Workers in Hong Kong made plastic fowers, incense before that, and consumer goods throughout the city’s provincial, Imperial, and colonial periods. Kowloon Peninsula’s deep harbour and proximity to shipping lanes gave rise to export- oriented industries long before imperialistic conficts changed their ownership from Chinese to British, and back again. Making things in this context served to defne self-motivated enterprise. Hong Kong Chinese people made most of their export goods following a low material investment, labour-intensive model. Workers hand-painted ceramics and toys more often than their employers invested in better plant to replace their work. 1 Relationships to time and industry have changed in Hong Kong, particularly since the 1980s. The city has reimagined itself as a centre for fnancial capital and knowledge capital, as a ‘global metropolis’ 2 rather than a manufacturing hub. Indeed, this particular factory of the world 3 is now defned regionally Appropriate construction technologies for design activism Material research practices in response to globalisation In the former factories of the world: contrasting labour, knowledge, and physical capital in Hong Kong Daniel Elkin, Gerhard Bruyns, and Peter Hasdell rather than locally. Cross-border trade 4 communicates knowledge capital from the offces of Hong Kong to the sprawling, cheaply rented tidal fats of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Guangzhou, where the physical capital of real estate awaits. This re-imagining brings inequalities. Spatial and economic ‘compression’ 5 has occurred, where profound poverty and anxiety sit adjacent to the ‘top-level professionals coming to the city’ and the ‘global fows’ of commerce and capital. 6 Along with the clearance perspective doi: 10.1017/S1359135518000507 arq (2018), 290–309. © Cambridge University Press 2019 1 Expansive assembly spaces of fabrication firms in Mainland China. arq . vol 22 . no 4 . 2018 perspective 290