Jeannette Kuo’s research and work focus on integrated design, looking at structures, climate, and culture in the holistic design of buildings. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from U.C. Berkeley (1999), a Master in Architecture degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design (2004), and a Master of Advanced Studies from ETH Zurich (2010). She has taught at Harvard GSD (2016-2021), EPF Lausanne (2011-2014), MIT (2007-2009), and UC Berkeley (2006-2007). Jeannette Kuo is co-founding partner of Zurich-based architecture office KARAMUK KUO. From multi-unit housing to cultural infrastructures like the Augusta Raurica Archaeological Center, the work of the office spans across scales and typologies, operating at the intersection of spatial concepts and constructive technologies to approach architecture from its most fundamental sources. Built works include the International Sports Sciences Institute in Lausanne and the Weiden Secondary School. Publications include the two-volume research on workspace typologies: A-Typical Plan (2013) and Space of Production (2015), as well as the recent El Croquis 196 monograph on Karamuk Kuo. She frequently serves on professional juries for competitions and awards, including most recently chairing the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction in the European region. Jeannette Kuo took up her position as Professor for Architecture and Building Construction at TUM in January 2022.
Interview: Sophia Pritscher
How have you become who you are?
Jeannette Kuo: What is quite unique about my upbringing is that my identity was shaped by multiple places. I have always been part of different cultures at the same time: I grew up in Indonesia to Chinese-Vietnamese parents, moved to the United States relatively young and now run a practice in Switzerland. I lived on opposite coasts in the US and worked in different places including Berlin, Greece and Chile, and for the last 13 years I have been living in Zurich. I think that helped me gain different perspectives on not only our built environment but on how we as people and as cultures come together. The exposure to all of these diverse experiences profoundly shaped how I approach design and also how I approach relationships.
Why did you become interested in architecture?
One of the earliest things that I remember wanting to become was a writer or a journalist. As a child I used to write these little stories and illustrated them. Later I wanted to be various things but, deep inside I always loved the artistic side of crafting, drawing, and creating. What finally drew me to architecture is the fact that it is an intersection of the scientific and the humanistic. What really interests me is that it addresses how we as people and cultures live and interact. For me architecture is actually similar to writing in the sense that first and foremost it is about communication. It is just a different way of communicating as architects communicate with space and environments.
How does this communication approach influence your teaching of architecture students?
I think, what fascinates me about our profession is the translation between the intellectual project of architecture and the complex reality of construction which involves the coordination of many actors and requirements. Many of the big issues that we have to confront would seem overwhelming if we were not able to abstract them or to critically engage them with some distance. This includes maybe rethinking construction and the relationships that we have known so far. At the same time, design needs also intuition and sensibilities that often cannot be intellectualized. At the end of the day, architecture is something that people experience without any kind of background knowledge. Our profession is riddled with such contradictions. How do we translate something which is very abstract into something which is very physical, something which can be experienced, felt, and used in a very intuitive way? This concept underlies my teaching.
This perspective is likely to be crucial in your research as well. What is your first research project at TUM?
Our first research project at the professorship is a rethinking of the curtain wall. The idea was prompted by the climate change plan announced by New York in 2019: The Green New Deal banned all-glass curtain wall facades in the City. From then on it would no longer be possible to build all-glass facades and all the existing ones had to be retrofitted to be better performing. There has never been a law so explicitly affecting an architectural element that defines the image and identity of the city. But it also provoked new debates and questions: The first has to do with the idea of sustainability. How do we build sustainably within our urban environments? We all know that the all-glass facade is probably the least performative because of all the energy issues that it encounters. The idea of this hermetic envelope was something that developed in the mid 20th century, where we started relying increasingly on technology to solve all of our problems. With the deep buildings and the solar heat gain came the technical cooling which in turn brought the tightly sealed facade, just so we can control the “perfect comfort” with the perfect temperature. Much of what we have done since then is about optimizing and not about rethinking. But how valid is optimizing when it is based on a debatable foundation? The other question that the new plan raises is a cultural one. The all-glass curtain wall is a long-standing symbol of progress and modernity that developing countries aspire to and often proliferated in contexts where they climatically made no sense. It is therefore also a symbol of capitalism and of colonialism that is long overdue for a rethink.
Does your concept of architectural translation shape the research methodology? How is the project implemented?
Requestioning the curtain wall is also to rethink our values and systems of power and the aesthetics that these promote. Because in the end, the façade is a medium of expression, it is an aesthetic choice and we need to understand what drives these choices. All these questions came together at the envelope; at this one constructive element. At the professorship, we explore this subject both in seminars with our students and through applied research. We are also expanding further into the topics of comfort and material assemblies where we are also collaborating with others.
What role do collaborations and exchanging with others play for you?
Collaborating and coordinating with people from different fields is the core of architecture. I think the myth of the lone architect as the mastermind of everything has never been the reality. We architects have always relied on working with others. Every project is a result of conversations with our consultants and our partners, with engineers, with the client and users who are part of the process, and of course the contractors who build on site. It’s why for me architecture is at the end about communication and translation, it is about how we can synthesize different perspectives and requirements into a coherent idea.
Let us stick to the big picture: What changes do you hope to see in the future?
I can answer this question with the very expected, saying we have to address the topic of sustainability and climate change. Of course, I stand behind all that; it is one of the main reasons I took on this professorship at TUM. But what underlies all of it is a basic human understanding or empathy. Maybe I am getting older which gives me a different perspective on things than when I was 20 years younger, but I am witnessing a time right now when there seem to be more extremes and more personal expressions rather than real empathy which is the basis of any true collaboration. Before we can have real conversations, we have to be able to understand the other side. And I think we need more of that.