This publication documents the work of an international group of students from The New School and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The initial work was done collaboratively in January 2019, when a group of New School students visited Hong Kong and Macau, and took part in the design workshop at the School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The workshop focused on the variations of the concept of public space and multiplicities of public spatial practice that have emerged in the context of the Pearl River Delta’s (PRD) rapid urban development in the last forty years. In our visits Hong Kong and Macau, and our travels across the new mobility infrastructure completed with the 55 km-long Zhuhai-Macau-Hong Kong bridge, we observed how public space has been employed as a catalyst for spatial and urban transformations in this largest conurbation in the world, projected to reach eighty million inhabitants by year 2025. We employed public space to frame issues of social inclusion, citizen participation, learning/education and appropriation in the production of everyday urbanism. In both Hong Kong and Macau, we attempted to understand how the complex processes of planetary urbanization affect everyday urbanism and its multiple and complex manifestations. During the 5-day workshop, students developed strategies and scenarios for critical urban transformations in this rapidly evolving context.