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Interview with Jun Ding |
Home > Designer Interviews > Jun Ding |
Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Jun Ding (JD) for A’ Design Award and Competition. You can access the full profile of Jun Ding by clicking here.
FS: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
JD: I am influenced by my father. He is also an architect, and I was playing around in his studio when I grew up and he was teaching me painting when I was young. When I enter college, I choose architecture as my major.
FS: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
JD: I am working in HKS In. HKS was founded in 1939. HKS is a team of more than 1,400 architects, interior designers, urban designers, scientists, artists, structural engineers, anthropologists and other professionals working together across industries and across the globe to create places that delight, heal and stimulate peak performance. HKS is ranking third place out of 156 architecture firms on Building Design+Construction’s 2020 Giants 400 Report. HKS also garnered top spots in several specific categories, ranking second in Healthcare, Sports Facilities and Hospitality.
FS: What is "design" for you?
JD: “design” represents “creativity”, “responsibility” and “evolution”, that each design piece is create a unique object either in virtual world or real world that influence the way people think and behave to promote a healthy community and innovative thinking.
FS: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
JD: A project that encourages “new” thinking and strategy
FS: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
JD: I want to mention a sculpture that is close to where I live. It is a 30-foot-tall eyeball in the middle of downtown Dallas. The eye is the work of Chicago-based artist Tony Tasset. He made it by fiberglass back in 2007. Although there is no special meanings when he made it, once it is placed in middle of the busy street, it is given a meaning by the environment around it. It represents the city attitude and give every person who visit the city an interesting way to think and interact with the place.
FS: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
JD: It was a casino renovation project. I remember we redesign the restaurant area, open the old stone façade to be more transparency and create a nice patio seating area.
FS: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
JD: My favorite material or technology is 3d printing.
FS: When do you feel the most creative?
JD: Normally at the beginning of design, when communicate with clients and other designers to figure out the best strategy for the specific design.
FS: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
JD: Connectivity with environment and surrounding communities.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
JD: Exited
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
JD: Satisfaction
FS: What makes a design successful?
JD: There are too many factors. People are keys. People who involved in the project, either designers, clients, researchers, workers, investors, etc.
FS: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
JD: The coherent and consistent thinking on design concept and strategy.
FS: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
JD: Use design as a tool to address as much as micro concerns and provide design strategy for the specific place or communities. I believe address any micro concerns would help ameliorate the macro concerns eventually.
FS: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
JD: Design is always diverse. The traditional way of design will never disappear, like hand drawings, but at the same time, technology brings changes on materials, design tool and construction ways. Design inspiration is always coming from nature environment. In the old time, it is hard for the design to truly mimic natural object but taking sort of the logic extracted from the laws of nature. Accompanied by technological progress, scientist will decipher more natural code that would be used in design and design could be more and more close to nature object.
FS: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
JD: From the understanding of local culture and inspiration of art piece or images on any website.
FS: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
JD: My design style is contemporary with unique parametric character that cooperated on façade
FS: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
JD: I am currently live in America but was grow up in Beijing. Beijing is a rapid changing and hybrid city that has both amazing heritage buildings like Forbidden City and modern buildings like Galaxy Soho, which give me a broad vision of understanding different building types and how it influence environment. After I move to American, I have been lived in Los Angeles and Dallas, and visited few other American cities. They are normally not as dense as Beijing and more vehicle driving city planning. This experience helped me deeply understanding how different culture and city planning develops different lifestyle.
FS: How do you work with companies?
JD: Working in a big company is great because there are a lot of different people with unique skills that could help each other to achieve better design. Normally at the beginning of the project, there will be a design charette to hear voice from different perspectives than one or two main designers would lead the rest of the design process.
FS: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
JD: I would encourage company to give more opportunity to young designer with talent.
FS: Can you talk a little about your design process?
JD: I would firstly dig into client requirements and site conditions and do a research about local culture and local lifestyle. Then according to each unique conditions to generate a bubble diagram and sum up few design principles. Then use one most important concept or logic to guide all design elements.
FS: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
JD: There is never a wrong design, but to communicate with others and absorb more wisdom from other will always leverage your design abilities.
FS: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
JD: Positives of being a designer is you could provide creative idea to inspirate others and there are a lot of people could support you to make your design comes true. The negatives are not everybody would understand or support you; There is no easy answer for a designer when he/she need to decide what to give up and what to stick to.
FS: What is your "golden rule" in design?
JD: "The whole is more than the sum of the parts."
FS: What skills are most important for a designer?
JD: Observation and comprehension
FS: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
JD: Rhino, Grasshopper
FS: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
JD: I will always act early and giving enough time for idea generation as well as design development
FS: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
JD: It depends
FS: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
JD: Who is your favorite architect?
FS: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
JD: One of the design type is hospitality project, because it is a building type that close to everyday life, where people feel most relaxed. The other type is healthcare project, which is very complicated on medical planning but so important that could influence patient’s recovery and medical personnel’s day-to-day operations.
FS: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
JD: Short-term plan will be continuing to design good architectural pieces.
FS: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
JD: Normally work as a team
FS: How can people contact you?
JD: By email: Jun.ding.01@gmail.com
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A’ Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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