Island Synchronisation

Hong Kong’s islands are densely populated and significantly altered by human intervention. Human-centric thinking is deeply embedded in the city’s development model. As part of the Inter-Island Festival 2023—a local art event celebrating island life—the team was selected to create a temporary educational installation encouraging visitors to reflect on current island development strategies. Working with a limited budget, the festival challenged the team to explore alternative construction methods that embraced environmental sustainability and fostered community engagement throughout the process.

Returning to low-tech concrete paste and raw sand-casting methods, the collected recycled plastic bottles for buoyancy form themselves into the natural state. The slow process of hand crafting leaves marks and texture on the surface of the rock-like structure and this irregularity grows slowly to form the touch of nature. The floating rocks joined, moved through the current, and settled in the sea. Within months, the boundary between man-made and natural blurred. Crabs hid, birds landed, and marine life thrived, being a part of nature, being a part of the sea life, and being a part of time.

This project served as both an educational experiment and a prototype for the development of sustainable floating structures. Rooted in environmental awareness and holistic design thinking, it demonstrated how art, architecture, and community engagement can intersect to address pressing ecological concerns. As a rare and successful example of floating architecture in Asia, the installation offered a unique hands-on learning experience. Community participation was central—villagers contributed ideas during the design phase, supported material collection, and volunteers from nearby islands participated in construction. Educational workshops deepened participants’ understanding of sustainable design and strengthened public dialogue around responsible island development.