Putting architectural inclusiveness into practice

As an architect, Mr Robert Wong Kin-ming believes that building design can improve the living environment and people can be brought closer together through architecture. As such, he advocates a “community participation” architectural concept to involve service stakeholders in the entire design and construction process, ensuring the architectural projects are humanized and tailored to users’ needs.

In 2007, Robert visited Cambodia and learned about the country’s extreme poverty and high illiteracy rate. Its school buildings were also incredibly shabby, with only a whiteboard and mat, built beneath Cambodian-style stilt houses where the teachers lived. He also noticed that the local students chose not to attend school as the learning process was uninteresting. In view of this, Robert started organizing a group of volunteers of various professional backgrounds in 2009. IDEA (Involve in Design, Empower with Action) Foundation, a charity organization dedicated to improving community environment, was founded by him in 2012, with the purpose of building schools together with local community in developing nations. Stakeholders including students, teachers and volunteers can collectively contribute to the design of their schools. On the one hand, this could showcase the artistic design talents of the children involved and on the other hand, attain the objective of architectural inclusiveness.

Encouraging users’ participation

Once or twice every year, Robert leads a team of 30-40 volunteers to Cambodia for a nine-day design service trip. During the trip, a design workshop is conducted with the local teachers and students, in order to let them appreciate and understand a school environment, uncover the possibilities of classroom learning and share their expectations for learning. Since 2009 until now, IDEA has built close to 20 classrooms, education kiosks and school facilities in Cambodia, Nepal and India, with more than 1,000 volunteers involved in these projects.

Furthermore, IDEA has made concerted efforts to help rebuild the earthquake-hit regions of Nepal. Following the occurrence of a disaster in 2015, it has collaborated with Taiwanese architects to introduce anti-seismic steel-frame houses with less demanding building technology into the local communities. Robert and IDEA volunteers have also helped rebuild the local schools affected by earthquakes. To date, they have helped in building close to 20 steel-frame buildings and their commitment in post-earthquake reconstruction continues unabated today.