Every year, the University of Hong Kong's multimedia channel, U-Vision, celebrates the winter festive season by producing a short video to spread holiday cheer. This season, the team was especially hungry so they tried to work with edible treats and ended up building the University of Hong Kong's most iconic building, "Main Building" out of gingerbread, icing and candies! It took over a week to construct and lots of work from some amazingly talented individuals from different departments.
The Main Building is the oldest structure on the University of Hong Kong (HKU)'s Main Campus. This Edwardian Baroque-style building was designed by Alfred Bryer of Leigh & Orange. Construction began in 1910 and was completed in 1912. The gingerbread model of the building is similar to how it looked like prior to the 1950s, before the addition of two new courtyards and a further floor at the rear. In 1984, the Main Building was declared a monument by the Hong Kong Government.
The Gingerbread Main Building's first exhibition was at the lobby of Knowles Building.
Now, it is on permanent display in the Common Core Lounge, which is open every weekday from 9am – 5:30pm. Please feel free to take photos with it and share your photos with us via Instagram @HKUGingerbread
Behind the Scenes
The Multimedia Team of the Communications and Public Affairs Office (CPAO), HKU, operate the university-wide multimedia channel, U-Vision. The team consists of four members only, each with different daily operation duties in channel management during the day. Over the short course of a few weeks and many late nights in building, decorating, filming, and editing, they were able to overcome many hardships in constructing the gingerbread Main Building and producing the seasonal video on schedule. Luckily, they were also able to enlist the help of a talented colleague from CPAO's Media Relations team to be their Pâtissier for baking the gingerbread after hours. Three research assistants from the Division of Landscape Architecture also moonlighted to assist with the design of the Gingerbread Main Building and created very intricate stencils for the gingerbread pieces to be shaped in. It took more than 16 hours for the Multimedia Team and their Pâtissier to bake all of the gingerbread pieces according to the designed shapes. The assembly took a little over than a week. Members of the CPAO Events Team, Communications Services Team, Publications Team, Common Core, Department of Architecture, Department of Chemistry, and Digital Literacy Lab lent a kind hand material support with icing and decorations too.
Making of the Season's Greetings Video
Making of the Gingerbread Building
Gallery
Crew
Director/Producer/Editor
Lillian TAM
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Directors of Photography
Louis MOK
Lillian TAM
Lunar TONG
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Script Writers
Kelvin AU
Louis MOK
Janet OR
Lillian TAM
Lunar TONG
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Executive Producers
Sylvia CHEUNG
Katherine MA
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Production Set Designers
Janet OR
Lillian TAM
Lunar TONG
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Gingerbread Design Architects
Dickson CHAN
Sandra NWE
Janet OR
Haylie SHUM
Rashida SUFFIAD
Lillian TAM​
Pâtissier
Rashida SUFFIAD
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Assistant Pâtissiers
Janet OR
Lunar TONG
Lillian TAM
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Lead Icing Artist
Janet OR
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Assistant Icing Artists
Dickson CHAN
Sena CHUI
Calvin LIANG
Grace NG
Sandra NWE
Nicol PAN
Haylie SHUM
Rashida SUFFIAD
Lunar TONG
Dorothy YIM
Wing YU
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Venue Support
Matthew LEUNG / Digital Literacy Lab
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Exhibition Support
Grace NG
Patricia CHAN
Sena CHUI
Nicol PAN
Charmaine TSE
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Special thanks to
Charles CHAN
Patricia CHAN
Cecilia CHU
Gavin COATES
Maxime DECAUDIN
Milena MI
HKU Department of Chemistry