Date/Time
Date(s) - October 25, 2026
10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Categories

• Tour

You are cordially invited to join the AIA Hong Kong Coastal Architecture & Landscape Tour – Kat O Dajiao Arts Festival. This tour will take participants on an exploration of the unique architecture, landscape, and material culture of Kat O island in Hong Kong’s Sha Tau Kok area. The tour will be carried out in conjunction with the 2026 Sun and Moon Harmony – Kat O Dajiao Arts Festival, organized by The Conservancy Association and Fragrant Village, to coincide with the island’s decennial On Lung Tai Ping Ching Chiu (安龍太平清醮) ritual.

Through a collaborative effort among artists, young volunteers, local villagers, NGOs, and architects, Kat O will be transformed into an open-air art space, offering participants a truly unique journey that integrates art, ritual culture, heritage, and landscape.

The tour will be led by architect Su Chang AIA, landscape architect Sonny Xu Meng Qi Assoc. AIA, along with artist Jaffa Lam and Kat O Dajiao Arts Festival co-organizer Sze Kar Yan. Together, they will guide participants through the island’s vibrant art installations and share unique architectural and artistic insights into Kat O’s cultural heritage and coastal landscape.

Event Details

*Student and public volunteers who previously participated in the collaborative workshops may join the guided tour for free.

Important Notes

1. Frontier Closed Area Permit
All participants must apply for an Individual Tourism Closed Area Permit (T-CAP) via the Hong Kong Police E-Services Portal. Please note that event fees are strictly non-refundable if your application is denied or if you fail to secure a valid permit prior to the event.

2. Expenses & Refreshments
The ferry fare is NOT included in the event fee. We will dine together at a village restaurant where participants can order and pay for their own lunch. We recommend bringing your own snacks and a refillable water bottle.

Sign up HERE to reserve a place by October 22, 2026, at 3:00 PM.

About the Tour Leaders

Su Chang AIA
Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong
Principal, Su Chang Design Research Office

Su Chang’s current research explores a water-centric perspective for understanding architecture, development, and conservation in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and the Subtropical Asia context. Navigating the shifting dynamics between inland and coastal areas, he has developed design experiments with a material-based approach to rejuvenate spaces and regenerate social fabrics for communities undergoing transformation.

Sonny Xu Meng Qi Assoc. AIA
Lecturer, Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong
Co-founder, post-rock

Sonny is a Chinese Canadian Landscape Architect (NY) and architectural designer. He co-founded post-rock (石·現 工作社), a design, art, and research studio that explores landscape through material-driven inquiry, with a particular focus on stone, ecology, and the cultural memory embedded in the ground. Alongside practice, Xu is a Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches both architecture and landscape architecture. His studios and electives emphasize design as a medium for thinking through time, material, and collective life, often engaging post-industrial sites, rural settlements, and coastal territories.

Jaffa Lam
Artist

Jaffa is a Hong Kong-based artist specializing in large-scale, site-specific and mixed-media works, often making use of recycled materials, such as crate wood, old furniture, abandoned metal and umbrella fabric. Her works often explore issues relating to local culture, history, society, and current affairs, some of the topics include art in public, the loss of craftsmanship in the city, and the regeneration of art-making cycles. She projects views and thoughts of Hong Kong citizens through her non-narrative and dialogical installations.

Sze Kar Yan
Founder, Fragrant Village
Co-Organizer, Sun and Moon Harmony: Kat O Dajiao Arts Festival

Sze Kar Yan is a curator, and the founder of Emptyscape and Fragrant Village. Since 2013, she has been working within local village communities, collaborating with villagers to discover and preserve their culture through village art experiments. Her creative practice, mainly presented through music and sound art, is inspired by the contrasts and intersections between rural and urban experiences. Passionate about these environments and their culture, Sze is dedicated to the conservation and innovation of village culture. Over the past decade, she has collected nearly thirty village school anthems, thereby connecting the memories of various villages.