For many years, Hong Kong inherited a habit of urban development that emphasizes, “Forget the past and look for the future”. The scene of taking down historical buildings or villages in order to allow “Economic Development” is repeating constantly, many of them witnessed the history of Hong Kong and share collective memories. Social values are hooked up to money, and often labeled with price tags.

Architecture is a carrier that breeds different life and stories while keeping record of the transformation of the context. The core value of Architecture is in the Space, in the Function, and in the History, these values enhance the significance of every piece of architecture. It should not be valued only on the beauty of form, popularity or commercial value.

In this exhibition, I will focus in my ancestor house located in the rural area of New Territories in Hong Kong. It may not have history of centuries, but it was once an established fish farm. The place has been through ups and downs of Hong Kong over 40 years and inherited 3 generations. I will pick out evidence of history and true stories that witness the transformation of this beautiful city.

Memory Tanks is an installation setup with the remaining 150 small fish tanks recovered from the storage of my ancestor house. These tanks were the primary tool for fish breeding of certain species, which were then sold around the world. I reinterpret these tanks into memory tanks that hold and breed different stories and memories recovered from around the place and they could be inherit to the future generations.

“Understanding the past and look for the future.” My frontier is the mentality battle against this distorted moral practice of “Money Talks” on taking over our society. I would like to apply my architectural perspective to make a record of stories and history of the ancestor house and its context through photography and videography, as the introduction of North East New Territories New Development in 2008 may soon see the Long Valley wetland area redeveloped.

一直以來香港的發展方向都在強調「忘記過去，放眼未來」，很多見證著歷史或有著集體回憶的建築物都被「經濟發展」取替。價值觀都與金錢掛勾，任何形態的事情都被貼上價錢。

我認為建築的價值不能用其華麗的外貌、知名度或商業價值來衡量。建築本身只是一個載體，孕育著不同的故事和生命也同時記錄著城市的轉變，它的核心價值在於其空間、功能和歷史，這些不同的價值連起來使建築變得有意義。

這次展覽將會是圍繞著我在新界的祖屋。它雖然沒有過百年歷史，但承載了三代人的回憶，經歷過大大小小的事情仍然屹立不倒。我將會在這裡找出一絲絲歷史的痕跡和見證著香港改變的故事在這次威尼斯建築雙年展中展出，從建築中認識過去，再尋找未來。

我的戰線是如何把大家喚醒改變這種扭曲的生態，我雖不能擁有這片土地，加上在不久的將來這片土地便會被新界東北發展移平，但我希望用建築設計師的角度為這個地方做個記錄，把這些故事傳承下去。

Hong Kong is a city that has always been at the ‘Frontier’ to face a particular ‘Battle’ – the lack of inhabitable space and its consequential spatial complexity.

Considering the city?s density and issues of privacy and intimacy, Hong Kong can be seen as an urban laboratory for future compact cities. The point of departure is to explore the scale and scope of the hyper-densified and complicated area as alternative dimensions in the urban fabric – Sham Shui Po.

Sham Shui Po has been labelled as one of the poorest districts in HK. The area and its hyper-dense apartment typologies developed in Hong Kong since the 1950?s-focusing on how life unfolds inside. It is compact, complex, complicated, yet highly diversified. It has a high mix of inhabitants, ranging from grassroot locals, mainland immigrants, Southeast Asian groups, to many other ethnic groups. In this hybrid community, people have conceived countless ways to deal with the constraints and parameters. Their adaptation starts from spatial poverty, then shifts to spatial negotiation and re-interpretation, finally generates spatial diversity and re-invention. The many spatial surgeries we found in this unique urban scene is innovative and imaginative.

Part of the exercise was to map and convey the habitual infrastructures of the inhabitants’ lives – based on the theme of spatial poverty and spatial diversity. Through revealing all these hidden spatial agenda to a larger scale of social infrastructures and developing new typologies for spatial adaptation, this piece of work aims to demonstrate how the Hong Kong-ers have always turned the physical limitations into inspirational spatial inventions. This endurance and turnover, we call it ‘Verso’ (反客為主).

香港一直都處於一個特定「戰場」的「前線」之上－－缺乏生活空間及其引申的複雜社會現象。

基於其城市密度及緊密的空間，香港被視為未來高密度城市的實驗室。是次探索的是高密度、複雜、城市肌理中的異度次元－－深水?。

深水?被標籤為香港最貧困的地區，50年代起開始發展密集的住宅，是一個緊湊、複雜、高度多元化的地區。這裡混合了本土基層、內地移民、東南亞族群及許多其他民族。人們孕育了無數方法來面對限制，由空間貧窮開始，演變出空間的重新演繹，最終產生空間的再創造。

由空間貧窮到空間多元，這作品展示出香港人如何將空間限制轉化為具啟發性的空間發明，我們稱之為「反客為主」。

三十六計之「反客為主」: 「為人驅使者為奴，為人尊處者為客，不能立足者為暫客，能立足者為久客，客久而不能主事者為賤客，能主事則可漸握機要，而為主矣。」