deTour 2025 explores circular exhibition design at PMQ Hong Kong

Set within PMQ in November 2025, deTour 2025 unfolds not merely as a design exhibition, but as a critical proposition on the lifecycle of materials in temporary architecture. Conceived by Napp Studio & Architects under the curatorial direction of Shin Wong and Adonian Chan, the project confronts a paradox that has long haunted exhibition culture: the inevitability of waste embedded within spaces designed to be ephemeral.

At the core of the project lies a refusal to treat dismantling as an afterthought. Instead, the exhibition is structured around a continuous material narrative that begins at design and extends beyond the event itself. From fabrication to construction, from disassembly to redistribution, every phase is considered as part of an expanded architectural process. This approach repositions the exhibition not as a finite installation, but as a transitional condition within a longer chain of use, reuse, and transformation.

Rather than relying on reduction alone, the spatial system is conceived as inherently adaptable. Components are designed for future redeployment, anticipating second and even third lives in different contexts. This foresight reduces the need for reconstruction while also addressing the practical constraints that often undermine sustainable ambitions, including limited budgets, labour, and logistical uncertainty.

By embedding future scenarios into the initial design phase, the project shifts responsibility forward. Structures are tested not only for their immediate performance but also for their capacity to migrate, to be reassembled, and to engage new users. In doing so, the exhibition becomes a platform for negotiating the afterlife of materials, where value is not exhausted at the moment of display but extended across time.

The conceptual framework draws from the Buddhist notion of interbeing, a philosophy that understands all entities as interdependent and continuously transforming. Within this lens, materials are not inert resources but participants in an ongoing cycle of exchange. The exhibition space operates as an intermediary state, where materials are temporarily configured before moving on to new roles.

This perspective challenges the conventional authorship of architecture. The designer’s role is no longer to produce a final object, but to choreograph a sequence of transformations. Space becomes less about permanence and more about facilitating transitions, where each iteration carries traces of its previous form while anticipating future adaptations.

Furniture developed for deTour 2025 embodies this ethos at an intimate scale. Like whisky shaped by the barrels that contain it, each piece absorbs the conditions of its making, acquiring a distinct identity through use and context. As these objects migrate beyond the exhibition, they do not lose their origin; rather, they accumulate new layers of meaning.

In this sense, the project proposes a shift in how design is valued. Instead of privileging novelty, it foregrounds continuity, where materials evolve through successive appropriations. The exhibition thus becomes a moment within a broader ecology of design, where objects and structures persist not as static artefacts but as active participants in an ongoing process of transformation.

Project Credit

Exhibition: deTour 2025 / @detourhk
Date: November 2025
Location: PMQ, Hong Kong
Exhibition Designer: Napp Studio / @napp_studio
Curator-at-large: Shin Wong / @theinvisiblelady
Curator: Adonian Chan / @adonian
Builder: Hattrick Creative / @hattrick_creative, Screw Up Studio / @screw_up_studio
Photo: Jimmy Ho

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