“Intuition Must Be Grounded to The Site and Context”: In Conversation with Oscar Ko of Interval Architects 

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Oscar Ko was born in Harbin, China and moved with his parents to Hong Kong at the age of five. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Architecture at the University of Michigan and Master’s from Columbia University in 2006. After spending seven years in America, he relocated to Europe where his original plan was to stay for four-five years or longer but after talking to older friends practicing in China he quickly realized that there are more opportunities in his native China. After working for less than two years for several prestigious firms – Josep Lluis Mateo Architects in Barcelona, David Chipperfield Architects in Berlin, and Space Group Architects in Oslo, Norway – he returned to China where he worked at two leading Beijing-based practices: Studio Zhu-Pei and Chiasmus Partners for several years.

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He and his wife-partner Gu Yunduan who is a native of Shanghai and graduate of Tongji University, opened their studio first in Beijing in 2012 and then moved to Shanghai where they now total eight people. Since 2017, Ko has been teaching at Shanghai’s Study Center of Hong Kong University. The couple’s key finished works include the Botanic Art Center nicknamed Tower of Bricks in Hebei Province; Raffles Kindergarten Complex also in Hebei Province; Huangzhuang Vocational High School in Beijing; and children’s playground dubbed Rollercoaster also in Beijing. Their current projects include a hotel, new facade design for an existing commercial building, a single-family house, and apartment renovations, all in or around Shanghai. We met for the following conversation at Ko’s Shanghai office over tea.