Introducing Prof. Dr. Lilian Chee, DAAD Guest Lecturer
Introducing Prof. Dr. Lilian Chee, DAAD Guest Lecturer
Whitecliffe University of Applied Sciences –formerly Berlin International is pleased to welcome Prof. Dr. Lilian Chee as a DAAD Guest Lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture and Design for this semester.
Prof. Dr. Chee joins Whitecliffe from the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, where she is based as a tenured faculty member. In this short interview, she introduces her background, research interests, and what students can expect from working with her.
In one sentence: what excites you most about joining Whitecliffe University of Applied Sciences – Berlin International?
It is amazing to be amongst a truly international and motivated faculty and student cohort, and to have this precious opportunity to live and work albeit briefly in Europe, and in cosmopolitan Berlin.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and your area of expertise?
I am Dean’s Chair Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Visual Cultures, and I lead the Research by Design Cluster at the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, where I am based as a tenured faculty. I am an architectural scholar, writer, designer, and curator whose work moves between buildings, films, exhibitions, and critical texts. Trained in architecture but working expansively across visual culture, feminist theory, and affect studies, I am interested in architecture and its affects. My research brings together scholarship and creative work to shape new ways of thinking about representation, gender, housing, and the politics of lived space.
What is the main focus of your work in architecture/design?
My recent design research and teaching trace domestic spaces, everyday rituals, and acts of care. I work around architectural ethnography and am developing ways of how architectural representation and design processes can ethically and creatively account for the data we collect and the experiences we observe in the field, learning from non-experts users and occupants.
Why is this topic important for students today?
We really need to learn how to listen, learn, and engage with each other. Too much of architecture has gone off ramp just being focused solely on design as a creative and poetic process. This of course is important and an integral part of being a designer, but there are many other parts of being a designer which weigh on our discipline, and become increasingly important when students enter the profession. Learning to understand what shapes the discipline — the needs of those we design for — is a good place to start from.
What will students gain from working with you?
I hope they will learn from yet another culture, from my experiences working across several cities. I hope they will see that architecture is equally a socially shaped enterprise and that designers need to be alert to all stakeholders and partners. I hope they also learn that research and writing are as exciting as design, discovering the former as yet another branch of the wonderful creative critical journey of architectural scholarship.
