Hong Kong Mansion in Causeway Bay, a typical stepped building 銅鑼灣的香港大廈,典型的退台大廈
Architecture & Urban Form

Hong Kong rivers 香港河流
Nature in the City

CITYUNSEEN.HK is an educational initiative of the WYNG Foundation that explores the unseen corners of Hong Kong’s built environment, past and present. We invite readers to decode the novel design strategies, problem-solving attempts and social history hidden in the urban environment we live in.

Transport & Walkability
Systems & Infrastructure
Architecture & Urban Form
Public Space
Improvised Structures
Nature in the City
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Architecture & Urban Form

Why do some old buildings get narrower on top?

Nature in the City

Hong Kong’s Lost Streams – Part 2: Rivers Lost in Plain Sight

Part 1 of this series recounted the disappearance of small urban streams that were channelled underground during the..

Nature in the City

Hong Kong’s Lost Streams – Part 1: The Disappearance of Urban Streams

If you look at an old map of Hong Kong, one of the first things you will notice..

Archive

Systems & Infrastructure

The streets that change their names midway

In North Point, Wharf Road and City Garden Road are named after two adjacent private housing estates, even..

Architecture & Urban Form

The Tiny Triangular Tea Shop of Bonham Strand

At first, there does not seem to be anything unusual about the tea shop at 14 Bonham Street,..

Improvised Structures

The Hidden Life of An Urban Oasis

Between Shek Kip Mei and Prince Edward is a small hill known as Woh Chai Shan or Bishop..

Nature in the City

The Forgotten Geography of Hong Kong Place Names

On a map of Hong Kong published almost 430 years ago in the Ming Dynasty book Yue Daji..

Architecture & Urban Form

Where did all the first generation tong lau go?

In present-day Hong Kong, pre-war shophouses (“tong laus”) are relatively rare; in 2021, the Urban Studies Institute documented..

Architecture & Urban Form

Ghost Buildings

Throughout its history, Hong Kong has seen multiple waves of redevelopment. Out of the roughly 41,000 buildings in..

Public Space

Hong Kong’s Hostile Architecture

If architecture is the art of designing spaces for humans, then hostile architecture (which is also called defensive..

Systems & Infrastructure

The Secret Cell Phone Antenna Next Door

If you look up while walking down the street, you may notice something unusual. This is a cell..

Transport & Walkability

Hong Kong’s Railway of the Dead

In 1950, I. B. Trevor, the general manager of the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) wrote, “The world, as we..

Architecture & Urban Form

Part 2: How Prince Edward Got Its Triangles

In Part 1 of this series, we explored the many leftover triangles of Prince Edward—triangle buildings, triangle parks,..

Architecture & Urban Form

Part 1: The Leftover Triangles of Prince Edward

If you travel along Nathan Road heading north, at Prince Edward, the entire street grid bends 45 degrees..

Transport & Walkability

The Footbridge to Nowhere

On Western Street in Sai Ying Pun is a footbridge that makes no sense. There is a wheelchair..