Design Trust Grant Recipient | Symposium “Tolerance and transformation” by Donn Holohan and Elspeth Lee at Asia Society Hong Kong

Design Trust Feature Grant symposium “Tolerance and transformation” led by Donn Holohan and Elspeth Lee was held on January 20^th 2024 at Asia Society Hong Kong. The symposium fostered a fresh dialogue on the future of architectural production centred on tolerance, which encompasses both human and material relationships driven by care and openness. The discourse surrounding sustainable methods of architectural production has, over time, become increasingly specialized and technocratic. This symposium sought to refocus this debate through a fundamental reassessment of our perceptions of risk as a fundamental step towards affecting the changes necessary for a sustainable future. 

In response to the urgent demand to transform the architectural industry, necessitates the development of new frameworks that prioritize and facilitate experimentation, the symposium brought together a diverse community of architects, designers, and makers who, through their respective practices, have discovered ways of navigating uncertainty, including Summer Islam, Xu Tiantian, Paolo Tombesi, Anne Holtrop, Shin Egashira, Groupwork, Philip Yuan, Mollie Claypool and Yusuke Obuchi.

The speakers shared insightful reflections from their research, practice as well as pedagogy experience. The engaging conversations moderated by the University of Hong Kong Department of Architecture academic community Guillaume Othein-Girard, Donn Holohan, Elspeth Lee and Kristof Crolla further extended the debate and discussion on the role of architects in a critical way.