Looking for the Voids: Learning from Asia’s Liminal Urban Spaces as a Foundation to Expand an Architectural Practice

In Looking for the Voids, Hong Kong-based Swiss architect Géraldine Borio presents findings from 15 years of experimental urban research in Asia, proposing new ways to interpret and design urban space. Borio’s focus is on the interstitial spaces of the built environment, the back and in-between alleys and the sidewalks that are in constant flux and move between the poles of inside – outside, public – private, or legal – illegal. This lavishly and attractively designed book offers a survey of the lessons Borio has learned 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. The concrete design principles that Borio has derived from her fieldwork offer assistance to researchers and urban designers in their own investigations and in translating their findings into new projects for the further development of urban and metropolitan spaces.