A Reintroduction

Since joining Child Graddon Lewis, one of the best things that I was introduced to was the concept of a MMM - an opportunity for members of staff to share aspects of their personal stories, architectural or otherwise to the team, in any way you would like,  without the stress of the interview format. I had the opportunity to present my MMM in June - 3 months into joining - nervewracking yes, but also a good opportunity to reflect on this meandering journey. Here is mine, so far: 

I am originally from Hong Kong - where was born and raised. I studied Architecture at Cornell University in Upstate New York. It was in the middle of nowhere, 5-6 hours away from New York City - it got to -25 degrees in the winter. Given how isolated, cold and stressful the environment was, the University also built up an unfortunate reputation for poor mental health and student suicides - so as a result, they proactively tried to improve mental health services and foster a curriculum that encouraged balance. Hence, ⅓ of the curriculum was dedicated to electives outside of Architecture with a PE requirement throughout the 5 years. 

When you started, everyone, regardless of your course, started with a swim test. If you couldn’t swim two lengths, you had to take swimming as a PE until you passed. Some courses filled up quickly—winter dog sledding was one of those. Other courses included ice climbing, caving, juggling, fly fishing, and wilderness medicine. I opted for kayaking to Canada, bowling, and Salsa dancing —I found Salsa really tough. When mentioning it to friends and family, everyone thought I was referring to the sauce. With no natural flexibility, and rhythm, I was always half a beat off and struggled to find a dancing partner every session, 3x a week, but I still had a good time nonetheless. Some courses were deceptively challenging, like weekend massage, where you had to go through the slightly awkward experience of massaging strangers in rotation for a full weekend, 8 hours at time,  in a slightly stuffy and smelly gym.

As mentioned during lunch, in addition to the architecture studio, there were other electives in maths, science and the humanities to complement the Architecture curriculum. I attempted to take the famous wines class in the School of Hotel Management. However, I ended up dropping out due to it being at 8 in the morning and always feeling a bit tipsy and woosy in an auditorium of 1000 people. To be honest, all I wanted to do was enjoy the wine, I couldn’t care less about the biological makeup of the grape skins. 

I loved a maths class on rendering. It was called the Fundamentals of Computer Graphics - taught by Don Greenberg, widely regarded as the grandfather of rendering, who invented the technology in the 60s-70s. He studied Architecture at Cornell and then went into Computer Science. He was part of the group that started NVIDIA and Pixar, albeit fabulously wealthy now, is still teaching second year students the advanced Trigonometry involved in Ray tracing in his 90s. 

I also took time off to work at a firm called Slade Architecture in New York on retail spaces. I also worked for the China Exploration and Research Society on Conservation Architecture and Cultural Preservation. CERS is an NGO that broke out of National Geographic that focuses on exploration in South East Asia. We were based out of Yunnan in China within Cultural Tibet - more commonly known as the Shangri La. I helped document Tibetan Houses and added to the archive of stories of how these Matriarchal Tibetan families live. When I took out my camera and notebook, my boss quickly pushed it away and said, some things are not meant to be photographed - what do you want to gain from this image, do you want to risk the safety of this family? 

My boss How Man was sometimes a bit rogue but first and foremost a savvy businessman and a great story teller. He specializes in finding new River sources and then he gets the press heavily involved. Everything about these expeditions were sponsored - Coca Cola sponsored bow and arrow making, Land Rover sponsored the fleet of cars, Panasonic paid for all the electricity. It was life changing - but I also quickly realized that I wasn’t brave enough for this politically sensitive work or the rugged lifestyle of living and working like an Explorer. 

I made a big pivot into working at Gensler in New York - my first big girl job in Midtown Manhattan. There were 800 people in the New York office alone and it was amazing to see resourcing that extended beyond geographical boundaries in order to take advantage of differences in labor costs and time zone. There, I helped with workplaces and client centers for Financial Services companies. It was an intimidating scale but I got to meet so many people. My favorite project was the JP Morgan Client Center in Hong Kong, where we worked with the London, Hong Kong and Costa Rica teams. Part of the business model of my studio involved signing long term contracts with companies with light renovations every few years, written into the contract. As a result of this, I helped with a lot of patch and match renovations for so many Deloitte offices around the world. 

Sadly, like many in the industry during Covid, all of my projects stopped and I was made redundant and told to hold and wait for a few weeks for projects to pick up again. That date also coincided with Hong Kong enforcing the draconian National Security Law that criminalized so many things and changed the city so fundamentally overnight. Dominic Raab announced a new immigration path to the UK that day - BNO holders born before the handover in 1997.  I knew that next time there was a financial downturn, I wanted to be in a city where my existence wasn’t tied to my job. I packed up 7 years of my life into  boxes and left New York super abruptly. It was the right thing to do. I was so upset and overwhelmed. The events leading up to the National Security Law rocked me to my core - I felt so angry and disappointed and sad, all at once. I value freedom of speech and thought too much and knew that I needed to leave for good. Thankfully my family was supportive and even encouraged me to leave.

It was quite a strange time to be in Hong Kong. You would walk into a restaurant and on every table you would hear a conversation about immigration - if and why if you were going and where, and why not. There were queues out the door at banks - people were trying to move all their money out of Hong Kong to Singapore. There were advertisements for UK flats on all the billboards in the MTR Stations. 

I started illustrating freelance which really helped with mindfulness and focusing. I took anti depressants and practiced a lot of Muay Thai to set and achieve tiny goals to remember what it feels like to accomplish something. I drew little people and sold them on the internet, they really took off - it was amazing to get featured on Madame Architect and have the chance to speak so openly about recovering from depression on such a public platform.  

I started at the RCA once I moved to London. It was magical - my classmates were so weird and wacky - way more out there than my Uni friends. In an induction, someone asked if they could CNC a block of cheese and the technician said absolutely but suggested that you stay away from Feta. I did an MA in Interior Design which was where I was taught by Owain. 

During the MA, I continued to draw for David Baker Architects based out of California, I freelanced for a small firm called Kasawoo, worked at the RCA shop and at Lululemon Spitalfields. I am super thankful that the tutors were understanding of the work schedule - I had a tutorial first thing in the morning, then had my shift at the RCA, then at Lululemon, and then illustrated or helped Kasawoo on odd things. Juggling 3-4 jobs during the MA was tough but good training in working fast. I relied on the IPad to work on projects on the go and drew a lot - ironically the more loosey goosey the drawing was, the better it was received. 

At times, I was quite desperate, and ended up selling my tube drawings to niche parts of the Internet. I somehow sold a lot of tube prints to Transportation nerds and quit Lululemon as a result. I mostly enjoyed the experimental approach to representation and emphasis on model making. I was lucky that the RCA shop had so much waste and I made all the models from off cuts. Before coming here, I worked at Chris Dyson Architects - a firm that specializes in heritage projects. I used to be colleagues with Alex’s partner Diana. I was there on a summer contract as well as for a few months before starting here in March. I helped with a competition in the Goodsyard in Shoreditch, a house extension in Belsize Park and a Georgian Grade II Listed Townhouse on Devonshire Square. 

It is amazing how life twists and turns in the most unexpected ways. I genuinely never expected to move to London - I came here as a tourist now I actually live here and my mother is here too. The UK wins at Strawberries, carrots and Rhubarb is stunning. It is far from perfect. I am noticing changes in my body - my spice tolerance has gone down while my alcohol tolerance has gone up. I have realized that the unexpected opportunities are often so much better than the ones I could have thought of for myself. 

To end on this, I still have some culture shock moments - I once thought that Henry Hoover was a classmate of mine before realizing that they were referring to a vacuum machine. These details are banal, and at the moment, mostly food-related, but I want to hold space for these small, overlooked moments that I will probably forget about the longer I live here.