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

A survey of fifteen years of urban research by Hong Kong-based Swiss architect Géraldine Borio in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Seoul. In Looking for the Voids, Hong Kong-based Swiss architect Géraldine Borio presents findings from fifteen 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, as well as 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 analyzing 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 assist 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.