Architecture is more than just designing, said innovative architects Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown to a packed Slocum Hall Auditorium on Tuesday.

The co-owners of international firm Tsao & McKown Architects brought a deeper understanding of what a space can be. As architects, McKown said, it is important to not only know their own craft, but to also please others with their work.

‘We all are taught to ‘write about what you know.’ As architects, it’s not only ourselves that we have to know – we have to know more,’ McKown said.

Tsao and McKown spoke of how important it was to interact with their clients and indulge in their fantasies while still making the space practical.

They then spoke of their many foreign projects in locations such as China, Singapore and Hungary.

Describing one particular project evoked heavy emotions for Tsao.

His memory was of the completion of a fountain in Suntec City, Singapore. An image showed one of the workers, a man who cleaned up the construction site, gazing at the newly finished fountain, his body a silhouette against the lights and water.

The man told Tsao this was the most important moment of his life, and he was proud to be involved in such a project.

‘It humbles me,’ Tsao said. ‘Of course I should be proud, but to have this man to be proud, to touch one person like that, it gets me every time.’

Although they are professional architects, Tsao and McKown said they consider themselves designers in every sense of the word. Before displaying their array of architecture projects, they spoke about smaller projects, including clothing and furniture.

Inspired by Japanese kimonos, the fashion designed by Tsao and McKown uses an entire sheet of fabric, without tailoring and without waste. The result is a modern dress with flat cuts, giving the garment an Asian feel.

The pair created simplistic and child-friendly furniture during a project to design a library in Queens, N.Y. The pieces, one a smaller version of the other, could be rearranged by the children.

‘We wanted to create furniture they would engage,’ Tsao said. ‘They could be stimulated by it. It’s creating a context where interaction can happen.’

A unique project the firm pursued involved a Japanese company that asked the duo to design a container for its lipstick line.
Based on experience watching women fumble around their purses for lipstick, opening each one to find the desired color, Tsao and McKown designed a transparent lipstick tube.

‘It was easier said than done,’ Tsao said. ‘The factories had to retool all the machinery to make the lipstick pleasing in the transparent case.’

Both Tsao and McKown are currently teaching a studio at Syracuse University that explores new models of urban habituation in China. From April 17 to May 9, an exhibition by Tsao and McKown will be on display in Slocum Gallery.

Ben Oppenheim, a junior architecture major, said he thought the lecture embodied the idea that architecture is more than just buildings.

He said: ‘There are implicates to everything we do as designers.’

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Published on March 20, 2012 at 12:00 pm

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