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August 21, 2016

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Award-winning architect embraces opposing forces

Source: Shanghai Daily | August 21, 2016, Sunday | Print Edition

WHO is he?

Calvin Tsao is a recognized and leading voice in contemporary architecture whose work draws from a lively engagement with a variety of art forms. He serves on the Board of The American Academy in Rome, and is an active board member and President Emeritus of The Architectural League of New York. He is also former vice president for Design Excellence of the AIA New York chapter, and served as member of the Visiting Committee to Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. In 2012 he received a Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Legacy Award and in 2009 the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Award for Interior Design, along with his partner Zack McKown.

Tell us some of your works, and name the one you are most proud of

I am very excited about Sangha, a hospitality, residential, wellness and mindfulness center in Suzhou, China, which is currently in construction. In partnership with the client Octave, we conceived Sangha, shaped its programing and branding, and then designed the spaces with the support of two other Chinese design offices: Neri & Hu Architects and Atelier FCJZ. The goal is to create a place for recreation, entertainment, and escape from the anxieties and stresses of life today. In keeping with our commitment to social and environmental sustainability, the Suzhou project represents how architecture makes life better.

Are you currently involved with any project?

The Master Collection, a residential project in Taipei. Our client, Phoenix Property Investors, appointed us to design four luxury villas in a unique location that is quite steep. That extreme terrain, however, provides lots of opportunities for vantage points and various building typologies. Mr. Samuel Chu, Founding Partner of Phoenix Property Investors, is a wonderful, visionary client. I thought it would be great if we could collaborate with a group of leading architects, including New York-based architects Richard Meier, Annabelle Selldorf, and Steven Harris as well as landscape designer Margie Ruddick.

Describe your design style.

Zack and I see design not as a pursuit of absolutes, but rather as an embrace of seemingly opposing forces: rational versus instinctive, individual versus communal, adventurous versus apprehensive. Our philosophy of design is an outgrowth of our experiences and observations, and so, like life, is always a work in progress, a gradual accretion of thoughts and afterthoughts. Our search has led us across boundaries between usual design disciplines in order to mine the vast array of human experience, through projects ranging in scale from the very small (a lipstick case) to the very large (a prototypical community for 25,000).

Where are you most creative?

Like nature, our creativity needs to evolve and connect to other people and disciplines. We cannot propose specific solutions to complex problems; but, we can harness tools, voices, and perspectives that achieve more than the individual impact of distinct expertise.

What does your home mean to you?

We cherish our weekend farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley. It is a place to gather, pause and reflect on our family and personal pursuits.

We restored and renovated this historic farmhouse. The project integrates our collection of humble, purposeful objects into the renovation as part of our larger goal to revamp the working farm. We value design as evidence of human endeavors and aspirations, and we especially value the craft evident in certain authorless, utilitarian objects.

What do you collect?

I don’t collect. I salvage. I look for objects whose values are not necessarily evident. All physical phenomena are evidence, and I appreciate objects that represent important moments in human development. Zack and I are custodians of the objects that we find. We provide a safe haven for pieces so that they are reconsidered, preserved, studied, and even reused.

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