We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Camille Chung about their original and creative Highrise Residence design work. Camille Chung is an award-winning architectural designer, that makes our world a better place with their original highrise residence works.
Camille Chung ("CC") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work The Circadian Home Highrise Residence. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
CC : The principle to my design is always to maximum the natural light in the space, and use the advantage of the view to create different frames of pictures among activities in an open space. The owner of the house likes to host people in the same time he is a person cares about privacy. The design has to take all the perspectives of owner's habits in living and his character.
CC : The flow of the open space. I want to make the space fluid for different hosting events, and when the client wants to have more quite zone, there's family room adjacent to the dinning area that he can enjoy a movie, reading or listening to music.
CC : This project was designed during a difficult time - Covid 19 in China., I was restricted from traveling so I was working remotely in Taiwan for the entirely project. I think this has proven that my capability of taking overseas projects. Hope I can get more design projects from different countries in the future.
CC : The conceptual development usually takes one to two weeks. For this one I think it was two weeks time including the site survey from remotely control.
CC : It's more about the understanding to know my client. I always find inspiration by knowing my client's personality and habits, I could work around it or make an break through from it. My client used to appreciate more classical , revival design, so I wanted to give him nothing more modern and timeless in particular in this high-rise building.
CC : Not at the moment. I still produce my own design however I have partnership to cooperate with in modelling process. I don't have limitation on any cooperation opportunity.
CC : French concession is an unique area in Shanghai, to have this design project in a tall, newly built building is also not an easy gained. I naturally wish to make it happened.
CC : No, it's all my own design on this project.
CC : Whoever appreciates art, high quality design work and craftsmanship.
CC : My client is American with Shanghainese soul, he requests a family room like all American houses have. He sometimes love the mixture of classic and modern, so I was trying to control all the design elements but let him to play with the decorative items as he's preferences, in a certain control of it.
CC : During Covid-19, the lock down almost let people forget time and pace. The routine of daily life was messed up. In this design, I want to make sure the home can be the comfortable retreat for my client, meanwhile it has maximised the natural rhythm " light and flow" to the house. even during night time or the time with weak natural light, I want to make sure the lighting system in the house is sufficient and controllable for the client to create the scenes for his activities, and during daytime, he doesn't need much manual lights to get the regular routines done. That's why I named this project The Circadian Home.
CC : Hand sketches, iPad, autocad, Photoshop and Indesign.
CC : Almost every corner at the functional areas, the kitchen, the dinning area, the family room, the living room can enjoy the view of the skyline.
CC : The constructional team in Shanghai called Yue Fu China. They respect my design and try different ways to make sure my design can be carried out as I specified. They also have done some work and technique in construction that we used to do differently so I have also learned something from them.
CC : To help the client have more controls with ease in living as he wishes and remove the excess visible wires to reduce mess.
CC : Not particularly in this design project.
CC : Not being able to visit the site during construction phase. There were different standard of works and installation between different areas or countries, so keep coordination and communication in time was the key for this project.
CC : I'd like to make more exposure on various media for my work and get more opportunities to work with other professionals and see other countries design as well as increasing exposure on social net working.
CC : There are always some unexpected issues during constructional phase, I always try to learn from it, remember the mistake or imperfection so that I can make it better in the future project and the past experiences can always bring me to a higher level of execution the design work.
CC : I would like to say thank you for the supporting member, Sunny Chung and team from various suppliers to construction - Yue Fu China, my Client - Jay Chin for trusting me. And finally, my photographer Studio SZ - Justin Szeremeta.
