UABBHK 2025 Responds with TECHFORMANCE: Architecture as Performance in the Age of AI
- Published in News from Asia
HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 19 November 2025 - The 2025 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture (UABBHK 2025) launched its curatorial direction under the theme TECHFORMANCE: Architecture as Performance in the Age of AI.
Organised by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation, this year's UABBHK is co-organised by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects, The Hong Kong Institute of Planners, and the Hong Kong Designers Association, with the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA) as the Lead Sponsor.
Running from 27 November 2025 to 24 January 2026, UABBHK 2025 will take place at the Oil Street Art Space (Oi!) in North Point and the East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC) in Kowloon Bay. These urban venues will be transformed into experimental stages for public imagination, civic dialogue, and participatory design — responding to the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the architecture sector.
Survey Findings Reveal Gaps in Practice and Ethics
AI is rapidly reshaping architectural practice, but the profession is facing uneven adoption, limited trust, and a lack of ethical or educational guidance. Globally, 67% of architects use AI for visualisation, but more than half fear job displacement in design and rendering roles[1]. A striking 74% believe the profession needs urgent ethical guidelines. Many practitioners describe working with tools they don't fully understand or trust—tools that may produce compelling visuals, but often lack narrative depth, cultural context, or authorship clarity.
Curatorial Response: From Tools to Performance
Against this backdrop, the UABBHK 2025 reframes AI not as a threat but as a catalyst for civic imagination and creative reinvention. "We chose the theme TECHFORMANCE because architecture is at a pivotal moment — AI is transforming how we design, while raising urgent questions about authorship, ethics, and identity", said Ar. Allen POON, Chairman of The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation. "As AI changes how we design, we must ensure it doesn't change why we design."
"Through TECHFORMANCE, UABBHK offers a cultural and civic response to the rise of Al in architecture. Rather than treating Al as a purely technical tool, we see it as a performative medium — a mirror that reflects our collective values, assumptions, and imaginations. Architecture is no longer a static product — it's a civic performance", said Dr. Jimmy HO, Lead Curator of UABBHK 2025. "We shift the focus from automation to authorship, from technology to imagination."
At UABBHK 2025, the public will not be passive viewers but active participants — co-designing future cities and engaging directly with the possibilities and provocations of AI in architecture.
Exhibition Highlights with Three Curatorial Visions
At the heart of UABBHK 2025 are three curatorial chapters that explore how AI transforms architecture into a civic performance: real-time public co-creation, local urban narratives, and cross-border collaboration. Spanning the Oil Street Art Space (Oi!) and the East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC), the exhibitions invite visitors to engage, perform, and prototype the future city.
1. Real-Time Interaction & Public Co-Creation
This chapter turns the UABBHK into a participatory lab, where AI enables live, interactive design. Installations respond to movement, touch, speech, and emotion — blurring the line between creator and audience.
At Oi!, Prompt [Pond]ering transforms keywords into speculative architecture, while AR-driven Bamboo Architecture projects full-scale holograms of bamboo structures. At EKCC, works like Sentient Mirror, Sketches in Motion, and Architecture Blind Box translate visitors' gestures, feelings, and tactile input into dynamic spatial forms.
2. Hong Kong Urban Narratives: Community × Memory × Imagination
This chapter explores how AI can preserve, reinterpret, and reimagine the city's collective memory.
At Oi!, installations such as LANdLine Project, Flower Market Imaginaries, and Reimagining Breeze Blocks invite the public to co-author stories of heritage and transformation. At EKCC, the Collaborative Ephemeral Pavilion—built from reused scaffolding and embedded with AI-generated narratives—becomes both a gathering space and a luminous landmark of shared memory.
3. Hong Kong – Shenzhen Collaboration
In this cross-border chapter, experimental works investigate AI's role in shaping new urban models for the Greater Bay Area.
At EKCC, Generative Futures features real-time robotic fabrication; Think BIG – cl0udbr1dge imagines drone-constructed bridges; and Exporting Aesthetics challenges conventions of authorship and identity in AI-generated skyscrapers. Together, these projects prototype adaptive, inclusive, and technologically forward urban futures.
In parallel, the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) (UABBSZ 2025) is tentatively scheduled to take place from late December 2025 to March 2026 at the Hetao Science and Technology Innovation Center. Under the theme City Theater, the exhibition expands its curatorial perspective. Curated by Zhu Tao, Shen Shaomin, and Ding Ning, it envisions urban space as a performative stage where architecture, technology, and civic life intersect. Exhibitions from Hong Kong will be showcased at the Hetao Science and Technology Innovation Center as part of UABBSZ 2025, continuing UABBHK's legacy as the world's first exhibition dedicated to urbanism and urbanisation—complementing Hong Kong's focus on AI and civic performance while deepening cross-border dialogue.
Public Programmes: AI Video Competition
To engage a wider public, the curatorial teams of the 10th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen and Hong Kong) (UABBSZ & HK) are jointly inviting creators from around the world to use artificial intelligence tools and, through innovative and forward-looking visual works, envision future scenarios for the Hetao area between Shenzhen and Hong Kong in China. Registration is now open via: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/1C9KicszFS.
For more information, please visit UABBHK 2025's website: https://uabb2025.hkia.org.hk/en/ai-competition.
A Civic Rehearsal for AI Futures
UABBHK 2025 is not a showcase of new technologies — it is a civic rehearsal. It invites architects, the public, and students to reimagine what it means to design with machines, without losing the human voice. In this Biennale, the audience is not passive. They are co-authors of the urban narrative, performers in a shared story, and participants in shaping the ethics of emerging technologies.
For more information, please visit UABBHK 2025's website: https://uabb2025.hkia.org.hk/en.
The Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides funding support to the project only, and does not otherwise take part in the project. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials/events (or by members of the project team) are those of the project organisers only and do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency, the CreateSmart Initiative Secretariat or the CreateSmart Initiative Vetting Committee.
Hashtag: #UABBHK2025
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About the Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation
The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation is a non-profit making organisation established and incorporated in 2014 for charitable purposes. The objects for which the Biennale Foundation is established are:
- To promote creativity and advance the understanding, appreciation and interest of architectural and design excellence
- To encourage cross-border and cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration between creative professionals from Hong Kong, Greater China region and overseas
- To support art, design, architectural and cultural education for students and youth, the community, and policy makers
- To create a favourable environment for study, research and experimentation of design, art and architectural works in an exhibition scale
- To energise and revitalize specific sites of interests by introduction of cultural and creative events
About the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency
The Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA) established in June 2024, formerly known as Create Hong Kong (CreateHK), is a dedicated office set up by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau to provide one-stop services and support to the cultural and creative industries with a mission to foster a conducive environment in Hong Kong to facilitate the development of arts, culture and creative sectors as industries.. Its strategic foci are nurturing talent and facilitating start-ups, exploring markets, promoting cross-sectoral and cross-genre collaboration, promoting the development of arts, culture and creative sectors as industries under the industry-oriented principle, and promoting Hong Kong as Asia's creative capital and fostering a creative atmosphere in the community to implement Hong Kong's positioning as the East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange under the National 14th Five-Year Plan.
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