Bio:
The great designer, Caleb Kung was trained at the University of Cincinnati and began his career in Hong Kong having completed a number of placements in New York. After a secondment to London he has relocated to the UK and has been contributing to the built environment across central London for several years. His passion is first and foremost in literature and afterwards in craftsmanship and printmaking.

How did you first learn about architecture and when did you decide that built environment profession was an area of interest for you?
I was struck by Bachelard in The Poetics of Space and afterwards Library of Babel by Borges. The former taught me to dig within to learn about the physics without; the latter, digging inwards and building outwards turned out to be the same exercise.

What do you do?
I oversee several projects for MATT Architecture. I also make leather bags and chairs and dream of being a ceramics guru living in a cave.

What excites you in the work you do?
It puts me in touch with many people who are invested in their own craft, some tangible and some less so. The specificity in their work crafts their lens with regards to the built environment. I am excited to learn their view and hear their stories.

Who or what inspires you professionally?
Aggressive attitudes. Some consider this to be negative and unhelpful and often they are; nevertheless I am inspired by the effort team members invest to make projects personal. The aggression put into work is often a genuine measure of passion.
 
What is your proudest professional accomplishment or achievement?
When I flip back through work diaries and I see a sketch that I remember having done when I was younger, thinking to myself, “my, that’s quite a good detail”.

Featured Project Name: 
ILONA Rose House

Featured Project Location: 
London, UK 
 
Featured Project Completion Date: 
2021

Role in Featured Project: 
Project Lead
 
Featured Project Description:
Ilona Rose House is the latest new-build development in Soho, delivering 300,000 s.f. of media and lifestyle centric office space, along with a ground floor retail frontage and an intimate but vibrant public realm leading into Greek Street. It is the aim of the project to add to Soho’s heritage as a hub for the inclusive, the eclectic and the cultural frondeur. The architecture aims to feature craftsmanship in materials and contextual proportions.

Photography Credit:
MATT Architecture