Anna-Lisa Custers

In a landscape where boundaries blur, domus memoria positions on the line between land and sea, between past and future. This project, located in the fragile Mai Po nature reserve in Hong Kong, responds to the destructive forces of erosion—both physical from coastal erosion and social from human divisions at border areas. The building serves as a sublimation of the landscape itself, framing landscapes as a critique of extreme urbanization. Here, where three borders converge, a central hortus conclusus emerges—a fluidly enclosed garden of genius loci and the passage of time, with a house of memory in its periphery. Nature is preserved, restored, and framed as a protagonist.

Constructed from natural dike-like chambers, the landscape structure holds the sand together, a metaphor for dune grass. Where tidal dynamics meet the land, nature is gradually restored to its pre-urbanized state. Above this enfilade structure, a house of memory floats on three columns, connecting people across different borders. The architecture carries the memory of the site, reflecting both Hong Kong's high-rise buildings and vernacular Eastern architecture. Within this structure lie three distinct spaces of memory: the studiolo, an intimate room for artifacts; the wunderkammer, a semi-public area for collective memories; and the galleria, a public space. Each offers varying degrees of proximity to the site’s memory. It contains artifacts of you, me, your neighbor, your family, and nature itself. The house is never finished; it grows and transforms with the natural and human processes it embraces. It is hollowed to a minimum, creating flexible architectural spaces that adapt to changing needs over time. Domus memoria resonates as a house of memory of the place, translating as a metaphor for the roaring sea between land and ocean, and between land and land - domus memoria, a house for the memory.

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