DETOUR 2009: Imagining the city's future with Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design

Over the past two weeks, DETOUR has transformed the former Police Married Quarters in Central into an urban playground of art and design, all of it revolving around a concrete courtyard that has been converted into a sandy beach. Behind it all are the Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design, a non-profit group of designers, artists and corporate bigwigs dedicated to making Hong Kong a world design hub.

Along with DETOUR, the Ambassadors are responsible for well-loved events like Cut and Paste, Pecha Kucha Night and the Business of Design Week. We sat down with Alvin Yip and Millie Hung, two of the brains behind DETOUR, to talk about design, thinking outside the box and how to make Hong Kong a more creative place.

See A quick guide to DETOUR 2009.

CNNGo: What is design?

It's art with a function. You see something and you want to make it look better and work better at the same time.

I think most of Hong Kong people see design as decoration, which is not the true meaning of design. We equate it more with creativity, imagination, ideas. If you go back to the word itself, "design" is similar to "detour," which means taking a different path. It's a different way of seeing things.

If you look at how people relate to design here, in the shops, in the street, in the government, there's a lot of work to be done. It's something very fundamental. The Hong Kong government and a lot of the big players have been talking about a paradigm shift towards a knowledge economy, a creative economy. But what exactly do they mean? Do they understand?

Here, we made a beach. Compare that to the Urban Renewal Authority, which has just proposed a "green oasis" for the Central Market. There's something terribly outdated in their mindset. Their project probably will cost 20, if not a hundred times more than ours, and it will probably be much less imaginative.

The beach came from a crazy conversation. We were like, hey, why don't we make it a beach and see what happens? And it actually came through.

We were only 50 percent sure about the beach before we set it up. It could have failed, but it turned out to be a good surprise. It's so interactive.

CNNGo: How did you come to use the old police married quarters for DETOUR?

In previous years, we didn't have an anchor site for DETOUR. Last year we just lined up a series of events at galleries and design stores. This year we wanted to create more noise. The government announced that this place would be used for creative industries in the long run, so we applied to the Development Bureau. The process took a half-year, and we had to go through a lot of procedures, like submitting very detailed plans on how we would use each floor, and what kind of maintenance work we needed to do.
We found that the government is really, really supporting creative industries these days. They gave us funding -- $1.7 million -- and though it wasn't 100 percent of what we needed, it helped a lot, and we knew government officials were glad about it. It's good publicity for them. We're demonstrating how you can make good use of this kind of abandoned site.

CNNGo: It's a gorgeous site. What do you like most about it?

This residential building was built back in the fifties. We really appreciate the way people lived back then -- there's a lot of communal space. Every floor has 14 identical living units. When you come at night and the lights are on, you can imagine the mothers cooking and the kids playing in the courtyard, and when the dads came home from work they ate in common areas. Now in public housing estates, when you come out of the elevator, everyone shuts their door and you don't even know who is living there. We want people to come back here to take a look. This is how our parents grew up in the past.

CNNGo: DETOUR is wrapping up and eventually the government will put out a call to tenders for this site to be turned into something permanent. What do you want to see done with it?

I just hope that it's not managed by one single party, like how the JCCAC in Shek Kip Mei is now run by the Jockey Club, or how the Jockey Club will run the Central Police Station [after it's converted into an arts space]. I hope that, in the long run, several design institutes or organizations can work together to do something with this site. This is such a prominent location that there is potential to make use of this space for short exhibitions, festivals and performances. We've been having performances at night and, although we've received some noise complaints, we hope that, in the long term, we can build up a harmonious relationship so that people will eventually appreciate it and come to join.

CNNGo: Why is it that Hong Kong is so dynamic when it comes to business, but reluctant to take risks when it comes to anything creative?

When you have a lot of energy there's always people trying to constrain and contain it. An extreme example is what's happening in China, where you have a huge energy with the Internet and the media and a government that is trying to contain that. I think that what we need to do is create space to really let this energy out and become something else.

One buzzword that people always use about the spirit of Hong Kong is "can do." I think we need to shift to "can try" or "can play." That's what the Ambassadors are doing. We're a group of relatively young people and we're not afraid to fail.

CNNGo: What kind of impact do you hope to have?

Many people think that design and art is a luxury, but it's not. Why do you think people in Hong Kong like to travel so much in Europe and other countries? It's because they can feel the spirit of design and creativity just by walking down the street. That's not happening yet in Hong Kong. I hope that more people can organize crazy things like DETOUR. People really like it. Some visitors are old neighbours in Central -- one lady said to me, "Hey, I used to live on the third floor. I'm so glad you're doing something here with it!"

One way to see what we're doing is as two weeks of events and happenings. But another way is to see it as an alternative kind of public space. That's why I mentioned the Central Market and the government's larger revitalization scheme for Central, because it's about the kind of vision we want for the city. Maybe in the near future, we will try to find more public space in different parts of the city, and do more interventions like this.