Conceived by RIBA Hong Kong Chapter in partnership with Pacific Place, the SHOP! Competition was launched in January 2014 as part of a series of four architectural events for the city – EAT! SHOP! TALK! CELEBRATE!

The aim of the competition: to give emerging RIBA-registered, Hong Kong-based design talents the opportunity to work on a direct commission with Hong Kong’s high profile mixed-use developer, Swire Properties. The winning teams were selected in late February from 40 entries by a jury panel comprising RIBA Hong Kong Chapter, Swire Properties, and guest panelist Hugh Broughton, designer of the British Antarctic Research Station in Antarctica.

The projects being exhibited include:

This Is Our Place

A project by Howard Chung, Irene Cheng, Po and Sabah Ashiq, this large-scale installation features a dozen oversized musical horns hanging from the Garden Court atrium ceiling. Inspired by Pacific Place’s interior materials, the hovering horns are made by wicker woven against a bronze metal skeleton to create a warm ambience. Visitors are encouraged to step into the horns to experience the interactive, multimedia installation. They can choose to immerse themselves in the 360° video within the three big horns, or explore multifaceted imagery of themselves in the smaller ones, which contain illusionary mirrors and interactive lighting.

Hall of Fame

Located along Pacific Place’s long corridor on Level 1, “Hall of Fame”, designed by Edmond Wong, Gary Law, Kylie Chan and Charis Mok, is a modern steel structure that references China’s ancient way of recording text. Using steel as a frame, the structure is formed by suspended raw bamboo and fibreglass tubes to create a curved, silk-like surface with messages displayed via back-lit perforation. Visitors can walk along the structure to view birthday cards designed by directors and creative leads of famous brands, including Smythson and Harvey Nichols.

Now and Then

Design by Slavomir Siska, Ruyin Liu and Tie Fan, “Now and Then” can be found at the centre of Park Court on Level 1. The installation consists of five sculptures of various forms, each sitting in a pot of different height that bears a resemblance to plants and symbolise life and growth. Arranged in a pentagon and linked by thick and thin black lines, the sculptures represent the history and transformation of Pacific Place since its beginning. Each sculpture is equipped with two TV screens that show videos of a special theme, with the different screen heights allowing shoppers of different ages to view the videos at the same time.

A separate judging panel made up of representatives of Swire Properties and RIBA HK Chapter, as well as Keith Griffiths, Chairman of Aedas International, Sebastian Law, Adjunct Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Ken Shuttleworth, RIBA architect and founder of MAKE Architects have visited the installations to pick the winner of the ‘Shop! Best Installation Award’. The winner will go on to receive a prize of 20,000HKD in kind by Pacific Place.

The RIBA HK SHOP! installation will run for 3 weeks from 21 May till 10 June 2014.