The Roots of Office for Roundtable

In 2019, after completing internships at OMA and SOM, I returned to the Rice University School of Architecture in Houston, Texas, to complete the final year of my master's degree. With a strong interest in the intersection of interior and urban realms, my thesis project explored the theme of "Interior Urbanism," examining the social and spatial values of public interiors in reshaping urban life. This research significantly broadened my understanding of architecture as a profession, introducing me to a new set of contemporary practices and disciplinary discussions, including the work of Fala Atelier and Raumlabor, as well as the book project Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture by Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremy Till.

At such a pivotal moment in my education, I was considering my future professional and academic paths, especially after working on several large-scale commercial and institutional projects during my previous work experiences. I was intrigued by the discussions around the urgency of social, political, and environmental issues facing our society, as well as the agency of architecture in addressing these challenges. In addition, I found myself more drawn toward small-scale interventions and installations that behave more agilely and effectively in engaging with the rapidly changing urban environment, particularly in my home country, China. Around the same time, a friend reached out and commissioned me to undertake a small-scale interior renovation project in China. The project was a showroom in a rural area designed to display handcrafted artefacts made by the local communities. This opportunity ultimately marked the beginning of our practice, the Office for Roundtable.

A Shared Roundtable

The most defining characteristic of our practice is encapsulated in its name: an office for a roundtable. This literal designation emphasises an act of advocacy for equitable conversations amongst different disciplines, suggesting a form of inclusion that encourages innovative ideas proposed collaboratively by a collective of artists and designers.

In our office, a wooden roundtable is centred and complemented by bookshelves, plants, chairs, modelling tools, and drawing panels, forming a point of convergence that becomes essential in design production and discussions. We use this table for client meetings, sketching, collective model-making, lunch, and social gatherings. With everything occurring on the same surface, our office is the roundtable, and the roundtable embodies our practice, highlighting our belief in the importance of collectivity and togetherness in shaping the design process, where authorship and authority are continually questioned.

In addition, our ethos of togetherness is reflected in the integration of research and design projects. Each design concept is deeply rooted in the exploration of pertinent social, political, and environmental issues within specific contexts, and reciprocally, the project acts as a practical experiment that critically examines the inquiries raised during our research.

Transforming crisis into opportunities

Our practice started in 2020, right before the pandemic. When the virus impaired the well-being of society and ultimately crashed our economy, many of our renovation projects in China were either cancelled or faced significant delays. The lack of financial momentum took a toll on our practice, which was further hampered by my inability to travel across continents, as I was stuck in the U.S. During this period of isolation and the absence of collective activities, I began to pay more attention to my everyday life, particularly my daily diet. This newfound interest led me to explore the logistics of food production in domestic and urban settings.

As lockdowns continued in many Asian cities, coupled with stringent quarantine policies, many residents began growing vegetables in their homes—on kitchen counters, balconies, and rooftops. This shift towards home gardening sparked a series of sharing activities, where people exchanged farming experiences in family group chats and shared homemade ingredients with neighbours. The increasing recognition of food not just as a source of nutrition, but also as a medium for fostering new forms of community, inspired our installation proposal “Balchen” for the 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in Shenzhen, China, in 2022. We proposed a series of movable urban furniture that traversed between indoor and outdoor spaces, defining a malleable site for divergent agricultural and social events. This project marked a milestone for our practice, leading us to other research and design projects supported by the Design Trust Seed Grant.

Designing for local realities

As a design collective, we believe in the importance of examining material culture, climatic conditions, natural environments, and social contexts that shape our projects. These parameters are carefully considered at the beginning of our design process through collaboration with designers and artists who specialise in these areas. Currently, our practice operates in two distinctly different geographical conditions: Guangzhou and Denver.

Guangzhou, located in southern China, is one of the most densely populated cities in the country. It experiences a sub-tropical climate, with high humidity and significant rainfall during the summer months. In contrast, Denver is inland and dry, receiving little rain but experiencing heavy snowfall in winter. These contrasting conditions require us to remain conceptually agile and locally connected throughout our design process.

For instance, our most recent project, “Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen Is Your Living Room,” was a close collaboration with the Guangzhou-based design office JXY Studio. The project aimed to address the urgent issues of food insecurity and soil pollution in Guangzhou, as well as the growing demands for communal spaces in living communities. In response to these issues, the project focused on the design of a water system that factored in the city’s rainy weather. We partnered with a local steel factory to create a portable greenhouse that could be used to collect and purify rainwater for agricultural, culinary, and social-gathering purposes. All these design endeavours were closely tied to our considerations of local issues, material cultures, and construction techniques.

Spaces of resistance and care

Our research and creative work investigate the medium of the interior as the infrastructure of care and collectivity to confront the injustices of our urban landscapes, examining ecological, political, and social issues in the context of the housing crisis, particularly related to food insecurity, housing shortages, and community displacement. Unlike mainstream discourse that emphasises the static, external attributes of a building, our work rethinks the power of the small and the informal as resistance to systemic obstacles. It focuses on the dynamic, nimble qualities of architectural interiors, prioritising scalable, portable, and adaptable installations that actively engage with the body, nature, and society to rebuild collective care, comfort, and memory.

Following these visions, "Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen Is Your Living Room" is an installation that explores the emerging trend of urban farming, speculating on the tools and spaces of food production in developing a sustainable community. Over the past decades, the attention towards fresh, organic food ingredients has promoted the emergence of growing vegetables in domestic spaces and sharing homemade ingredients with neighbours. The introduction of producing and exchanging food in domestic territories not only expands the social meanings of these architectural interiors, but also foregrounds inhabitants' anxieties concerning the relationships between bodies and environments. Within this imperative context, the project proposes a new spatial typology that intersects the functions of a greenhouse, a kitchen, and a living room. By facilitating the interplay between farming and preparing food, delivering and consuming food, and caring and sharing food, the project functions as a site of convergence that compiles agricultural and social activities in the community, serving as a medium for new modes of domesticity and collectivity that spawn spatial and social possibilities of everyday life.

Bridging practice and academia

In addition to my practice with the Office for Roundtable, I am an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Colorado, where I teach design studios focused on housing inequity and community displacement in Denver. Additionally, I lead design seminars that delve into contemporary practices and theories related to interiors of care, comfort, and collectivity. My academic research interests are closely intertwined with my professional practice, each informing the other. Recently, a research studio I taught, titled “The Suppressed Interior,” evolved into a public exhibition that I curated and designed in collaboration with History Colorado and the non-profit organisation Colorado Asian Pacific United. This exhibition, titled “Where is Denver’s Chinatown? Stories Remembered, Reclaimed, Reimagined,” features a series of installations and drawings developed by my students, seeking to unearth the silenced history of Denver’s erased Chinatown. Outside of my teaching, I serve as a committee member at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and a board member at the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS). These roles have allowed me to collaborate with faculty and students to promote professional and academic excellence within our field.