Marco Cheung
How I envision my future role in the architectural profession has transformed considerably over my academic and professional career; as a student at BCIT and the RAIC Syllabus program, and as a registered Architectural Technologist with experience across Western Canada.
Where I once saw technical proficiency as the determinant for good architectural design, I now see the harmonisation of professional practice with academic research as an essential requirement in addressing modern humanitarian problems. As an aspiring Architect, I aim to forge a bridge between the academy and private industry.
I have observed in my 9 years as an Architectural Technologist that the industry of architecture today is grappling with socioeconomic, political, cultural, and administrative pressures that have added to the challenge of creating meaningful architectural expressions. Yet, industry alone lacks the ideological incentives to address these obstacles due to financial considerations and restrictions. Instead, I discovered the tools I needed to confront these challenges through active dialogue with my Syllabus course instructors, critical examination of architectural texts, and hands-on design studios addressing modern dilemmas, such as in the commodification of housing. By engaging in architectural research, I found myself better equipped to generate intentional and novel designs for complex community-facing projects such as schools, daycares, and social housing. Meanwhile, working full-time in parallel with my education has allowed me to develop skillsets absent from university curricula, such as software fluency, construction administration, and project management. Understanding the technical realities of design in turn allows me to rigorously develop my ideas through the assistance of modern technologies and in line with the realities of construction.
Therefore, I find myself at the intersection between two spheres, attempting to balance the competing motivations of commercialism and pedagogy. In the spirit of fostering unity, my work centres the concepts of community engagement and interconnectedness of public and private spaces, challenging the conventional delineations of their respective roles. For example, in a recent design studio, I examined how an audiovisual manufacturer could integrate with local theatres to create a functionally porous space where workers, performers, and residents could collectively play and work. In addition, I am in the process of creating an independent design publication which will address the current segregation of professional and theoretical architecture while challenging both sides to reconcile this gap.
Upon the completion of the RAIC syllabus program, and to improve my fluency in both academic and industrial philosophies, I will pursue graduate education alongside my licensing accreditation as an architect. My comprehensive technical experience combined with my desire to push the boundaries of precedent typologies uniquely positions me as a future leader dedicated to fostering connections between architectural theory, research, and private practice. I envision contributing to the co-dependent evolution of these disciplines as a professor-architect capable of practising, publishing, and co-producing with leaders in our profession.