History
From their first commission in 1985, a high-rise residential building in Shanghai, partners Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown have challenged themselves and their associates with the widest possible range of project types and scales, across a global span of cultures and locales.
Each successive experience has informed the next, building knowledge of the tangible matters of design, and gathering insights to the human condition.
Always seeking excellence, the partners are directly involved in every project, and have kept total staff to approximately twenty architects and designers over the last several years, a number large enough to undertake a variety of commissions at once, yet small enough to maintain focus.
The firm's current work ranges from the conceptualization, programming and planning of a model city in Sichuan province in China, to the design of large scale mixed-use developments, and hotel, retail, exhibition, furniture, and product designs.
In addition, Tsao and McKown continue to undertake private residences and multiple-family dwellings, as they find that the exploration of domesticity best reveals the finer nuances of human needs and desires.
Philosophy
We see design not as a pursuit of absolutes, but rather as an embrace of seemingly opposing forces: rational versus instinctive, individual versus communal, adventurous versus apprehensive. Our philosophy of design is an outgrowth of our experiences and observations, and so, like life, is always a work in progress, a gradual accretion of thoughts and afterthoughts.
Our search has led us across boundaries between usual design disciplines in order to mine the vast array of human experience, through projects ranging in scale from the very small (a lipstick case) to the very large (a prototypical community for 25,000). What we have found most revealing are the points of intimate engagement between individuals and their surroundings, leading us to an interior-centric perspective. With the additional realization that there are no natural discontinuities between inside and out, we delight in exterior forms emerging from within, and interior spaces forming externally, as at the fountain of a civic center in Singapore, which serves as an urban living room.
Going forward we expect endless discoveries and unknowns. But we find comfort in Socrates' observation that "true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing," and are reminded to keep our thoughts porous and limber.
Calvin Tsao - Principal
Calvin Tsao has emerged as one of the most original voices in contemporary architecture, drawing from his own experience of diverse cultures and a lively engagement with a variety of art forms.
He is President of The Architectural League of New York, has served as the Vice President for Design Excellence at the AIA NY Chapter, and is a member of the Visiting Committee to Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.
In 2001 Mr. Tsao was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame, along with his partner Zack McKown.
A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at the Parsons School of Design, and has served as guest critic and design juror at universities and institutes nationwide.
Education
Harvard University / Master of Architecture
University of California at Berkley / Bachelor of Architecture
Zack McKown - Principal
Zack McKown has been widely recognized for his innovations in the fields of urban design and architecture, interiors, furniture and product design.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the Design Trust for Public Space, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
In 2001 Mr. McKown was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame, along with his partner Calvin Tsao.
He has lectured widely, and has been honored by retrospective exhibits at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and The New School University.
Education
Harvard University / Master of Architecture
University of South Carolina, Honors College / Bachelor of General Studies