Spotted within a minute’s walk of each other in the bustling Sheung Wan neighborhood where our Hong Kong design studio is located, these are reminders that Hong Kong’s formidable space constraints that inspire such improvised sidewalk-based storage need not be limited to tools like shovels or brooms.

On the way to a nearby restaurant for a team lunch, we spotted one creative construction team’s solution for storing bricks directly on the sidewalk so that they take up the least possible amount of room – sandwiched into the negative space created by the ugly, grey metal sidewalk fencing and some safety barriers typically used for redirecting vehicular and pedestrian traffic. This creates quite a different outcome from the behavior captured in the last post that led to a temporary street-based park. By comparison, what this approach gains in preserving vehicular traffic flow, it loses in ability to spontaneously double as seating.

Arriving at the Shandong restaurant we set out for, our team was greeted by a (presumed) temporary storage solution for ingredients out front – in this case, what appear to be some sizable leeks. While this storage solution would perhaps double as an advertisement of freshness, it could form a different impression of ingredients’ cleanliness.