Gecko's Kowloon Walled City
By 691c81bb-edda-4599-8f4d-9e833a054a3e · May 15, 2026 · 10 min read
Ever since I watched Dami Lee's video on Kowloon Walled City, I started seeing it everywhere. Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, I guess?
A few days ago, I came across Gecko's rendition of KWC - I immediately thought that this one's definitely worthy of the tour archives!
I reached out to him and he agreed to give me a tour.
A hidden entrance
Gecko leads me to the entrance - it feels like we've discovered an abandoned buried city. It seems like a place you'd only find if you were looking for it.
Gecko: In the original Kowloon Walled City, the city was built around the exclave of China which was an official's office
It was the only building inside KWC that was never built on top of
He then takes me through the gateway into the city. I spot a shop but before we reach it, my guide points out the electricity boxes which occasionally send sparks flying.
The ground loop
The base of Kowloon Walled City is a loop mostly made up of shops and other common gathering spaces. It's very cramped and everything seems to be barely working.
Street food
We stop near a street food vendor and sit on cheap plastic stools. Gecko tells me that the curried fish balls were very famous in Hong Kong and, by extension, in KWC. I had to try those.
The curry sauce appears to be a dyed … and Gecko tells me the fish balls are the fins of a ….
He beckons me to take a look at the streetfood stall itself - it's a large frying station with two sides, one with the curry sauce and the lighter one with the broth.
It seems to be made of a dyed … covered in other decor items. There's a … inside, hidden just enough so that the effects make it look like there's heat distortion. They're made of a … and a …. This is all very clever.
Gecko guides me through the cramped streets. As we pass by a shuttered shop in our walk, Gecko tells me to look up regularly (you should do that while on the virtual tour). There are cables everywhere!
As I am walking around looking at the ceiling I step on a puddle.
Gecko: open sewers are everywhere too
Oh... now he tells me. There are also leaking pipes all over the place (some dangerously close to sparking electrical wires).
Gecko tells me that residents always carry umbrellas - you really don't want to know what's dripping onto your head. The thought makes me wish I didn't eat those fish balls.
My concerns soon disappear as I notice how Gecko achieved the puddle look: it's a …! That's one tip I'm taking away (rather than using a …).
The shops
We arrive to a bird shop and Gecko explains that shopowners would typically sit on stools by the shops while waiting for customers. I wonder how shops get deliveries in these very cramped streets.
There's all kinds of shops on the ground loop. I'm marvelled at Gecko's creative arrangement of decor to create such variety!
The fish-shop specifically had me stare at it for a long time. There's aquariums in the back, there's puddles of water everywhere and an upside-down clipped … to create a ceiling fan.
The central courtyard
We carry on with our tour of the ground loop and Gecko gives me a little insight into the real KWC.
Gecko: I never visited but I have seen it though. I was too young to be aware of its significance and most people from Hong Kong won't set foot in KWC.
They believed it was very dangerous. So I had no reason to go.
We arrive to the central courtyard: it's a gathering space, a play area and a rubbish dump. Somehow it works?
We stop for a bit:
Dosaki: Looking up, the view is amazing!
Gecko: Yeah! It's a mix between KWC and the Hong Kong I know of.
My grandma's flat is about a block away from KWC and closer to Kai Tak Airport.
Dosaki: It's such a shame that KWC got demolished - it seems like a pearl of culture got lost.
What's in place of KWC now?
Gecko: It's now a park. Which is nice instead of replacing it with another building.
The Dentist's
While I'm still looking up, I hear Gecko's voice start becoming fainter - I realise he must be moving on. I look back down and pick up my pace to reach him by a makeshift dentist's clinic.
According to him, these were illegal clinics since mainland China's dental licenses weren't recognised in British Hong Kong.
Many who fled China in the 50s came to KWC and set up shops to exercise their profession, regardless of whether their credentials were recognised.
I look around the dentist's shop and I think to myself that I need to ask Gecko to make a guide for some of these items.
Cafe diner
There are other specialised establishments on the ground loop.
Gecko: A cha chaan teng: a Hong Kong style cafe diner.
Britain introduced western dining in Hong Kong, but they're usually quite fancy and expensive.
So cha chaan teng would make cheap western style Hong Kong fast food
I explore the restaurant for a bit. It seems more spacious than expected but Gecko quickly adds that he removed some tables, for navigation's sake. A cha chaan teng would be packed to the brim.
I'm surprised that the restaurant even has toilets! The cyan-dyed … look like urinals. It's perfect!
Faith and spirituality
No matter how packed a place is, there is always room for a shrine.
Inhabitants of the City would leave small offerings to this shrine.
Moving up a level
We finish the ground level loop and then head towards the stairs to move to the next level up.
As we climb the stairs I notice an abandoned TV.
Gecko: TVs were a main source of entertainment in KWC and they'd watch TV shows from Hong Kong
And he is right, just about every home had a TV regardless of how small the apartment was!
Just before we reach the apartments, Gecko stops at a shop. He points at the sign and explains it reads "Pawnshop".
Gecko: I did calligraphy growing up, so making these Chinese characters was actually quite fun.
Dosaki: I wish I knew to read them because this is such a good compact way of making signs.
Gecko: Aha yeah! The … surprisingly allowed me to do thickness really well.
Apartments
Apartments are small and cramped. There is little to no privacy and despite the small spaces, families have many children.
To illustrate the point, Gecko mentions that his own mother had 6 other siblings and they had to sleep in the same bed - and they didn't even live in KWC!
Space is precious, so one makes use of the vertical space to take advantage of every cubic centimeter. In the real KWC, some apartments doubled as shops too.
Since people would build anywhere they could, apartments would have no gas or plumbing either (but there would always be a TV). In the whole city there were only about 7 or 8 water pumps that would feed 30,000 to 50,000 people.
Dosaki: What about showers? And toilets?
Gecko: We'll see.
Ominous...
When Gecko mentioned there was little privacy, I thought it was confined to the home, as in, no privacy from your family.
Since apartments don't have the space (or the plumbing), the lack of privacy seems to extend to the whole neighbourhood!
Health and safety? What's that?!
If the fuseboxes, the exposed wires next to leaking pipes and the burning barrels weren't a clue, health and safety is based on common sense in KWC.
You should really look where you're going here. Not only do things break down all the time, the city itself crumbles from time to time.
But the residents are resourceful and they know how to spot an opportunity to repurpose an abandoned or ruined section - for legitimate or less orthodox purposes. Law enforcement would rarely come into KWC, but they would raid the place from time to time, looking for illicit substances.
They take any scrapped item and make it work for the whole community, no matter how old or broken. If there's some use in it, Kowloon Walled City will squeeze what's left out of it.
Note on the Health and Safety Complaints
Gecko assures me that the city is being made safer and sent pictures as proof:
The top level
We finally arrive to the rooftops, where a massive plane is landing on the nearby airport.
Gecko remembers the airplanes being really close, but obviously not this close!
The houses up here are much nicer - they have a beautiful view - until someone builds on top of them, I suppose!
This artist's shack was inspired by a shed built by Gecko's parents on top of his grandmother's house.
Gecko: My grandma's flat was on the top floor and my parents had an illegally constructed shed on top of the roof.
That's where I grew up for the first few years, so this flat is kinda what I projected myself in.
An artist/sculpter lives in this shed.
They can only afford bread, no proper bed, but the craft matters more.
Dosaki: Artists live a hard life.
Gecko: Yeah.
Dosaki: I love how you made the statue - it's like a work in progress!
Gecko: Hehe yeah! Pretty happy with it.
The economics of the build
Gecko is nearly at the decor cap, I can definitely see why - there is so much detail packed into this build. It's easy to forget it's all built inside one single Evening Circle Room!
He estimates he must've spent around 400,000, though after checking his WoW Housing DB entry, it says it's closer to 148,000. However, there's other currency costs.
Some was bought on the Auction House but much was obtained via crafting orders to keep costs down. Some items are very expensive in the Auction House but the materials are next to nothing (if you already have the lumber, or don't mind farming it.)
All-in-all I'll say 400k spent sounds about right.
The way he's combined all those items, in my opinion, makes the value shoot up. I'd say this whole build is probably worth four times as much!
Gecko's thoughts
We finally sat at the very top of the city to chat a little more.
Time spent
Gecko estimates he spent over a month on this, his first screenshot in mid-March.
He and his friend Juicebox spent some time pondering the idea.
Gecko: Juicebox shared with me some of the inspirations he had with me too. Would've been interesting to see what he would have come up with as someone who's fascinated by it but never lived there.
The plane was the first thing I built and, almost exactly a month ago, the courtyard took shape.
Dosaki: I'd never assume that! I thought you'd have started with the shops downstairs.
Gecko: Haha! It was just empty walls.
Dosaki: So you kinda knew what shape you were going for?
Gecko: Yeah, the interiors kinda just grew organically.
I did the courtyard, then I just filled the outside with walls and then started carving out corridors.
Inspiration
Dosaki: What resources did you use for inspiration for the items? Was it a lot of experimentation? Or are there people you typically follow?
Gecko: A mix of memory and research inspiration.
For the smaller things, I get inspiration from people like botanicole, her food builds are always so amazing.
Dosaki nods
Gecko: For bigger builds, certainly GP at Home and Building Mouse.
Dosaki: Yeah, they have such good tips.
Gecko:: But I also have a lot of inspiration from just generally watching what other people could do.
Like Juicebox/SOMA, Highmountain Tom. They would come over quite frequently and just... kinda watch me cook lol.
What's in the future for KWC?
Dosaki: You said you're always looking for more places to add rooms. Is there anything specific you're looking forward to add?
Gecko: Not really, I'm pretty happy with what I have done so far, but I did think about adding a more seedy area like a red light district.
Dosaki: If Blizzard ever makes it so that you can attach other rooms to the skyboxes, you could expand this a lot.
Gecko:: Oh yeah definitely!
Wishlist for WoW Housing?
Gecko mentions that he's had requests of players wanting him to build their homes!
One doesn't really have to wonder why - Gecko is super talented.
We discuss that house design could be another player-driven economy aspect of WoW. I do hope Blizzard allows giving permissions for non-owners to edit a house.
The "Real" Kowloon Walled City
Gecko shared some pictures he took while visiting the KWC Park where they had a film set that exhibits reconstructions of the Walled City in its heyday.
It's much bigger than I thought. Gecko closed off some areas in his rendition
You can spot some similarities between the real photos and his rendition. If you look around …, you'll spot the place below:
The set also recreated the low ceilings with cabling going everywhere.
And if you look up during the tour, you'll see Gecko recreated the style very successfully.
Need more Gecko in your life?
Who doesn't? You can find him on:
I really loved spending nearly a full day in Gecko's Kowloon Walled City.
I can only thank him for building this. I definitely feel privileged to have been able to archive this build in a virtual tour.
I don't think this is the last we've seen of Gecko. I can't wait to see what he builds next!
Awards!
Since I visited, Gecko's KWC build won LFG London's Technical Competition.
Congratulations! You really deserved it.