“Shanghai Chong Kee enjoys a healthy working relationship with HYLA
Architects. Many of our values intersect such as achieving construction
excellence and providing value-added services to clients. We look
forward to collaborating on future projects with HYLA Architects.”
- Harry Tan, Deputy Managing Director, Shanghai Chong Kee
is to have a happy ending,” he says. “Of course, there’s
no substitute for doing excellent work along the way.
If you do excellent work, then clients will trust you,
and they will listen to you. It is also very important for
us to listen to the clients, to really hear what they’re
saying, because design is such a subjective thing, in
many ways. Personal reactions are hard to predict, so
we have to be very sensitive to what they say and try
to anticipate what will work for them.”
HYLA Architects has won numerous prestigious
accolades, including Singapore Institute of Architects
Architectural Design Awards and URA Architectural
Heritage Awards. The firm’s work was also included as
one of 1,037 exemplary buildings around the globe in
The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture.
“It’s always nice to have someone else recognise what
you’re doing,” Han says. “A client of mine once said
that I live, breathe, eat and sleep architecture – and
that’s very true.”
TRUTH AND LOVE
“My favourite quote comes from [Indian civil
rights activist] Mahatma Gandhi: ‘When I despair,
I remember that all through history, the way of
truth and love has always won. There have been
tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can
seem invincible, but in the end, they always
fall. Think of it – always,’” Han says. “Truth and
love are the two values that I hold very dear in
architecture. I want my architecture to be honest
and represent things that are true to me. And
love, when you put a lot of love into your work,
it really shows. You can tell when you walk into a
building that this building has been loved by the
designers and the creators, and you can tell when
a building hasn’t.”INSPIRE | Interview