Designing A Visionary Asia: A Conversation With Renowned Architect Jenchieh Hung

Cam Tu Nguyen, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Asia Awards Organization, speaks with Professor Jenchieh Hung of Thai architectural firm, Jenchieh Hung + Kulthida Songkittipakdee / HAS design and research, about Asian identity, architectural innovation, technology, hospitality, and the future of the built environment. 

As Asia enters a new chapter of rapid transformation, the relationship between architecture, design, technology, culture, and human experience is becoming increasingly important. Under the shared theme “Visionary Asia”, the Asia Architecture Design Awards (AADA), Asia Hospitality Awards (AHA), and Asia Tech Awards celebrate the people, projects, brands, and destinations shaping the future of Asia through creativity, innovation, and lasting impact.

Inspired by the spirit “Envision Tomorrow - Inspire Generations,” the awards recognize those who challenge convention, redefine excellence, and create meaningful value for communities and industries across the region. 

As an international jury member and board of advisors member for the Asia Awards Organization, Asia Architecture Design Awards, Asia Hospitality Awards, and Asia Tech Awards, as well as an internationally recognized architect, educator, artist, and curator, Professor Jenchieh Hung brings a distinctive perspective to this conversation. Through his practice, Jenchieh Hung + Kulthida Songkittipakdee / HAS design and research, he continuously investigates the relationship between nature, culture, people, and the built environment.

1. Understanding Asia Beyond Style

Opening the conversation, Cam Tu Nguyen asks Professor Jenchieh Hung what it means to design for the future of Asia at a time when cities are becoming denser, cultures increasingly interconnected, and technology rapidly transforming the built environment.

Professor Jenchieh Hung believes that the first step is to understand Asia itself.

Many Asian cities are continuously adjusted by people. The city is not something completely finished. People constantly modify it according to their needs, climate, culture, economy, and daily life. This can be seen in informal markets, street vendors, temporary structures, awnings, infrastructure, public spaces, and many other everyday conditions. For Professor Jenchieh Hung, these environments contain a form of spatial intelligence. They demonstrate how people adapt architecture and the city rather than simply accepting a fixed environment.

“Asian identity should not be a style. It should be a way of thinking.”

This is also why Professor Jenchieh Hung believes a visionary Asia should not be defined by one visual language. Asia is diverse, and its future should emerge from an understanding of this diversity. This perspective is closely connected to the philosophy of Visionary Asia. Rather than proposing one definition of Asian excellence, the AAO award platforms seek to recognize different forms of creativity, innovation, and achievement emerging across the region.

 2. Research as a Foundation for Innovation

The conversation then turns to the role of research in architectural practice. At Thai architectural firm, Jenchieh Hung + Kulthida Songkittipakdee / HAS design and research, research is not treated as a separate activity from architecture. Instead, it forms part of an ongoing process that connects design, teaching, exhibitions, publications, experimentation, and practice.

Professor Jenchieh Hung explains that he sees these activities as different expressions of the same discipline: “I see research, exhibitions, books, teaching, publications, and design simply as architecture. Architecture is not only the building. Research is architecture”.

For Jenchieh Hung, research creates the opportunity to question existing assumptions and discover new relationships between nature, culture, people, and the built environment. This understanding of research also reflects the broader spirit of the Asia Architecture Design Awards (AADA). Architectural innovation does not necessarily begin with a new form. It can begin with a new question, a new observation, or a different way of interpreting an existing condition. 

A street can become a source of architectural knowledge. An existing infrastructure can become a public opportunity. An ordinary material can become a new spatial experience. A local practice can inspire a contemporary design approach.

 3. From Materials to Human Experience

4. Creating More with Less

Another important part of Professor Jenchieh Hung’s approach is his interest in how simple systems can generate complex architectural experiences. Repeated industrial components, for example, can be changed in length, rhythm, orientation, or arrangement to create spatial richness without unnecessarily increasing construction complexity. “Repetition does not have to produce sameness. It can produce richness.”

For Professor Jenchieh Hung, this principle demonstrates that innovation does not always require greater complexity or more resources. Sometimes, the potential already exists within a familiar material, system, or condition. The challenge is to discover it. This process is also inherently collaborative. 

“The knowledge of the fabricator is sometimes better than what we can predict in the studio”.

Architects, engineers, craftsmen, fabricators, clients, communities, and local conditions all contribute different forms of knowledge. Architecture becomes a process of testing, adapting, and refining. This collaborative approach has broader relevance to the industries represented by Asia Awards Organization (AAO). In architecture, hospitality, and technology, meaningful innovation increasingly emerges through the interaction of different disciplines rather than from a single field working independently.

 5. Technology with a Human Purpose

The conversation naturally extends to technology, particularly as the Asia Tech Awards introduces another dimension to the AAO platform. Technology is rapidly changing how people live, work, communicate, travel, and experience the built environment. Artificial intelligence, computational design, digital fabrication, smart systems, and new technologies are expanding the possibilities available to architects and designers.

Yet Professor Jenchieh Hung believes technology should remain connected to human experience. “A machine can generate possibilities, but it cannot replace the human experience, attitude, and conviction behind an architectural decision”. For Professor Jenchieh Hung, the important question is not simply what technology can do, but what meaningful possibilities technology can create for people, places, and communities.

This perspective is increasingly relevant to architecture and hospitality, where technology can create responsive environments, new forms of interaction, personalized experiences, and more efficient systems. Technology, however, should serve the experience rather than become the experience itself.

6. Inspiring the Next Generation

As the conversation moves toward the future, Professor Jenchieh Hung reflects on his role as an educator and the responsibility of the next generation of architects and designers. He believes students need not only ideas, but also direct experience with reality: materials, construction, budgets, regulations, clients, communities, technology, and the unexpected conditions that emerge during real projects.

“Students need the passion to try something they have never done before”.

For Professor Jenchieh Hung, curiosity and experimentation are essential to progress. The future cannot be created simply by repeating established formulas. This idea resonates strongly with the shared philosophy of “Envision Tomorrow - Inspire Generations”. To envision tomorrow is to remain open to possibilities that do not yet exist, while inspiring generations means creating knowledge and opportunities that others can build upon.

7. Designing Beyond Awards

As a jury member and recipient of international recognition, Professor Jenchieh Hung also reflects on the relationship between architecture and awards. For Professor Jenchieh Hung, recognition should follow meaningful work rather than determine it.

“Do not design to please awards or the camera. Design for the place, for the people, and for what you believe in”.

Architecture should respond first to its context, its people, its environment, and the convictions of its designers. Awards can provide an important platform for sharing such work across Asia and internationally, but the value of a project ultimately comes from what it contributes to the people and places it serves.

8. Toward a Visionary Asia

The conversation concludes with a broader reflection on what “Visionary Asia” might mean. For Professor Jenchieh Hung, the future of Asia should not be represented by a single architectural style, technological image, or universal model. Instead, it should emerge from the relationship between culture and innovation, nature and technology, tradition and experimentation, and people and place.

This is where the Asia Awards Organization (AAO), Asia Architecture Design Awards (AADA), Asia Hospitality Awards (AHA), and Asia Tech Awards (ATA) share a common vision: recognizing the people, ideas, projects, brands, and destinations that are helping shape the next chapter of Asia.

Professor Jenchieh Hung summarizes his architectural philosophy through a simple yet powerful ambition: “Transform nothing into something, and something into something interesting”. The statement extends beyond architecture. It is a way of looking at the future itself. A leftover space can become a public place. An ordinary material can become an unexpected experience. Existing infrastructure can become a new opportunity. Research can become design, and design can become knowledge.

For a rapidly changing Asia, perhaps being visionary is not about predicting the future. It is about continuously observing, questioning, experimenting, and transforming what exists today into new possibilities for tomorrow.

The interview article credit belongs to Asia Awards Organization (AAO). And images courtesy of Jenchieh Hung + Kulthida Songkittipakdee / HAS design and research, Fangfang Tian, Rungkit Charoenwat, DOF Sky|Ground, W Workspace, and Ce Wang.