Border Ecologies – Hong Kong’s Mainland Frontier

Hong Kong’s border with Shenzhen is dissolving. By 2047, the border will likely not exist. Integration with the Mainland will remove distinctions created by the ‘One Country Two Systems’ policy. The uncertainty surrounding what will happen has created anxiety relating to law, identity, freedom of speech, and voting rights. Caught in this debate is the Frontier Closed Area, a buffer zone created by the British in 1951 and an inaccessible landscape of eco-systems including tidal estuaries, fish farms, primary forests, historic villages and abandoned military posts. In contrast, Shenzhen, poster-child of China’s economic reform era, has exploded into a metropolis of 15 million plus.

The book, Border Ecologies – Hong Kong’s Mainland Frontier, explores this unique border ecology that evolved as Hong Kong and the Mainland transtormed. Design strategies inserted into this ecosystem promote alternative forms of development. Peeling back the layers of this territory reveals a complex set of relationships between macro-policies and micro-conditions on the ground. The example expands the discourse on borders to raise critical issues affecting the contemporary city.

Commissioner: Joshua Bolchover and Peter Hasdell
Year: 2016
Author: Joshua Bolchover and Peter Hasdell
Publisher: Birkhäuser
Project URL: hku.hk
My role: Graphic Design, Typesetting
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