Bleak House Books 2.0 The relocation of a beloved independent bookstore from the bustling industrial Sam Po Kong neighbourhood in Hong Kong to the suburban town of Honeoye Falls provided the perfect foil and narrative framework of this project. SKEW Collaborative proposed the conceptual “relocation” of the original store into the new site, rotated at the exact axis between the Hong Kong and New York street grids. The designers requested the owner provide a sketch of the now defunct old store, and from this, a central “island” was formed, jam-packed with new programmes including book display, POS, work areas, seating, storage and book restoration/processing points. Articulated through bookcases of differing heights and set askew from the prevalent building grid, the island recreates the sense of density and (organized) chaos of Hong Kong that the owners wanted to recall within the suburban context. The perimeter and original plan of the store are further inscribed on the ceiling through strip lights and the mural work of artist Yerke Abuova that reinterpreted the original sketch of the store. Iconic Red A lights, produced in a factory down the street from the Sam Po Kong bookstore, were deployed throughout but recombined in abstract ways to further reinforce the “strange-ness” of the dislocated geographies.