DESIGN ASSOCIATE
Katherine
Katherine graduated from Lasalle back in 2020 with Bachelor’s Degree with Honours in Interior Design. Prior to this, she also has a Diploma in Industrial Design at NYP in 2017.
Adaptable, Honest and Responsible, Katherine aspires to make the world a better place for all through thoughtful design spaces. She believes that design should be beyond just aesthetics and functionality; it has to also be sustainable to the environment. Her life value is to design with a low environmental impact on the nature, as well as taking pride and integrity in her works.
Katherine has over a year of experience as an interior designer coordinator for Commercial projects, ranging from small-scale restaurants to food courts.
What do you do to relax?
Drinking coffee, enjoying pretty café spaces and food, singing K, hikings and sunsets
What’s top on your Bucket’s List?
I have always wanted to explore Taiwan after my graduation, but it wouldn’t be as fun with all the restrictions. My next top would be to travel to different cities of Europe! and owning a rabbit (again 🐰😇) and a pompom 🐶
What does work mean to you?
Work to me means living and breathing something you’re passionate about. It gives me a purpose in life to work on making spaces meaningful and adding value to my client’s life. I feel happy and accomplished through gaining new knowledge after every project, which thereafter gives me the ability to help others and improve people’s everyday lives. It means making me feel hopeful and passionate about life as I can help people while doing something I love.
Why do you do what you do?
From a young age, I was always curious about building construction, due to the nature of my father’s job. That piqued my interest to study in the field of design eventually. With a heart to make others’ dream spaces come true, I am able to use the skills and knowledge I have accumulated over the years through school and work gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes my heart full, knowing that I am able to bring people’s dream spaces to life through my design. I also love beautiful things and to play with different materials, textures and light, due the versatility of endless combinations to set the mood for different interior styles!
Where is your next travel destination?
I am hoping to travel to parts of Europe, to watch the beautiful architectures and cityscape as I’ve always been fascinated by their architectural styles. One of the places I would love to tour is Venice, Italy (I have always wanted to visit since ages ago when I first saw it in Jay Chou’s music video, and yes, I love Jay Chou) to explore the different architectural styles of Byzantine and Romanesque, alongside with Gothic and Renaissance. I would also love to be able to visit the Biennale Architecture one day.
If you have unlimited resources, which world problem would you wrestle with?
Climate change. I have always been an advocate of Sustainability since poly days, when I first got to have a deeper understanding on what being sustainable really means (as it was one of the modules I took), my goal is to live with a low environmental impact by reducing wastes. However, I understand that just myself and the people around me alone wouldn’t be able to really make a difference, which is why personally I feel it’s a really important subject to educate everyone on social and environmental sustainability, even outside of school to target all audiences, as everyone plays a part on the mother Earth.
One of the topics I was interested in, inspired me to work on my school project back in my second year of Poly, 2016. (It can be found on my design portfolio 🙂) Basically, it was a school project I was really passionate about back in the day, to touch on the topic of Food Wastage which inspired me to come up with a design concept and User Experience design to market “ugly” food. My aim was to alleviate the issue of Food Wastage, by raising awareness and educating consumers through social media, and I came up with a design concept - a product and service design to encourage consumers to purchase “ugly” food at a more economical price (majority of the produce are still fresh and edible, they just have some blemishes which is the main reason they get discarded).
If I have the power and resources, I’d like to end food shortage issues, and ensure that everyone would be able to eat without having to worry when their next meal will come by again, especially in the undeveloped countries. It frustrates and saddens me knowing that there is actually an abundant of food produce enough for everyone in the world, but are thrown away due to its “aesthetics”, and that there are people starving to death literally every single second. The food production process needs to be changed.
What's a good film/series/book/podcast to recommend?
Amongst the many films and series I binge watched on Netflix, the one series that stood out to me was “It’s Okay Not to Be Okay” (IONTBO), a series on Netflix. It brings a lot of insights on mental health issues through life stories, and taught me more about being empathetic and being more aware. It is a topic that is sensitive, and not many are willing to talk about openly. It makes people feel that they are not alone, as at this time and age, there are increasing cases of people experiencing difficulties and battling with mental health issues. We should learn to be kinder and more empathetic towards each other, instead of judging others. I strongly encourage people to watch this series, as various life stories were being portrayed, for us to understand the different issues. We don’t have to be okay all the time, and that’s okay 😊 Oh, and it also aligns with BuildBuilt’s value of encouraging work-life balance and offering mental health leave, which is really awesome as the staff’s well-being are being valued.
If you could only eat this for the rest of your life- what would it be?
Sundubu jjigae
Why is good design important to you?
Good design has the ability to influence someone’s physical and mental well-being, hence it is so important to carefully plan and design a space. Imagine having to spend a day in a space with no natural sunlight, no natural ventilation and a mixture of colour palette with no rhythms or whatsoever through the interior and a cluttered space with no storage spaces… Would you be able to rest and relax after a day of activities?
Describe the best experience that comes to mind
To enjoy the first-hand user experience walking through the space you spend weeks/months carefully planning and designing, the satisfactory feeling of having your hard work paid off during each project completion and to see what you envisioned come to life. It is always heart-warming to learn that the clients enjoy the spaces you designed, and being appreciative of your work.