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1.5 LU / 1.5 HSW

A select group of emerging professionals from New York City and Hong Kong will discuss their architectural practices. The practices all share in common that they actively seek to redefine the role of the architect within the public realm and find innovative ways to design for communities and (non-commercial) stakeholders, engage broader audiences, and raise awareness of pressing topics in their respective cities. The projects to be presented demonstrate varying models of engaging a range of constituents, creatively establishing alliances with both commercial and non-commercial partners, and help build institutions with a wide public purpose. The event will be simultaneously hosted by AIANY and the Chapter of AIA in Hong Kong and will be moderated by Grace Liao of KPF in New York and Nicolas Medrano of SOM in Hong Kong.

Speakers:
Vicky Chan, AIA, Founder, Avoid Obvious Architects; Chair, Walk DVRC
Ivi Diamantopoulou, AIA, Co-Founder, New Affiliates
Koray Duman, AIA, LEED AP, Founder, B-KD
Eric Ho, AIA, Co-Founder, Architecture Commons; Founder, Neighbourhood Innovation Lab
Maggie Ma Kingsley, Co-Founder and Director, Domat
Amy Yang, Founding Partner, Dash Marshall

Moderators:
Grace Liao, AIA, LEED WELL AP, 
Director, KPF
Nicolas Medrano, AIA, Design Principal, SOM Hong Kong

About the Speakers:
Vicky Chan founded Avoid Obvious Architects in 2012 with offices in New York and Hong Kong. The firm designs sustainable buildings and cities with focus on combining art with green technology. His recent community projects include K-farm, Walk DVRC and One Sky. Chan founded a volunteering organization Architecture For Children and has taught 7,000 children about sustainable design and architecture. He believes our future will be brighter if children are more equipped with creative and collaborative thinking. He served AIA Hong Kong as President in 2020. He is chair of Walk DVRC to promote walkable Hong Kong and board member of VESSEL to design facilities for multiple sports.

Ivi Diamantopoulou is an architect, educator, and co-founder of New York- based New Affiliates, where she explores how architecture is shaped by, and shapes, local economies and dynamic systems through its practice and form. Diamantopoulou is a registered architect in New York and Greece with over a decade of experience in realizing built work between Europe and the United States. Diamantopoulou currently serves as the Director of the Syracuse School of Architecture NYC Program, and has previously taught at schools including Princeton University, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College, where she was the Andrew Mellon Endowed Chair in Environmental Architecture. She holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, where she was awarded the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize for excellence in design and a Stanley J. Seeger Fellowship, as well as a Diploma with honors in Architecture and Engineering from the University of Patras in Greece.

Koray Duman is the founder of Büro Koray Duman Architects, a research-driven architecture studio in New York City and Istanbul. He is originally from Turkey where he earned a B Arch, He furthered his studies at UCLA Graduate School of Architecture with a M Arch. His work explores architecture’s ability as a social infrastructure to create a sense of belonging. His work has won numerous design awards and has been published internationally. In 2017 the studio was honored as the Emerging Firm of the Year by Architizer for ‘its forward-thinking vision for the role of the architect and the desire to disrupt the stigma of the practice’. He is an educator and a licensed architect in NY State and Turkey.

Architect, entrepreneur, and urban thinker passionate about architecture and urban environments that have a lasting impact on society, Eric Ho is the co-founder and Director of Architecture Commons, a design agency for urban innovation. He also founded Neighbourhood Innovation Lab in 2019 instigating a catalyst of systemic change through a range of strategic innovation options and experiments designed with and for city and regional governments; property developers; industry leaders; community organizations and policymakers. Ho was the recipient of the Faculty Design Award at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and teaches architecture at Chinese University of Hong Kong, and design strategy at Parsons School of Design.

Maggie Ma Kingsley is a co-founder and director of Domat, a not-for-profit spatial agency based in Hong Kong. Domat believe that everyone has a right to a quality environment, and that good design should be accessible at all levels of society. They work with people who have limited access to architects, and through the processes of research, design, and implementation they engage with multiple stakeholders to generate unique design strategies and proposals with sustainable outcome. Ma Kingsley is also currently an Assistant Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Amy Yang is a founding partner of Dash Marshall, an architecture, design and consulting practice based in Brooklyn, NY and Detroit, MI. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, where she was a recipient of the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize, and a BS in Art and Design from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yang developed her skills while working as a project manager at Toshiko Mori Architect on a variety of projects for private clients, universities, and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.

Grace Liao’s work blends conceptual design rigor with a strong sense of context and placemaking influenced by her background in urban design. Her architecture is characterized by elegant proportions, rich material palettes, and expressive structure developed through data-driven design, creating unique high-performance buildings. Liao’s personal experience living in Asia and North America has provided a unique perspective allowing her to balance expressions of culture and urbanism in her work refined through the prism of technology and sustainability. Her design philosophy is evident in complex commercial projects around the world, creating vibrant retail and cultural programming in various projects such as the two-tower headquarters for Lenovo overlooking Shenzhen Bay, and reinterpreting regional civic placemaking in mixed-use developments such as Baker Circle in Kowloon. Her design work on Brooklyn Point, a 720-foot residential tower in New York, responds to the borough’s creative spirit while its interconnected retail podium anchors the building within City Point, the largest retail and entertainment destination in Brooklyn.

Nicolas Medrano begins his design process with a deep exploration of the local context and culture surrounding each project and site. He is inspired by the density of the cities he works in across Asia, and by the challenge of designing large-scale, mixed-use developments that enhance both the environment and the human experience. Many of his projects, such as Guoco Tower in Singapore and Nihonbashi 2-Chome in Tokyo, include tall buildings that remake city centers by bringing public spaces, nature, and transit connections to some of the world’s densest neighborhoods. In 2022, after spending 15 years in SOM’s New York studio, Medrano transitioned to the Hong Kong office to spearhead the practice’s growth in the Asia-Pacific region. As the design leader for SOM’s Hong Kong studio, Medrano is responsible for transformative projects across Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. He is advancing SOM’s climate action goals in the region by applying cutting-edge sustainability strategies—from advocating for smart density and “15-minute city” designs, to reducing carbon footprints through new construction technologies and the use of regenerative materials.

This event is offered in person and virtually; COVID-19 vaccinations and face masks are strongly encouraged for all visitors. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.

If you register for a virtual ticket, you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.

Organized by
AIANY Global Dialogues Committee and AIA Hong Kong
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