香港參展代表@International cargo bike festival

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Moving Gacang’ is the first innovation of cargo bike with tools library attached that promote social and urban mobility through upcycling and cycling in Hong Kong and greater bay area. It is a co-learning platform to facilitate upcycling design and craft from everyday products to community facilities. With the vision to present the ‘Made in Hong Kong’ cargo bike to the world, the model of 'Moving Gacang' was exhibited in the innovation expo at the International Cargo Bike Festival in Groningen, Netherland, 2019. Through experience and document the conference on improving city logistics, cargo bike Parade, and site visit with makers overseas, the research will be contributing to the enhancement of upcycling workshops and community-building projects in Hong Kong and the region. We aim to bring creativity, vintage aesthetics and traditional craftsmanship to the public, creating more possibilities in our lives and community. And most importantly, turn wastes into improved tastes!

Hong Kong is a metropolitan city with enormous resources, yet people are not fully aware of how to utilize it. When things like home appliances and furniture deteriorates, or as we say “to be retired”, people nowadays tend to toss it away in a blink of eyes. Some would refer to the handyman in the neighborhood to fix instead of rashly buying a new replacement. But generally those with skills and tools (“Gacang” in Cantonese) are hard to locate with fluctuating office hour. In addition, unaffordable high rent further contracts the limited space for repairmen to work and provide upcycling service to the community. How shall we promote upcycling in this rigid environment in Hong Kong? Our answer to this question is: Bike.

We call it “Moving Gacang”. It is a mobile makerspace and tool library that break the conventional barriers set between maker to users geographically, socially and economically. It is not only a bike with handyman, but also a community hub where people have access to a wide range of industrial tools, repairing skills and knowledge. It bridges the gap between maker and user, cultivating a new practice of “repair your own goods, with your own hands” in collaboration with those valuable artisans in our surroundings.

Hong Kong have been undergoing an economic shift in decades. The considerable up and downs in light industries had left a group of middle-aged craftsmen with skills awaiting to be recognized especially in a modern sustainable society. The mission of “Moving Gacang” is to respond to this urban growth, to provide mobile resources enforcing initiatives and education with an emphasis on local community empowerment. With tools, skills, knowledge and a riding stylish cargo bike, we hope to inspire people the individual potentiality to the maximum.

We are a team with approximately 20 people from different age groups and career background. There are professional craftsmen being the workshop facilitator to instruct the concept of manufacturing a groundbreaking cargo bike. Whereas working youth and student would take part in volunteer work, planning and marketing. And last but not least, all of us are makers.

Goals, Objectives and desired impact:

1. Encourage upcycling and cycling as a social habit, including physical activity and skills, the use of a sustainable transport mode (the bicycle!), and also aims to increase the modal share of cycling and craftsmanship by creating a network of social welfare institution, schools, makers and craftsman, local recycling business, students, youth and parents. 2. To build a stronger community, empower people and the neighborhood, by bringing members of the neighborhood together to share tools, time and skills. 3. Develop neighborhood resiliency and self-reliance by making tools and cargo bike available for general use as well as teaching the community how to make and repair things, collect and transport the materials from the street, rubbish and recycling station, public estate and even village in countryside, and to facilitate upcycling design, repair and maintenance at low cost. 4. Reduce unnecessary consumerism and waste by sharing resources as a community rather than buying them separately as individuals, and encourage to reduce waste associated with individual consumption. 5. To collaborate with other groups in the neighborhood and to serve as a resource to further their work, particularly for people with less economic resources and people who aren’t traditionally encouraged to use tools.