Abstract
Hong Kong’s specialty coffee shops embody a paradox in the city’s cultural landscape. They are products of consumption with atmospheres curated to attract customers while many also draw on “Old Hong Kong” material culture to invoke a sense of care for the past. This paper explores the tension between consumption and responsibility by investigating how coffee shops in Hong Kong mobilise adaptive reuse design practices. Building on a previous survey of 706 coffee shops, the study identifies four interlinked modes of practice: material reuse, spatial staging, narrative framing, and participatory engagement. These modes enact forms of restorative design, revealing how responsibility emerges across multiple dimensions. By situating these findings within conversations on heritage, nostalgia, and responsibility in design, the paper interrogates the role of cafés in negotiating culture. It demonstrates how these spaces can become sites of restorative practice, in a city driven by rapid urbanisation.
Keywords
Coffee shops, Cultural memory, Restorative design, Hong Kong
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1665
Citation
Chan, A., and Serrano, V.M. (2026) Between Consumption and Care: Restorative Design and Cultural Memory in Hong Kong Coffee Shops, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1665
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Between Consumption and Care: Restorative Design and Cultural Memory in Hong Kong Coffee Shops
Hong Kong’s specialty coffee shops embody a paradox in the city’s cultural landscape. They are products of consumption with atmospheres curated to attract customers while many also draw on “Old Hong Kong” material culture to invoke a sense of care for the past. This paper explores the tension between consumption and responsibility by investigating how coffee shops in Hong Kong mobilise adaptive reuse design practices. Building on a previous survey of 706 coffee shops, the study identifies four interlinked modes of practice: material reuse, spatial staging, narrative framing, and participatory engagement. These modes enact forms of restorative design, revealing how responsibility emerges across multiple dimensions. By situating these findings within conversations on heritage, nostalgia, and responsibility in design, the paper interrogates the role of cafés in negotiating culture. It demonstrates how these spaces can become sites of restorative practice, in a city driven by rapid urbanisation.