By Géraldine Borio

In Looking for the Voids: Learning from Asia’s Liminal Urban Spaces as a Foundation to Expand an Architectural Practice, Hong Kong-based Swiss architect Géraldine Borio presents findings from more than fifteen years of experimental urban research in Asia. Her research focuses on the interstitial spaces of the built environment, the back and in-between alleys and other territorial buffer zones that are in constant flux and move between the poles of inside–outside, public–private, as well as legal–illegal.

The concrete design principles derived from analysing urban typologies in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Seoul, and from engaging with residents and their informal appropriation of such semi-private urban spaces, can offer useful tools to architects and urban designers alike.