For their Current Work lecture, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu will discuss four projects in China:

• Waterhouse at South Bund, a 1930s Japanese army headquarters building turned into a boutique hotel in Shanghai.
• Suzhou Chapel, a white box that seems to float on top of a dark-gray brick wall, serves as a contemplative multi-faith retreat sited in a hotel complex.
• The Walled – Tsingpu Yangzhou Retreat, an adaptive reuse project inspired by vernacular Chinese architecture that unifies existing and new structures through a series of walls and courtyards.
• Design Republic Design Commune, a retail concept store based in Shanghai that offers products created by a worldwide collection of designers, many whose work was not previously available in China. Hu and Neri founded and designed the store.

Founded in 2004, Neri&Hu Design and Research Office is an interdisciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, with an additional office in London. The firm works internationally in architecture, master planning, interiors, graphic design, and product design. Recently, Neri&Hu has been working on industrial design products for several European and Asian brands, as well as developing its own product line, which has been recognized by I.D. magazine’s annual design review awards, the Red Dot Award, and Perspective Awards, among others. 

Rossana Hu earned a masters in architecture and urban planning from Princeton University and a bachelors in architecture and music from the University of California Berkeley.

Lyndon Neri received an masters in architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a bachelors from University of California Berkeley. Neri worked at Michael Graves & Associates for over 10 years before founding Neri&Hu.

Both Hu and Neri have taught at the department of architecture of the University of Hong Kong Graduate School and have served as visiting critics at Princeton University, Syracuse University, and University of California, Berkeley, among others.

Neri&Hu was named one of UK Wallpaper*’s 2014 Designers of the Year and Maison&Objet Asia’s 2015 Designers of the Year, as well as one of I.D. magazine’s I.D. Forty. 

The lecture will be followed by a conversation with Calvin Tsao, founding partner of Tsao & McKown.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

The event is co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.