Speakers

Anna Liu qualified as an RIBA architect in 2002. Her experience has drawn from working in the UK as an architect, the US where she grew up, Japan where she discovered architecture, and Taiwan where she was born. In her early career she worked on transport and civic projects for Arup Associates and Rocco Design. She set up Tonkin Liu with Mike Tonkin in 2002. Together they taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture for four years, exploring studies of patterns in nature and in human nature, an area they further explored years later with students at the University of Westminster and at universities in Japan and Taiwan. Anna's current research interests include: learning from the structural, environmental, material, and social intelligence of vernacular architecture; integrating water in urban and rural architecture and landscape; developing simple, transformative stories with conceptual clarity - as the design driver for each project; integrating nature into architecture in multiple spatial and time scales: ecology; elements; archetypal symbols; biomimicry. The aim is to design architecture as an integrated, holistic entity that endures and resonates with its communities.