Hong Kong,  China

Location   University of Chicago
Type   Academic, Heritage, Cultural
Size  52,000 sq.ft.
Status   Completed 2018
Photography   Ema Peter

The Hong Kong Jockey Club University of Chicago Academic Complex | The University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong

Interpretation Centre Museum

A heritage walking trail serves as the connector between newly-built and heritage assets, where the former becomes the visual interpretative platform for the latter. Reversing the site´s previously inaccessible and secretive nature, this design strategy reveals its “dark” history as a former battery for coastal defence, detention centre for political activists, and safe house for witness protection.

With the new-built serving as a “time machine”, the heritage walk transports visitors back in time to understand historical relationships between in-situ heritage elements and the site, and between the site and its surroundings. The walk begins with the building most visible from the Victoria Road approach, the repurposed interpretation centre, providing an introduction to the history of the site.

The walk continues through other heritage buildings adapted for educational uses with key heritage features conserved and interpreted, as well as to un-adaptable outdoor war-relic structures preserved in-situ with interpretation tools such as textual, pictorial, and app-ready signage. Continuing through newly-built components, carefully designed vantage points offer interpretative views of architectural and natural heritage assets in the surrounding context. By this means, the relationship between the heritage setting and the site, and between the site and its surroundings, can be more readily understood