Fook Weng Chan, FWC ARCHITECTURE, Installation view at Palazzo Mora, 2016.

Life experiences shape our designs. My formative influences include childhood street-walks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with my father, architectural studies and explorations in the expansive Canadian Prairies, the dramatic Rockies, the poetic Pacific West Coast, and God and man’s creations on five continents. Loves for history, past civilizations, many cultures, and landscapes have reinforced the notion of the importance of ‘genius loci’ – the pervading spirit of a place.
A blend of Oriental sensibilities with a North American education has led to an intuitive approach to design. It is thoughtful and emotional. Emphasis is placed on the composition of movement and connections to, through, and between forms, spaces, and their transformation with light. Moving through one of my projects is experientially akin to approaching a town, entering, walking along its streets, discovering a view, a piece of nature, a piazza. It is about places to pause, enjoy, linger. It is about moments to delight in through the cycles of the days and seasons.
My initial understanding of the creative problem at hand comes from living with clients and camping on sites before putting pencil to paper. Emotions are allowed to guide the pencil when it hits paper and before my mind reviews the line. Local materials and craft and building traditions are studied. Opportunities to reveal the passion of the human heart and hand are sought. Meaning is derived from the value placed upon the skill, knowledge, experience, and life-world of users and builders.
This attitude towards design leads to architecture that is authentic to place and people. It is timeless and of substance as opposed to being trendy or of a global or historical aesthetic. When all elements gel, the creations enter the realm of spirituality. Each is imbued with a soul. We step beyond life into existence!
It is hoped that these simple notions of timelessness, the spirit of place and life from a humble little studio in Vancouver, contribute to this exhibition on ‘Time-Space-Existence’ and the ultimate goal of better-created environments for us – individually and collectively.
For this show, an introductory panel showing early work Fook Weng undertook with an iconic Western Canadian practice provides the context. Subsequent panels and screen displays show several houses – diverse resolutions of a single building type.