Research Interest
Hans is an Associate Professor at the Division of Industrial Design, National University of Singapore. He believes that design not only helps us “do”, design also helps us “understand”. He deploys design as medium, making use of utility as a pretext for visual discourse, while maintaining a keen focus in developing materials and processes. The embedded narratives in his works comment on design and its industry as a phenomenon, especially in the context of heritage, consumption and waste.
His works have been shown in exhibitions such as “Singletown” at the Venice Biennale, “Surface art/design” in Dortmund and Cologne, “Beauty” at the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, Smithsonian Design Museum New York, and “Local Icons East/West” at MAXXI Museo, Rome. He is a two-time winner of Design of the Year at the President’s Design Award, Singapore’s highest design accolade. His works are held in private collections, as well as public permanent collections at the National Collection of Singapore; M+ Museum for Visual Culture, Hong Kong; and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York. Hans has also actively engaged in curatorial work and has produced several exhibitions with a keen interest in the discursive capacity of design to engage public perceptions.
His penchant for design pedagogy is guided by the concept of deformative inquiry, developing imaginative thinking tools that provide novel approaches to the design process based on generative deformations, use of language and systematic reflection. The student works developed under his supervision has garnered many international awards, and he is a three-time winner of the NUS Annual Excellent Teaching Award.