Architecture Portfolio | Calvin Leung

PORTFOLIO SELECTED WORKS 2020-2023

CALVIN LEUNG

CALVIN LEUNG

Part II architectural designer with 2 years of experience delivering commercial, retail and landscape design projects within demanding timeframes. Meticulous and collaborative, I thrive in fast-paced environments. A dependable team player, I constantly expand my skill set, driven by the goal of creating sustainable, people-centred places that inspire and delight.

EDUCATION

University of Edinburgh

Master of Architecture

2021 - 2023

RIBA-validated Part 2 professional degree

Studio-based with courses in technology, theory, practice and UK planning / building regulations

Groundwork Architects & Associates

Architectural Designer

Sep 2019 - Jul 2021

Chinese University of Hong Kong

Bachelor of Social Science (Architectural Studies)

2014 - 2019

RIBA-validated Part 1 preprofessional degree

Exchange studies at Leibniz Universität Hannover

EXPERIENCE

I delivered interior fit-out projects, including HSBC branches and Guu San’s inaugural store, through RIBA Stages 2-6. I planned store layouts, developed design concepts with visualisations, presented to clients, and liaised with consultants and contractors. I also produced tender and construction packages with specifications, and oversaw projects on site to assure quality of construction.

EDGE Design Institute

Architectural Intern

Jul - Sep 2019

I assisted in the design and curation of the ‘Nano House’ exhibition which showcases the director Gary Chang’s strategies addressing crowded living conditions in contemporary apartments with a transformable home. I also compiled client pitch decks in the sectors of hotel and hospitality. Additionally, I produced visualisations for a design competition regarding the roof top of a museum in China.

THE RIVERINE MONASTERY

01 A Research Facility for the Study and Rehabilitation of Existing Water Bodies

The European Environment Agency predicts an increase in drought duration and 50-year flooding in Central Spain in all its climatic projections. Instead of a continuous stream of water, riverine architecture will have to address both a drier riverbed and extreme flooding. The Riverine Monastery is a research facility for the study and rehabilitation of existing water bodies.

The origins of the proposal lie in the development of an archive in the reimagined ruins of the Convent of the Carmelites, an insular typology of cloister, garden, cellular and communal spaces built within the medieval city walls of Ávila. The Riverine Monastery is its double, a complex architectural landscape situated within and above the river Adaja to the west of the city. The proposal engages the

historic division of the river by the Molino de la Losa as it separates the river ‘as is’ from the proposed ‘artificial’ riverbed, as an aquatic landscape laboratory where researchers can manipulate the riverine ground conditions to study its effects on the Adaja.

This double of a river becomes the undercroft of The Riverine Monastery, above which hovers a meshed decking that shelters and looks over the riverbed. At sites of particular scientific interest, the decking folds down to the river surface to provide fish hatcheries, sampling stations and gauging stations. Beyond the cloisters, a reconstituted city wall accommodates the laboratories and ancillary programmes. As landscape is housed in a monastic garden, so The Riverine Monastery holds and reveals the river Adaja.

Site Plan

The MArch thesis consists of a pair of mirroring projects, both related to a monastery: the Monastic Archive, and the Riverine Monastery.

The Riverine Monastery

The Monastic Archive

CATCHING

THE

THE

Exploded Axonometric Components of the

Riverine Monastery.

THE DECK visitor circulation + dew collection

REFLECTION CHAMBER visitor centre + echo of river

UNDERCROFT riverbed experiment + water sampling

HATCHERY fish larvae hatching + adaptive reuse

& VIEWING PLATFORM fish catching + hatchery viewing

Hermitage of St. Secundus

Former Mill of Le Losa

THE WALL laboratories + storage

The Riverine Monastery

A monastery for river sciences along the River Adaja, at a time Science replaces Deity.

The Monastic Archive

A historical archive on the site of a former Carmelite monastery along the city wall.

THE RIVERINE MONASTERY

Floor Plan

At the only point without tree cover along the Adaja, the Deck shades the river and retains water like a riparian buffer; at the river level, a new riverbed with rhombus-shaped extrusions allows analogue experimentation.

+1059.65

Absence of riparian buffer

+1069.60 +1064.10

Sectional Model

It illustrates the layers of the building: the dew collectors and the walkable steel grating of the Deck, and the steel girder holding them up, together with the Undercroft where manipulation of the riverbed occurs.

The Reflection Chamber

Sight of the river reflects onto the roof, and sound of the river echoes from below. Interpretations are projected onto the walls, and view of the city wall is framed by the window.

The Hatchery

The former mill of el Molino de la Losa, a witness of Ávila’s industrial past, reconnects with water through its adoption into a hatchery.

The Catching Platform The Viewing Deck

where larvae are caught and transported into the hatchery. where visitors observe the operation of a hatchery.

Transverse Section through the Hatchery

The hatchery connects to the deck and the walkways at multiple levels.

The Wall

In Ávila, it is common for buildings to attach to the city wall. The Wall is the core of the Riverine Monastery, housing 4 laboratories on the upper floor, and storage for landscape modification tools on the lower floor.

The Deck & the Undercroft

Sitting on top of 4 girder frames, the thin dew-collecting Deck hovers above the Undercroft, an experimental riverbed named after the subterranean vaulted chambers of Ávila, protecting it from drying up in sunlight.

THE MONASTIC ARCHIVE

Site Plan

The archive covers the area of the former convent as well as the public plaza to its east. 3 reading rooms, interspersed within the archive, allow careful inspection of audiovisual, cartographic and photographic materials respectively.

The Photography Room

The reading room for photographic materials, including a semi-outdoor pavilion for the inspection of prints, and a glazed indoor exhibition room with surfaces for enlarged projection.

Origami

The Photography Room makes use of an origami module at multiple orientations and scales, turning it into a canopy, a table, a screen etc.

02

INTEMPERATE EARTHHOUSES

The Ecologisation of Kew Gardens

In 2020, Kew Gardens announced plans to decolonise its collections. Two years later, in response to objections that it was overstepping its own remit for scientific research by politicising its collections, the term was dropped from Kew’s 10-year plan. But with various glasshouses zoned by geography, flora divided into species and catalogued according to western knowledge systems, and the public display of ‘exotic’ specimens, the line between science, taxonomy and social history already appears blurred.

Intemperate Earthhouses proposes to reframe Kew’s collection and role, arguing that focusing solely on the science of plants is out of tune with Kew’s own science strategy, which prioritises ‘ecosystem stewardship’. Through a series of new ‘Earthhouses’ containing selfsustaining ecosystems, supported by plant life (and some human care), fungi, bacteria and

soil are prepared for use in the rehabilitation of regional temperate rainforests. These Earthhouses re-situate and expand Kew’s Fungarium, bringing fungi and other back-of-house activities critical to Kew’s ecosystem to public attention. The composting yard — a visible manifestation of fungal and bacterial action — becomes a generator of heat and nutrition; the Stable Yard is reconfigured for earthhouses, solid counterparts to Kew’s glasshouses containing collections of wetland plants and fungi. These plants generate climatic conditions; they are not reliant on conditioned spaces. The spectra of temperatures, humidities and soil conditions they generate provides an experimental space for research, entangled within the microscopic lives of soil-dwellers, but outward-looking to address social and climatic concerns.

Fungi Greenhouse | Kew Gardens, London | 2022

ARBORETUM NURSERY protecting young trees for the arboretum

STABLE YARD composting supporting the whole Kew Gardens

TRICLIMATIC HOUSES manipulating climatic conditions through upper-floor connecting room

HERBACEOUS HOUSE studying fungal relationship with short herbaceous plants

WALKABLE HOUSE promoting tactile connection with soil

NURSERY HOUSE nurturing new plants and fungi for the Earthhouses

Sectional Axonometric

A series of 5 earthhouses provide a range of soil conditions and viewing angles for various readings of plant life.

Site Plan

The earthhouses occupy the site of the Stable Yard, where composting occurs for the whole garden. The earthhouses deconstruct the symmetry of Victorian glasshouses to emphasise the organic nature of life.

Tectonic Model

Crafting with cardboard describes the language of the earthhouses in detail.

Massing Model

Crafting of timber gave the form of the earthhouses.

Ground Floor Plan

Based on the physical models, an irregular building footprint was developed and rationalised.

Sketches

Moments out of the tectonic model were rationalised through sketches.

GUU SAN

GUU SAN is a brand new Japan-themed grocery store which opened in 2020 with a focus in freshness and health. Inspired by the Bathhouse in Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, GUU SAN features a wooden-bracket-like ceiling with an accent of orange-red to hint at Japanese tradition.

Despite its supermarket nature and limited floor space, GUU SAN aims at drawing higher middle class consumers from its location at the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui, a major shopping and business district. The key task in the design was thus to find the delicate equilibrium between a leisurely shopping experience and an effective aisled supermarket layout.

Layout Plan

A traditional aisled grocery layout is complemented with points of attention, including a seating area along the glazed shopfront, and food counters surrounding existing giant columns.

Shopfront

A pair of food kiosks attract footfall at the shopfront without obscuring the sightline through the shop, while the consignment kiosk and the seating area provide points of attraction at the back.

Professional project | Guu San Japanese Grocery Store | 2019 - 2020

1. Cashier counter study

2. Cashier counter photo

3. Glass block water wall

4. Quick bite area

5. Feature seating

6. Streetfront

7. Streetfront at night

Design Studies: Refillery

Upon client’s request for a consignment area among the aisles, a little pavilion was added along two shelves. A number of design iterations were proposed to control costs while maintaining the design intent.

Revamp

APITA is a Japanese department store with more than 30 years of history in Hong Kong. The store had represented quality goods with value for money, but the client wished to rebrand APITA for health- and environmentconscious consumers. Birch and white mosaic tiles with warmer lighting therefore replaces the existing cool material board.

As a pilot revamp scheme at the secondary entrance to the store, it was more important to promote the updated brand image than to maximise shelf length. A variety of furniture were thus designed to activate the retail space. 3 pockets of shelves were also zoned to facilitate consignment or ad hoc marketing events.

Layout Plan

On a chamfered site, the shop was divided into layers, with the ones against the walls as consignment zones, the ones in the middle for general sales, and the shopfront one for ad-hoc marketing events.

The entrance is almost doubled in width to hint at the scale of the whole department store. Shopfront displays become lower in height to provide transparency into the rich interior of the store.

Traditional wood-based Japanese interior with colourful contemporary Japanese highlights.

1. Rendering

2. Photo of same scene

3. Entrance portal

4. Painted desk legs

5. Lamp shades

6. Consignment zone

7. Column feature

8. Wood slats and colour

Construction Detailing

Construction details for the entrance portal in tender drawings. I was frequently entrusted with drafting tender drawings and modifying the details during site coordination.

HSBC WEALTH CENTRE K11

05 Highest Tier Retail Banking Centre

HSBC Wealth Centre in K11 Atelier was the first of its tier in Hong Kong. Despite global design guidelines from the HSBC headquarters in the UK, there were plenty of local tweaks and bespoke design features specific to the new Wealth Centre. It was a challenge to navigate these complicated global standards while giving local character.

We also took the risk to propose removable partitions for some of the 25 meeting rooms so that we could create a large function room within the limited floor space. The paramedical room, the family-friendly bar and the ceiling features were also unique to the K11 branch.

Detail Design

Rendered design studies and mock-ups were done before finalising on the setting-out and construction of bespoke features including the ceiling and the refreshment bar.

Sha Kok Estate, a public housing estate on the bank of Shing Mun River, used to be famous for its 12 cooked food stalls, locally known as ‘Mushroom Huts’ after their pyramidal roofs, inter-connected by illegal corrugated steel canopies which sheltered the growth of a little local community. The project captures and re-interprets the organicity of the original

‘mushroom huts’ by erecting new ‘mushroom canopies’, symbolising the sprouting of mushrooms from the debris of demolished huts. The mushrooms provide seating, shelter and a new aesthetics to the ageing neighbourhood. The project was awarded Honorable Mention in the Architecture MasterPrize.

COOKED FOOD STALLS

IN THE PAST

CAMPING BASE

Lok Fu Place, the shopping mall within the public housing estate Lok Fu Estate, is located right next to the Lion Rock, a hill symbolic of Hong Kong. A large interactive inflatable art installation with the shape of the Lion Rock as its blueprint attracts younger families with children, and seating that grows naturally out of the lawn serves the ageing neighbourhood.

Efforts were made to ensure the inflatble hill and the canopies would not involve structural modifications and would not require plan submissions to the Building Department.

The project was awarded Honorable Mention in the Architecture MasterPrize.

08

SCHOOL REGENERATION

Part of the Jockey Club Project Well-being: Placemaking in Schools scheme, hours were spent free of charge to renovate schools: PLK Chong Kee Ting Primary School & PLK Wu Chung College. We picked one room per school to best utilise the limited budget.

Key to this set of projects is a feedback loop between the users (students) and the designer through participatory design workshops. The set of projects was Mark Winner in Golden Pin Design Award 2022.

Participatory Design

Following a round of workshops with teachers who gave us an overall direction, several rounds of design workshops were held with the students to understand their needs, and then let them vote for their favourites.

Photo taken at Alvar Aalto’s Stephanuskirche in Wolfsburg, Germany.