DoA Symposium: Building / Community in the Tropics and Beyond
SPEAKERS
Yani Amores Dutta and Raoul Roque Amores. Raoul and Yani Amores are a father-daughter duo at the heart of the Regenesis Project, a family-driven organization pioneering regenerative development models in the Philippines.
Yani is an architect by profession but a nature and systems lover first and foremost. A board-topping architect, Permaculture Designer, and Regenerative Development practitioner, she brings rare combined expertise across both urban built environments and rural agricultural landscapes, integrating these into holistic bioregional strategies. Her work spans regenerative systems design, strategic planning, and creating frameworks for multi-scalar, multi-industry transformation.
Raoul is a technical innovator and regenerative jack-of-all-trades who has always been ahead of his time. A proponent of “unlearning and relearning,” he brings deep knowledge and pioneering innovations across permaculture, earthworks design, bamboo cultivation, natural farming, and water systems. Most importantly, he understands the connections between bodies of knowledge and translates them into practice on the ground.
Together, they embody the integration of vision and implementation, systems thinking and experimentation, in service of regenerating Philippine landscapes and communities.
Yori Antar graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Indonesia in 1988. He is currently the Director and Principal Designer of Han Awal Architects. During his more than 30 years of architectural practice, he is also known for his works as a photographer, architectural writer and contribution in the development of Indonesian architecture. Yori Antar is also one of the founder of Indonesian Young Architects in 1989.
In 2008, he founded Uma Nusantara Foundation to save and preserve Indonesian Architectural heritage, using the bottom up approach. His works with Uma Nusantara has been granted with several awards such as the Indonesian Institute of Architects 2008 Awards for Socio-Cultural Category (Tirta Dharma Weaving House), the Indonesian Institute of Architects 2011 Awards for the Conservation Category (the Reconstruction of Mbaru Niang in Waerebo), the Indonesian Institute of Architects 2015 Awards (the Reconstruction in South West Sumba), Lifetime Achievement Award Academy of Jakarta 2020, the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture Award 2018 for Community Category as well as other International Award such as Arcasia Award 1991 for Timor House, the Award of Excellence UNESCO Asia-Pacific Cultural Heritage Conservation Award 2012 and shortlisted Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2013.
Gauri Bharat trained as an architect and specialises in interdisciplinary approaches to architectural history. Her research and teaching focuses on how people engage with built environments, particularly indigenous and material histories in South Asia. She has received a number of grants, including the Berkeley Prize Teaching Fellowship and from the Graham Foundation. Gauri is keenly interested in engaging with non-academic audiences through workshops that make built environment histories accessible to children. She currently serves as Dean, School of Architecture, Anant National University, Ahmedabad, India.
Shu-Mei Huang is Professor at the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning and Director of Indigenous Students Resource Center, National Taiwan University. Her research area intersects Heritage Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Memory Studies in East Asia. Huang led in an edited volume titled Frontiers of Memory: Difficult Heritage and Cross-border Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism (Hong Kong University Press) and the other edited volume titled Community Responses to Disasters in the Pacific Rim: Place-making in Displacement (Routledge). Huang serves as a board member of Taiwan Women in Architecture and the Board Meeting of Promotion of Transitional Justice under Executive Yuan, Taiwan.
Varani Kosasih was born in June 1985, Varani completed her architectural education in Parahyangan University, 2007. She started her interest in the research and documentation of Indonesian architecture since joining the Arsitektur Hijau community in 2004. Her thesis about Kampung Nage, Flores was published as a book in 2009.
Varani joined Han Awal Architects in 2007 where she met Yori Antar and co-founded the Uma Nusantara Foundation in 2008. Until today, she remains actively involved of the publication and documentation works of the Foundation such as “The Message from Waerebo” in 2018 (granted the Indonesian Institute of Architects 2020 Awards for the architectural publication category), “Hunting and Learning form the Land of Marapu” in 2017, “Nurturing the Tradition” in 2022 and “Sumba Weaving Road” in 2024.
She is currently the coordinator for Uma Nusantara Foundation.
Professor Huhana Smith is a visual artist, curator and principle investigator in research who engages in major environmental, trans-disciplinary, kaupapa Māori and action-research projects. She is co-principle investigator for research that includes mātauranga Māori methods with sciences to actively address climate change concerns for coastal Māori lands in Horowhenua-Kāpiti. Huhana actively encourages the use of art and design’s visual systems combined in exhibitions, to expand how solutions might integrate complex issues and make solutions more accessible for local communities.
Vivienne Wee obtained her PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University. She taught at the National University of Singapore, Australian National University, City University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Singapore University of Social Sciences. She is now an independent researcher in anthropology and heritage studies.
ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS
ila’s practice encompasses performance, photography, moving image and sound that creates alternative entry points for experiencing the peripheries of lived experience and unspoken narratives. She often reconfigures and merges speculative fiction with factual histories to conceive sites for empathy and connectivity in her work. She has participated in group shows in Singapore such as Singapore Biennale 2022 named Natasha, Proposals for Novel Ways of Being, National Gallery Singapore (2020) and in festivals such as ASEAN-EU Cultural Festival (2022)
Professor Jeff Hou has worked with indigenous tribes, farmers, fishers, and villagers in Asia and inner-city immigrant youths and elders in North American cities, on projects ranging from the conservation of wildlife habitats to bottom-up urban placemaking. Before his appointment as the Head of the Department at DOA in 2024, Hou was Professor of Landscape Architecture and led the Urban Commons Lab at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle. He served as Chair of Landscape Architecture at UW from 2009 to 2017.
A pioneer in bottom-up placemaking and civic engagement, Hou’s published work includes Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities (2010), Transcultural Cities: Border-Crossing and Placemaking (2013), Messy Urbanism: Learning from the “Other” Asian Cites (2016), Design as Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity (2017), and Emerging Civic Urbanisms in Asia: Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, and Taipei beyond Developmental Urbanization (2022). His collaborative publications received the EDRA Places Book Award in 2010, 2012, and 2018.
Hamzah Muzaini is Associate Professor with the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. A cultural and heritage geographer by background, his research interests include the politics of memory and heritage in Singapore and Malaysia, and the intersections between heritage and vices in Indonesia. He is co-author of ‘Contested Memoryscapes: Politics of War Commemoration in Singapore’ (with B. Yeoh, 2016) and co-editor of ‘After Heritage: Critical Perspectives on Heritage from Below’ (with C. Minca, 2018).
Jayde Lin Roberts is Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture (DOA), College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore.
Prof. Roberts, an interdisciplinary scholar, combines spatial and historical analysis with ethnographic research to examine heritage-making, urban informality, and the effects of transnational networks. She was a Fulbright US Scholar in Yangon, Myanmar (2016-2018) and has published in the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Critical Asian Studies and others, as well as a monograph titled, Mapping Chinese Rangoon: Place and Nation among the Sino-Burmese. Before joining NUS, she taught Architecture and Urbanism in Asia, Architecture and Politics, and a master-level studio focusing on Indigenous knowledge at UNSW Sydney. In her teaching and research, Prof. Roberts is particularly interested in participatory and decolonizing methods.
Daliana Suryawinata is a co-founder of SHAU Indonesia and the Netherlands alongside Florian Heinzelmann. SHAU has designed and realised masterplans, public parks, and cultural centres, and works with communities on microlibraries and public spaces. SHAU won the Ammodo Awards for Social Architecture 2025 for the ‘Kampung Mrican’ village revitalisation in Yogyakarta. SHAU’s microlibraries have also received numerous awards, including the ARCASIA Gold Award 2024 and the Holcim Asia-Pacific Award in 2017. Earlier, she worked with Yori Antar and Andra Matin in Indonesia, and then with OMA, MVRDV, and West8 in the Netherlands. She is currently a part-time Associate Professor at Monash University Indonesia and has previously taught at the Berlage Institute and TU Delft. In 2025, Daliana was recognised in RIBA’s publication ‘100 Women Architects in Practice‘.