We live in a city without realising that it is shaping our everyday life. Worse still, we do not realise that we have the right to shape it towards a better future through increasing our spatial competency. How can we realise this right? How can we build a better neighbourhood to nourish our spatial competency? How can we foster a stronger sense of place and boost our multi-faceted well-being through building sustainable cities and communities?

The interdisciplinary team works with built environment-related professionals and district councillors to empower participants through three sets of activities:
Knowledge is powerWorkshops are organised to help clarify various concepts related to various rights to building sustainable communities, including Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), New Urban Agenda (NUA), Doughnut Economics, place qualities, sense of place, sense of well-being, placemaking and urban design. Participants are encouraged to relate the learned concepts to their everyday life.
Mutual learningWorkshops are organised to learn from experiments undertaken by various community members.
Practice makes perfectThe team works with different district councils/groups to explore “three-in-one” ways (solutions that simultaneously address social, economic and environmental issues) to build sustainable neighbourhoods that boost people’s senses of place and well-being.

There is no institutionalised community planning in Hong Kong. This project serves as an important resource for local districts to gain knowledge and acquire professional assistance to co-experiment with the reshaping of their neighbourhood into more sustainable places for people’s multifaceted flourishing. The team has endeavoured to disseminate knowledge through writing newspaper articles and eventually producing a digital booklet. With the team’s community collaborators, regular seminars and workshops are conducted. The team is also working with district councils to co-create plans to move their districts towards a more sustainable future.

– District Councillors and their assistants– Place champions– Community members– Students– Built environment professionals

2020

Sustainability, Well-being