Benny Lam photographed the tiny rooms, and it’s residents, in Hong Kong’s Grass Roots Living situations. “Grass Roots Living symbolizes the average households living in large public housing complexes in urban or new town areas. In many cases, parents, children and the elderly live together.” (srce). The result of Benny Lams’s work was exhibited under the name “Trapped” in 2014 and was hosted by the Society for Community Organization (SoCO).
We, at Mimi Berlin, spent hours looking at these photo’s, there is so much to see!
They also bring us just enough out of our own comfort-zone, which we like; it opens up unknown possibilities. We started wondering if we could live in such a small space. Would or could we live compact if we moved to Hong Kong?
We like the hustle and bustle of city life and want to be in the middle of that, in Hong Kong we would have to move to a so called Compact City Life neighborhood. Next to public Grass Roots Living you also have similar dwellings in Compact City Life neighborhoods (srce), with private owned housing. It is said that apartments (studios? units?) in Hong Kong are, on average, 50 cents higher per square foot than the estimated average of a New York City rental. Keeping that in mind:
If we moved to this crowded city we’d probably have to live the Compact City Life as well (liking it but spending as little time as possible at home).
(images via hk.localiiz.com)