SIMON JO
We are with Simon Jo this time from the University of Auckland!
Simon’s projects emphasize the importance of culture in architecture while maintaining a strong focus on user-centred design and care.
Kia ora, Simon - Your projects all seem to have a strong concept or narrative. How would you start a design from a blank page?
I've always been a very curious, annoying little kid. I would always ask why. Like why things present themselves as they are, why something happens. So naturally, this investigative process led me to create certain links that make my projects appear more coherent.
That being said, whenever I come across a new brief, I always have a light-bulb moment. This is an intuitive thought, a collection of all the subconscious information I acquired. This is quite invasive, and it dabbles into my effort to stay open-minded. Then I read relevant resources, which supplement the initial thought I had. There are the design studio's weekly tasks and other stuff I'm usually required to produce, but usually the initial idea continues to the very end, subtracted and added by the research process. The point where I have enough resources to then start condensing the thoughts is usually when the design becomes clearer and more coherent.
I remember embarking on this project with much excitement. As a 1.5 generation immigrant, I have always been searching for the meaning of ‘home’ and where I fit in. Home has never been a physical place for me, although I have places that I am extremely fond of. So, this project was very close to my heart. I think I was genuinely thrilled to explore the role of architecture- especially residential architecture as a physical vessel of self-expression. Through designing, I got to discover more in myself and the way I behave in spaces, and how these behaviours then in turn shaped spaces. In the end, what I’ve designed is a cluster of little moments which renders itself in constant flux with the ever-changing natural conditions. Through inhabiting, these spaces then become dwelling, where my body and mind become inseparably merged with the spaces.
Project Name: Te Nohoanga O Te Atua - God's Abode
This was my first-year project. As all young designers do, I was in a rabbit hole after reading about lots of stuff. An overwhelming amount of information was screaming in my head, and with the help of my tutor Robbie, who saw right through me, I was able to reduce them down to a single, coherent project.
Through this project, I was allowed to ponder the ‘legacies’ of colonisation in Aotearoa. Yet, not solely focusing on the act of colonisation as a destructive force, but rather thinking about the void induced by it. What the people of the land once had, what is now missing, and the impacts of this. This is, I think, when I realised that the site has needs. There is so much energy and emotion embodied in the lands, and as architectural designers, we have a certain responsibility to prescribe a remedy. Cultural colonisation is not the only form of colonisation, though it’s the most violent form of it. Colonisation of a neighbourhood by a rummaging economic force is also colonisation. Gentrification, in some ways, is colonisation. I have become more aware of this since then, and I continue to wonder what the role of architecture is in all of this.
Culture plays an important role in architecture, and all your projects have a sense of 'humanistic care'. How do you think culture can influence your design as a key factor?
I don't think I will ever stop pondering this question. Although if there is one thing I am sure about, it's that to me, culture is not a design factor- it is the very act of design itself. Designing is something that only humans are capable of doing. It probably stems from our temporal awareness, realising the inadequacies of the present and projecting into the future, that is design and that is culture. We live in such divided, individualised and unsympathetic times where the sense of community and companionship are slowly becoming devalued and neglected. Whenever I visit a site, especially a very cultural site, listening in carefully, there are things that the site wants me to know. The land that we inhabit has been endlessly reshaped, scarred, deconstructed, and reanimated. I think my responsibility as a designer- a vessel of culture- is to listen to it carefully and think about what the site needs. I strongly acknowledge site-specific architecture in that it is not just a physical plot; it is a complex, inseparable cultural matrix of the communities and the land. It has to feel right.
Project Name: Ghost Abbey: Spirituality in Transit
Me and my friends, we have worked on a small competition over the last break. It was an adaptive reuse scheme of an existing ruin of an Italian Benedictine abbey. Although towards the end we ran out of time, this competition taught me a lot about working in a group, especially how exciting is to be working with the like-minded designers. We closely follow Le Corbusier’s famous concept of
promenade architectural
. The region is part of the pilgrimage path which runs through the central Italy, we naturally, we looked at the abbey as an extension of this peregrination. How could architecture rethink the meaning of spirituality in these increasingly secular times? You also realise how many people in the past must have scrutinised about the similar issues? Abdallah Alayan’s incredible thesis ‘Faith in Fiordland’ provided a fundamental starting point to this work, which I was in absolute awe reading through.
What advice would you give to future students or students who have just started doing architecture?
Studying architecture, you often feel as though you are not going anywhere, as if your progress is frozen in time, as if where you are right now is a single static point in time. But keep looking back because you’ll realise it’s been a line all along. That line may have been thick or thin, but remember it’s been drawing all this time. You’ll find that showing up every day and doing what you can- even if sometimes it means doing 12 hours of work and not getting anything done- matters. Never forget that and keep looking back. You are always much more than what you started with.
