DONG-
PING
PART OF A TEAM responsible for a 60-something-
storey tower at the tender age of 24, an assign-
ment that led to a career built from a pie in the sky
(or, more accurately, a waffle in the water) – not
to mention his close encounters with Kanye West
- Dong-Ping Wong can look back on a colour-
ful practice. In 2007 Wong met Oana Stănescu at
Rex Architecture in Brooklyn, New York. He was
a fresh-faced junior associate; she was an intern.
After their boss discovered how well they worked
together, a partnership was born. Eventually their
paths diverged when Stănescu left to tour the
world, gaining experience in architecture offices
along the way. In 2010 the pair reunited profes-
sionally as Family, a studio that would ultimately
add the likes of Storefront for Art and Architecture,
MoMA, Adidas and Nike to its client portfolio.
Last year Stănescu and Wong parted ways
once more. The ethos of Wong’s new solo venture,
Food, draws largely from those formative years –
a time when ‘young people were entrusted with
the design of huge projects and you could afford to
push things’. As affirmed by five flashbacks, Wong
et al. were seemingly impervious to the prolonged
period of conservatism in the industry that followed
the 2008 recession. And now, he says, ‘things are
getting more exciting again’.2010
- POOL
Family’s first plan caused a figurative splash –
one that should hopefully become literal soon.
‘I remember asking myself in the shower: why
don’t swimming pools filter water on their own?’
He imagined an Olympic-size pool floating in
the East River; it would act as a strainer, mak-
ing the water safe for swimming without the
use of chemicals. This was a few years after the
recession, and Family wasn’t being offered the
projects it wanted – ‘or any projects for that
matter’. Perhaps, thought Wong, they could
initiate their own proposals.
Becoming website architects – the
modern-day answer to paper architects –
Wong’s team called on friends at Playlab to
build an online platform for communicating
their ideas. ‘We launched + Pool on a hot
sweaty day in New York. Within 24 hours
the website had crashed from all the press
attention.’ Building on that momentum, what
started as a potential pipe dream led to two
successful Kickstarter campaigns (in 2011 and
2014) that financed filtration tests. Now the
makers have filed a patent and are about to
secure a site. ‘Initially, we didn’t think it would
go anywhere. It was just a way to get noticed –
to show that we can do this kind of work. We
had a board meeting a few weeks ago, and the
question is no longer if; it’s where and when.’
While Wong never doubted his capac-
ity for the design and technical sides of + Pool,
he was naive to the project’s political andfundraising aspects. ‘It had never been done
before, so there were many unknowns. We
didn’t even know who to approach first.’ The
pool set the tone for a studio that introduces
people to unfamiliar environments that are
inclusive and simple yet light-hearted. ‘Even
when we do small shops nowadays, I think, is
this + Pool enough? It was also the first project
that attracted attention outside the design
field.’ The implication is ‘an audience beyond
architects’. »66 PORTRAITS