And so, after nearly six years I thought it time (with some trepidation) to return to the Hong Kong Wetland Park (HKWP) to see how it is faring. It represents, after all, five years of my life as Director of Research with the designers MET Studio.
It was a dull Sunday afternoon, but I was pleased to see so many families and children enjoying one of the few (the only?) grass roofed buildings in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, due to a bird flu warning we could not get out into the wetlands reserve. A maze was a great source of fun and you soon forgot the cliff-like wall of residential blocks behind you that partly make up “The City of Sadness”, Tin Shui Wai.
The approach to the building still provides a nice wind down from the urban environment, beginning to introduce themes of ecology and a water channel that will broaden out as you enter the atrium.
The ‘What Are Wetlands?’ gallery still provides a good introduction to the overall topic and I was pleasantly surprised (throughout) to see how relatively few of the interactives were out of order.
The ‘Living Wetlands’ gallery provides some spectacular moments …
The ‘Humans Culture’ gallery still provides some magical moments …
And the ‘Wetland Challenge’ gallery was catering for large groups of teenagers’ button-pushing tendencies. Out on the Viewing Gallery, we were lucky enough to see the rare visitors, and symbol of the HKWP, the Black-billed Spoonbill.
All in all, I was relieved and proud to see the HKWP standing up so well to both the test of time and enthusiasm of so many of the visitors I was observing (and this was a relatively quiet day when we could not get out to what is the real attraction – the natural habitat).