Emergent Solitude Unplanned Interiority in Hong Kong’s Public Spaces

Abstract

In Hong Kong’s densely populated urban environments, domestic spaces often fail to meet residents’ need for privacy and solitude, leading to an increase in the individuated use of public open spaces. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city’s public housing estates and sitting-out areas, this essay demonstrates how individuals actively appropriate these spaces to carve out moments of solitude, thus subverting their prescribed functions. It explores how the relational affordances that were initially designed for social interaction adapt to accommodate isolated behaviours, effectively transforming them into unplanned urban interiors. And it highlights tensions between utilitarian urban planning and the fluid, adaptive needs of residents.

By conceptualising public spaces as unplanned interiors, this essay challenges the traditional distinctions between public and private, social and solitary. It shows how interiority is a crucial aspect of Hong Kong’s urban ecosystem, and proposes a relational understanding of these urban spaces that acknowledges their function in compensating for domestic inadequacies. Further, it enhances our understanding of solitude as a collective social action that should be acknowledged in the spatial design of densely populated urban environments. And it advocates for public space design as a third space that relationally considers the cultural and spatial dynamics between domestic and work spaces.