Suyue Jin & Haocun Zou
1. Congratulations on winning the London Design Awards! Can you introduce yourself and share about what inspired you to pursue design as a career?
We are Suyue Jin, an artist and architectural designer based in Los Angeles, and Haocun Zou (also known as Joseph), an artist and architectural designer based in China. We both received our Master of Architecture from SCI-Arc, and we share an interest in how architecture can connect human experience, technology, and natural systems. This shared curiosity inspired our collaboration.
2. What does being recognised in the London Design Awards mean to you?
This recognition is a meaningful milestone for us. It acknowledges the research, experimentation, and collaboration behind Heterotopic Symbiosis: Accumulations and encourages us to continue exploring ecological design.
3. How has this achievement impacted your career, team, or agency, and what opportunities has it brought so far?
The award has helped more people see our work and understand the ideas behind it. Since we now work in different countries, it also gives us a reason to continue collaborating and developing projects together.
4. What role does experimentation play in your creative process? Can you share an example?
Experimentation is a major part of how we work. For this project, we used 3D LiDAR scanning to capture objects and natural elements that inspired us, such as plants, stones, pipes, and architectural fragments. We then transformed and combined these scanned elements into new architectural forms, using them to develop the project’s design language.
5. What's the most unusual source of inspiration you've ever drawn from for a project?
Some of the most unexpected inspiration came from ordinary site elements, including pipes, stones, tree trunks, and reservoir infrastructure. We were also influenced by Toshio Shibata’s photographs, which show how engineered structures and natural landscapes can exist in tension with each other.
6. What’s one thing you wish more people understood about the design process?
Design is rarely a smooth or linear process. A large part of it is testing ideas, realising what does not work, and going back to the original question. The final form is usually the result of many small decisions rather than one perfect idea.
7. How do you navigate the balance between meeting client expectations and staying true to your ideas?
This was a more academically oriented design project without an actual client, so the process naturally placed greater emphasis on exploring and expressing our ideas. I once heard the observation that, without sufficient real-world constraints, speculative work can risk becoming overly theatrical or resembling “Disney Imagineering.” That comment stayed with us and reinforced the importance of balancing imagination with function, context, and feasibility.
8. What were the challenges you faced while working on your award-winning design, and how did you overcome them?
The main challenge was making the architecture feel connected to the reservoir instead of placing a separate object on the site. We responded by treating water, terrain, vegetation, and wildlife habitats as part of the architecture from the beginning.
9. How do you recharge your creativity when you hit a creative block?
We usually step away from the computer. Walking through a natural landscape, visiting a building, looking at photography, or simply observing everyday environments often helps us notice something we missed before.
10. What personal values or experiences do you infuse into your designs?
Curiosity and empathy are important to both of us. We are interested in how design can help people experience a place from another point of view. In this project, students can move through enlarged flower-like spaces, habitat hills, and an underwater classroom, seeing nature at different scales.
11. What is an advice that you would you give to aspiring designers aiming for success?
Stay curious, remain open to experimentation, and do not be afraid to challenge familiar methods. Meaningful design often develops through persistence and collaboration.
12. If you could collaborate with any designer, past or present, who would it be and why?
Suyue Jin: I would choose I. M. Pei. I admire the clarity and discipline in his architecture, but also the way he navigated complex clients, cultural contexts, and large public projects.
Haocun (Joseph) Zou: I would choose Frank Lloyd Wright. I admire how he integrated architecture with nature and created spaces that respond to their surroundings. His idea of organic architecture continues to inspire me to explore the relationship between human experience, architecture, and natural systems.
13. What's one question you wish people would ask you about your work, and what's your answer?
How can architecture become part of an ecosystem rather than simply occupy it?
We believe architecture can support natural systems while creating new ways for people to experience and understand them. In this project, architecture, water, vegetation, wildlife, and education operate as one interconnected environment.
