H. Koon WEE

H. Koon Wee is Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture and NUS Cities. He directs the NUS Cities undergraduate education programme, where he co-developed the Minor in Cities, Cities Summer Programme and the Core Curriculum “Liveable Cities” module. Most recently, he led a multi-programme research studio that brought together students from M.Arch, MUP, MAUD and MLA in the re-envisioning of the G2G Suzhou Industrial Park. Formerly at HKU, he was founding director of the Cities in Asia Programme, and academic director of the HKU Shanghai Study Centre, where he led core courses in the history & theory of cities, globalisation, design and others. He taught at the Metropolitan Studies Programme, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University, and the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute.

Koon’s research focuses on modernisation, industrialisation and urban renewal. He authored and edited two books entitled “Singapore Dreaming: Managing Utopia” and “The Social Imperative: Architecture and the City in China,” and is currently wrapping up a Springer monograph entitled “Architecture of the urban-industrial complex.” He is a part of a number of editorial boards, including the reinvigorated Ekistics and the New Habitat journal, and previously 32 Beijing / New York published by Princeton Architectural Press. In support of public discourse, he co-convened a number of conferences with industry partners and think tanks, such as the “Non-West Modernist Past” conference at SMU with the Singapore Institute of Architects, and the “Public Space in Urban Asia” conference with Asian Urban Lab. Koon was appointed co-director for the 2017 Archifest by the Singapore Institute of Architects. The festival theme “Building Agency” was later developed into pedagogical and engagement tools.

Registered as an architect in Singapore and the Netherlands, Koon co-founded the experimental practice SKEW Collaborative in 2006. Several award-winning built works and feasibility studies of industrial and mixed-use buildings and campuses are used as case studies in his upcoming Springer monograph. SKEW was recognised as an emerging architectural practice by Architectural Record and Architectural Review (Australia), and was honoured as “Fifty Under Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century” by an international jury led by the late Stanley Tigerman. In 2015, SKEW worked closely with Rem Koolhaas and OMA in the URA Rail Corridor Design Competition, and was shortlisted with Olin and DPA alongside five multi-disciplinary teams for Phase 2.

Koon is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for the encouragement of arts, manufactures and commerce, founding member of the Docomomo Hong Kong Chapter for the documentation and conservation of modern architecture, member of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, and former advisory board member of Asian Urban Lab. He supports governments and NGOs in a number of advisory roles, including the Design Singapore Council, Centre for Liveable Cities’ Leaders in Urban Governance Programme, HKSAR Development Bureau, HKSAR Building Department, Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support & Training, Orphans International, AA Asia, Modern Asian Architecture Network, and others. Koon received his post-professional M.Arch from Yale with the Architecture & Merit Scholarship and Teaching Fellowship. He also graduated with his first professional B.Arch (First Class Honours) from the University of Western Australia, with the Richard Craig Scholarship, as well as B.A. (Arch Studies) from NUS.