UABBHK 2025 Officially Opens to Public at Oil Street Art Space and East Kowloon Cultural Centre

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 17 December 2025 - The 2025 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture (Hong Kong) (UABBHK 2025) is officially open to the public at two key venues: the Oil Street Art Space (Oi!) in North Point and the East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC) in Kowloon Bay. Organised by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation, and co-organised by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects, The Hong Kong Institute of Planners, and the Hong Kong Designers Association, UABBHK 2025 is fully supported by the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA) as the Lead Sponsor. Running until 24 January 2026, this citywide exhibition invites the public to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming architecture from a static practice into a civic performance.

This year's theme — TECHFORMANCE: Technology, Platform and Performance — responds to global concerns about the impact of AI on authorship, ethics, and creativity in built environment practices through 25 exhibits from Hong Kong and overseas exhibitors. Rather than presenting AI as a threat, the Biennale reframes it as a platform for civic imagination, public experimentation, and participatory design.

"Through UABBHK 2025, we aim to reclaim architecture as a human-centred discipline — one that celebrates creativity, ethics, and civic responsibility in the age of AI," said Ar. Allen POON, Chairman of The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation.

Two Venues, Two Curatorial Focuses

At Oi!, the exhibition explores Co-Creation and Urban Narratives with the Community. Visitors are invited to engage directly with interactive installations that respond to sound, movement, memory, and language. The design of the exhibition reflects the venue's warehouse heritage, featuring arched aluminium structures that create vaulted spaces for community interaction and storytelling.

At EKCC, the exhibition shifts the focus to Experimental AI-driven Urban Futures. A series of modular lab tables serve as platforms for collaborative experimentation, integrating technology and design in a hands-on setting. Both venues at Oi! and EKCC are further unified by a coherent spatial language using aluminium extrusion bent into arcs — a material choice that balances cost-efficiency, elegance, and reusability.

"We see each venue not just as a display, but as a stage for civic performance," said Dr. Jimmy HO and Ar. Aron TSANG, Lead Curators of UABBHK 2025. "By tailoring the design of each site to its specific context, we invite the public to co-create the urban futures they want to see."

Exhibits from UABBHK 2025 will also be showcased at the coming Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) (UABBSZ), which will open by late December 2025 at the Hetao Science and Technology Innovation Centre in Shenzhen. The exhibition will feature a portal-inspired installation symbolising the collaboration between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, further reinforcing the Biennale's cross-border dialogue and spatial continuity.

For more information, please visit UABBHK 2025's website: https://uabb2025.hkia.org.hk/en. For detailed exhibitor list and installation descriptions, please refer to the appendix.

For hi-res photo, please click here

For UABBHK 2025 factsheet, please click here

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