Photo credit: courtesy of Architecture Commons
Event Description
Since 2019, Architecture Commons and Neighbourhood Innovation Lab have pioneered multi-stakeholder design strategies to advance urban equity across diverse community challenges. We catalyze systemic change through portfolios of strategic innovations and experiments, engaging structural levers of transformation in partnership with city and regional governments, property developers, industry leaders, community organizations, and policymakers.
Operating as a cross-sectoral platform, we bridge institutional boundaries to foster innovation-driven transformation. Our approach facilitates innovation consortia and community-led change initiatives, testing solutions directly with affected communities to ensure relevance and impact.
Our work spans critical urban domains. For the Hong Kong Housing Bureau and Housing Authority, we developed the Well-being Design Guide, establishing new frameworks for public housing that prioritize resident quality of life. POSsible, created for the Architectural Services Department, provides a design thinking toolkit that reimagines public open space development. Through JC@21C, we delivered integrated hardware and program innovations across 36 children and youth centers, enhancing youth empowerment in collaboration with Hong Kong Jockey Club and multiple NGOs. The JC Wellbeing project engaged 16 schools in participatory design processes that transformed learning environments.
This presentation examines the strategies, tools, and insights gained from orchestrating collaboration across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. We will explore how to navigate competing institutional logics, align diverse stakeholder timelines and priorities, and structure inclusive participation that genuinely distributes agency. Attendees will gain practical frameworks for building effective innovation consortia, translating between sectoral languages, and scaling pilots into systemic impact—essential capabilities for practitioners working at the intersection of urban design, social innovation, and participatory governance.
Speaker
Eric Ho, AIA, AIA Hong Kong Chapter Director, AIA International; Immediate Past President, AIA Hong Kong; Co-founder and Director, Architecture Commons
Speaker Bios
Architect, entrepreneur, and urban thinker, Eric Ho is passionate about architecture and urban environments that have a lasting impact on society. Eric is the Co-founder and Director of Architecture Commons, a design agency for urban innovation, and also the 2025 President of the American Institute of Architects Hong Kong Chapter. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he received the Faculty Design Award. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in urban design at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
To broaden the architectural practice, he has been leading the strategy team at Architecture Commons and launched the “Neighbourhood Innovation Lab” to explore human-centred design for cities and neighbourhoods, winning the Good Design Award in 2022 and 2025. Eric spearheaded the team as the leading consultant for the “Well-being Design Guide” that became a policy across Hong Kong Public Housing Estates development under the directive of the Hong Kong Housing Bureau and Hong Kong Housing Authority, winning numerous awards including the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design Greater Bay Area Urban Design Awards 2024 and Hong Kong Institue of Planner Silver Award.
