Hong Kong summers alternate between searing heat and torrential downpour, but in a cityscape where shade can be hard to find, people will create their own. Here are some of the DIY shades that City Unseen has spotted across Kowloon. All photos by City Unseen, 2025.
Concrete-filled buckets and street signs are often used to anchor parasols.
An auto-repair shop uses old tyres as a parasol base.
Umbrellas are used to plug gaps and redirect rainwater around market stalls.
Shops install awnings—some more makeshift than others—to shield themselves from the sun’s glare.
A curtain repurposed as a shade cloth.
A preschool uses colourful shade cloths to cover its playground.
This shop awning has been there for so long that a hole was cut in it for a lampost to poke through.
Shades are stretched over alleys, which are used as shopfronts or spaces where outdoor workers rest.
Tattered tarps a week after a typhoon Wipha.
Elderly people shelter under a highway overpass outside the Sham Shui Po Jade Market.
A homeless encampment in a park. The fountain probably provides a slight cooling effect.
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