PMQ Corner #24

Stick to Joy, Stick with Joy

LAAB

Written by Kit Chan
Translated by Derek Leung
Photos from PMQ & Kit Chan

It is a space with boundless creativity. Once you enter, stripes of different length are interwoven to form a huge carpet of bright colours.

Then, you may suddenly bump into looming mirrors where fair straight contours bend in a funny way… Images of all kinds are indeed dependent on where you stand and how you see the world.

It is by all means a wonderland where your craziness and creativity should stick to — a place where stripes of mt masking tapes stick to.

This project, titled Stick with Joy — Masking Tape Creativity Fair【Colourscape】— PMQ x LAAB, is the latest work of LAAB where PMQ's courtyard has just got innovatively dressed up.

The architectural practice with the derivations from three primary colours listed in the catalogue of the mt masking tape, namely glass blue, sunflower yellow and shocking pink, creates kaleidoscopic images of complex colour palettes on the one hand and pays tribute to the classiness of the three fundamental colours.

"You can't exactly find the same colours in the pantone table. By the way, our own colour printing also makes some differences," claimed Otto Ng, Design Director of LAAB, with a surprise of the accuracy of mt's colour use. "They're all simplest colours."

It is the translucent nature of those tapes from Japan that successfully turns shades and layers of crisscrossed tapes into new bright colours, and makes the patterns more three-dimensional and powerful thanks to the lighting effect.

This is why an exquisitely interwoven picture with reference to the aesthetics in modernism can be regarded as both modern and time-honoured.

Memories will surely be recalled when the sharp-eyed local visitors glance at those scattered cylindrical installations, which are apparently a symbol of the loops of the masking tapes and an impressive reminiscence of the playground facilities in the old public housing estates where children climbed and fell off.

Nevertheless, what LAAB would like to express is not only the collective memory but also the wisdom of spatial design. "The curvilinear reflections add layers to light and shadows and bring you to experience and appreciate. Our mission is to enhance your imagination upon an open community space," added Ng.

Special attention has also been paid to various positions of the installations since an infinite self beyond reality can be found in the open community space between two curvy mirrors
meandering routes as well as a deep pit in a certain part of the ground floor could be noted from the height


In another word, it is hard to substantiate the very place without the interaction and the engagement of the mankind. "When everyone can crate and capture his or her own moment by taking lovely photos, there’ll surely be memories between the space and the people," stated Ng.

Named "Colourscape", the work is considered a carpet pleasing everyone, irrespective of age and ranking, who manages to observe something fun in this particular carpet.

This artwork looks like a live reminder:

Living is in need of space – a space with less restriction and more creativity.

Formerly the police married quarters with its atrium as an interactive piazza for residents, PMQ falls short of its intangible intimate relationship between the ground and the buildings due to its redevelopment, where luck unveils when LAAB now reinstates by sticking the masking tapes to the area.

"When it comes to the past living environment, you might probably be able to see different scenes when you looked down from the windows," exclaimed Ng. He finds it is high time we paid more respect on the open community space designed by our previous generations and proactively known as a reference to the future architecture. "It's kind of impossible for us to get that simple and direct pleasure again even though the parks and the playgrounds are still here."

Like rolls and stripes of masking tapes epitomizing another world, LAAB emphasizes art in architecture in its name with two letters of "A", manifesting its belief in another universe of affinity and harmony other than the existing world of design with humanity.



LAAB: http://www.laab.pro/

Stick with Joy – Masking Tape Creativity Fair

Date: 2016年12月16日至2017年1月4日

https://www.pmq.org.hk/event/stick-with-joy-2016/

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