Ambiguous temporariness: production of time-space territories in Hong Kong’s small urban open spaces

Abstract

This article integrates temporality into territoriality theories and investigates Hong Kong’s small urban open spaces through a territorial perspective. It conceptualises these compact public open spaces as landscapes of different territorial events, foregrounds the temporal aspects of the territorialising processes, and analyzes the frictions between the various social and environmental processes that define the city’s formative cycles. Focussing specifically on sitting-out areas and rest gardens, the smallest components of the city’s official network of open-spaces that are often created through temporary government land allocations, this study offers a unique local narrative within the larger discussion of creating small-scale, opportunistically-achieved, temporary open spaces around the world. Three detailed case studies examined in this article reveal diverse forms of territorial production specific to Hong Kong’s geographical, socio-economic and cultural context, collectively contributing to a critical understanding of the ‘temporariness’ of the city’s small urban open spaces characterised by ambiguity, volatility and uncertainty.