ming Pao)

Meeting with the PolyU CMT

All staff of PolyU Design welcomed the CMT in their visit to the School last Friday. The meeting was organized in both physical and virtual manners to communicate between the management and staff of the school. It covered different topics for discussions were covered including the review of achievements and challenges, feedback on the Planning Exercise Proposal and university policies, and more. Look forward to our next meeting in the future!

Winners of 2020/21 School Excellence Awards and Long Service Awards announced

We are delighted to announce the winners of 2020/21 School Excellence Awards and Long Service Awards. The awards were presented at the Dean's Talk held today.      2020/21 School Excellence Awards Teaching Excellence Dr Tulio Maximo Dr Jae Oh  Research Excellence  Dr Jörn Bühring Dr Sylvia Xihui Liu   Best Supporting Staff Mr Rio Chan   2020/21 Long Service Awards Ms Grace Chan Mr Rio Chan Ms Chan Wan Yu Miamy Dr Clifford S.T. Choy Mr Ho Tat Hing Alex Dr Newman Lau Prof. Gutierrez Laurent Mr Lo Sung Yin William Dr Henry Ma Mr Horace Pan Ms Tsang Kit Ping Doris Miss Wan Kit Ming Miss Ellen Yeung On-man Congratulations to all awardees and our heartfelt gratitude for their dedicated work!

PolyU Design Awarded Maximum 4-Stars Rating by International Panel of Experts for its Research Impact and Environment

The University Grants Committee Research Assessment Exercise 2020 has announced that "Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design" is the only academic sector with a university receiving the highest 4-stars rating in both “Impact" and "Environment" for all their case studies within that sector – achieved by PolyU. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) School of Design (SD) announced today (26 May, 2021) its results from the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020 by the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong. The results reflect the assessment of the work from 35 eligible design researchers from SD together with PolyU’s Institute of Textiles and Clothing – the highest number across the seven universities funded by UGC under the RAE’s “Unit of Assessment (UoA) 38: Visual Arts, Design, Creative Media, Other Creative Arts and Creative Writing”.   In the Overall Quality Profile, 42% of the submitted research outputs were judged by international experts to be “World Leading”, reaching the maximum 4-Stars rating.  In addition, in the Impact Sub-profile, 100% of the case studies have attained the maximum 4-Stars rating, showing “Outstanding impacts in terms of their reach and significance”.  In the Environment Sub-profile, 100% of the case studies reached the maximum 4-Stars level in showing “An environment that is conducive to producing research of world-leading quality, in terms of its vitality and sustainability”.   PolyU is the only university among all Panels in the RAE 2020 that has achieved a maximum 4-Stars rating in both “Impact” and “Environment” for all its case studies within the panel.  Prof. Kun-pyo Lee, Dean of School of Design, Swire Chair Professor of Design, and Alex Wong Siu Wah Gigi Wong Fook Chi Professor in Product Design Engineering, said, "The result is a collective success for all School of Design researchers involved in the hard work of collecting and collating raw and unorganized data since the last evaluation in 2014. I am extremely pleased to see that the judges recognized the quality of our research, and in particular, the impact created by non-textual outputs.”  Prof. Lee added, “The society should take careful note of the world-class quality of design research in Hong Kong that is on par with more popular disciplines such as “accountancy” and “economics and finance”.  The support, freedom and space provided by the School have lend itself to attract excellent researchers from around the world, and would pave the way for more quality international collaborative research in the future.”   The RAE 2020 was implemented under the purview of the Research Assessment Exercise Group (RAEG) of the UGC.  Assessment Panel 12 for “Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design” involved 14 distinguished scholars and research end-user with extensive professional knowledge and expertise in their respective fields.  Among them, 11 (or 79%) were non-local scholars from different parts of the world.   The results of this panel are published on the UGC website (https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/activity/research/rae/2020/results.html).