Project House @1QRW

First, vacant shops are idling in Hong Kong while there is a severe lack of accessible third spaces for social connections and welfare services. Second, the neighbourhood is ageing, with many seniors living on their own or with their elderly partner, facing loneliness and social isolation. They lack the motivation to maintain social connections and access social services. While the shop is situated at a prime location, the key challenge lies in the limited footprint of the space (300 sq. ft.), which stipulates the need for flexibility in layout and interior design.

The project leverages the idle shop to create a new community co-living space. With a refreshing branding and interior, the space exudes a neutral, welcoming atmosphere that lowers the barrier of entry for users averse to traditional social institutions. It was designed to be a 6-week pop-up in the summer of 2023, with a make-shift interior and diverse programmes, but funding arose due to its popularity and impact, allowing the space to get a facelift and branding upgrade, and evolve into an everyday space for residents to hang out, with new programmes developed according to their interests and skills.

The project successfully attracts isolated seniors, helps them build new social connections, and creates opportunities to rebuild their identity in the community by sharing their skills and time. Their loneliness is reduced, with an improved sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and responsibility. The project becomes a gateway for diverse stakeholders to connect with the community, and it also builds new partnerships with local stakeholders in the area, accumulating a network of community resources for future resilience. Commercially, the project has proven a pioneering impact model for tenement buildings’ private owners to offer preferential rent for social purposes on the ground floor.

Project House @1QRW is a rare successful example of adaptive reuse of graded historical buildings in Hong Kong. This century-old tenement building was not only kept, but retained as an accessible daily venue by private efforts, there are only a few similar ones in town, and this sets out an alternative. Programmes are a core feature, which draws on beneficiaries’ assets to create opportunities to serve the community and build their own identity. There are four core programmes: Community Classroom for Children where retirees take care of children from low-income families and share social and daily skills; Community Shopkeepers host health checks, outreach to public and promote to target audiences; Sewing Squad comprises of mothers of grassroot families, who provides affordable clothes mending services and free workshops; and interest groups that pick up new skills collectively, such as Ukulele, and perform for immobile elderlies. Another key feature lies in the project’s intentional development of neighbourhood partnerships, transporting social activities to nearby mum-and-pop restaurants and shops, co-working offices and private spaces that are normally distant to community, and collaborating with local non-profits artists and residents to design the activities; leveraging local resources to better community development.