“Rootelligence”

29 August – 31 October 2026 | THE HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB MUSEUM OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Hong Kong experiences extreme weather from scorching heat to record-breaking rainstorms. Climate extremes do not affect everyone equally. For the over 200,000 people living in substandard housing across the city, the impact is disproportionate and severe. The underprivileged neighbourhood suffered from poorly ventilated spaces during heatwaves, or was exposed to flooding and leakages during torrential rains. This lived reality makes climate equity not an abstract ideal, but an urgent urban imperative.

Participatory design can help address this by bringing citizens and professionals together to shape responses that reflect both environmental conditions and community needs. Youth are especially important in this process because they are not only future residents of our cities, but also active contributors to how technology, ecology, and social priorities are being negotiated today. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can further support this process by helping participants analyse data, visualise design ideas, and generate prototypes for urban design.

At the intersection of natural principles, artificial intelligence, and community cooperation, how can we design the future city by harnessing climate equity knowledge through youth-driven, AI-facilitated co-creation methods? 

This exhibition — Rootelligence — is a way of thinking about intelligence through nature, especially the cooperative exchange of resources and signals within root systems. It offers a bottom-up model for how cities might care for shared natural assets. Across five chapters, visitors explore Hong Kong’s “roots” in community knowledge and harvest “intelligence” in equitable climate futures for 2050 and beyond. It demonstrates how climate equitable cities cannot be built by humans or technology alone, they must grow from the balanced, reciprocal collaboration of natural intelligence, human collective creativity and AI machine intelligence. 

Hosted by 

• Digital Common(s) Lab
• Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change
• CUHK School of Architecture

This exhibition and symposium unites students, architects, researchers, policymakers, and citizens to pioneer a regenerative urban order where nature, humans and machines thrive together.