Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, at least it is if you follow in your father’s footsteps. Growing up, some of my most vivid memories are on site with my Dad. While I was too young to visit his sites when he was working at Ove Arup & Partners, I do remember going with him to the village houses that his company designs and builds. It was a defining part of him and each of his projects became known as ‘Daddy’s building’. I admired my father so much for this, that during primary school, when we were asked to create an information booklet about something that inspired us, I chose him and his building. Another thing I remember from my school days, was the focus on sustainability, from recycling
paper to learning about renewable, sustainable energy sources and their advantages over fossil fuels. This knowledge was implemented in the extracurricular activities I did in high school. These included ‘Trashion,’ where I turned rubbish into art pieces, which were worn during a school-hosted runway event; and ‘Washed Up,’ where I created jewellery out of sea glass I found during various beach clean-ups. I sold these pieces at a school fair to raise awareness of the vast amount of non-biodegradable/non-recyclable rubbish in the environment and donated the profits to a local charity called ‘Plastic Free Seas’.
My academic interests include sustainability and biomimicry in architecture. For an essay that I wrote while working toward my secondary school diploma, I speculated about how eco-friendly features might be better integrated into Hong Kong architecture in order to encourage the design and construction of more desirable ‘green’ buildings. In the four years since I wrote this essay, I’ve come to appreciate that now more buildings in Hong Kong make use of wind turbines, and that the installation and use of solar panels is encouraged. This is because the Hong Kong Electricity Company Ltd. now allows the private usage of solar panels and there is an option to sell excess power back to the grid. In addition, BREEAM certifications for buildings are now coveted more than they were.
I continued to investigate interactions between the built and natural environment for my final year undergraduate dissertation at the University of Kent (Canterbury; UKC), and identified various organisms that shelter and/or help to sustain other organisms in their natural ecosystems in order to explore if their unique design feature might translate to the world of architecture. One such organism was the Venus’ Flower Basket glass sponge (Euplectella aspergillum), which inhabits the deep sea near the Philippines and houses the spongicolid shrimp (Stenopus hispidus). I investigated their structural composition, method of anchoring, microstructure, and light channelling properties, then hypothesized on their useful implications within the design and built environments industry. For this essay, I received a 1st, and a recommendation to publish.
In my spare time, I do a lot of photography. I started out with a DSLR to help me with my high school art course. Since then, I created a multi-styled (travel, architectural, landscape, portrait) photography account to which I post regularly, and I’ve recently taken up film photography, and enjoy spending my free time exploring this medium.
When I was still studying at UKC, I spent one summer working in a small architectural firm, Vita Architecture, in London where I helped to prepare for competitions. After completing my Ba(Hons) I worked at an architectural company (Palm & Turner Group; P & T) in Hong Kong for approximately two years. There I worked on predominantly residential projects, both at an interior design approach as well as an architectural approach.
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I am graduating from my M.Arch at the Manchester School of Architecture in July of 2023. My interests have expanded to also include the relationships between gender and the built environment. I dedicated my M.Arch dissertation to explore feminist urbanism in eastern versus western cities and how that may affect women’s safety in public spaces, in addition to joining the atelier Praxxis for both of my years at the MSA.
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I aim to continue my journey of becoming a fully chartered architect and therefore am looking to start the next stage of the process: getting a position as a part two architectural assistant. I am looking to work in an architecture practice that allows me to experience working on projects at all stages of work; this will allow me to further develop my problem-solving skills and continue familiarising myself with the practice side of architecture.