BEFORE ANYONE ARRIVES
BEFORE ANYONE ARRIVES
BEFORE ANYONE ARRIVES
Experience Design | Narrative Systems | Creative Direction
Experience Design | Narrative Systems | Creative Direction
IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE BUILDINGS.
IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE BUILDINGS.
It’s systems thinking: narrative, space, behavior, and technology, tuned until a place feels inevitable.
Hospitality, cultural, and mixed-use worlds: how people arrive, inhabit, and remember them.
Unless otherwise noted, the visual material on this site is the author’s own work. Professional projects are collaborative, and notes describe the nature of the contribution. Selected projects are anonymized for confidentiality. Full archives and animated work are available in conversation.
SHAPING ATMOSPHERE
BEFORE FORM.
SHAPING ATMOSPHERE
BEFORE FORM.
SHAPING ATMOSPHERE
BEFORE FORM.
THE CREATIVE LENS
THE CREATIVE LENS
12+ YEARS · 70+ PROJECTS
ROOM TO ISLAND
12+ YEARS · 70+ PROJECTS
ROOM TO ISLAND
12+ YEARS · 70+ PROJECTS
ROOM TO ISLAND
One framework, applied from a single room to an entire island.
EXPERIENCE
ARC
Meaningful environments are structured, not accidental.
THREE WAYS OF WORKING
THREE WAYS OF WORKING
The projects that follow are organized not as a chronology, but as three recurring investigations into meaningful experiences, and how they are translated into repeatable standards.
SCALE
HUMAN SCALE
EXPERIENCES BUILT AT 1:1: INSTALLATIONS, EXHIBITIONS, ROOMS.
CLOUD
Cloud. Reeve Art Centre, West Sussex. Sole-authored suspended installation, completed.
CLOUD
Cloud. Reeve Art Centre, West Sussex. Sole-authored suspended installation, completed.
A CLOUD, RAISED BY MANY HANDS.
A CLOUD, RAISED BY MANY HANDS.
An immersive field overhead: hand-shaped aluminium mesh on a copper core, tuned to the room’s light and air until the object reads as weather.
A CLOUD, RAISED BY MANY HANDS.
An immersive field overhead: hand-shaped aluminium mesh on a copper core, tuned to the room’s light and air until the object reads as weather.
CONCEPT TO INSTALL.
CONCEPT TO INSTALL.
CONCEPT TO INSTALL.
Exhibitions and installations carried from drawing to opening night, from an Art Basel week show at K11 to a House of Vans pop-up.
URBAN SCAN
Urban Scan. Urban Sense at K11, Hong Kong, Art Basel week. Studio Tobias Klein. Production to opening night, down to the cable runs.
THE CITY, SCANNED AND REPLAYED.
THE CITY, SCANNED AND REPLAYED.
Portraits of Hong Kong: the city translated into a reactive object, projection surface, and spatial encounter for the Urban Sense group show at K11.
URBAN SCAN
Urban Scan. Urban Sense at K11, Hong Kong, Art Basel week. Studio Tobias Klein. Production to opening night, down to the cable runs.
THE CITY, SCANNED AND REPLAYED.
Portraits of Hong Kong: the city translated into a reactive object, projection surface, and spatial encounter for the Urban Sense group show at K11.
VULCAN HOUSE
Perfection Dental Clinic, Hong Kong. Concept to completed construction, joinery details included. Calm, engineered.
THE BRIEF BEGAN WITH FEAR.
THE BRIEF BEGAN WITH FEAR.
A dental clinic reshaped around emotional reassurance: warm light, dark timber, marble, softened thresholds, and a framed view from every room.
VULCAN HOUSE
Perfection Dental Clinic, Hong Kong. Concept to completed construction, joinery details included. Calm, engineered.
THE BRIEF BEGAN WITH FEAR.
A dental clinic reshaped around emotional reassurance: warm light, dark timber, marble, softened thresholds, and a framed view from every room.
ATMOSPHERE, ANYWHERE.
ATMOSPHERE, ANYWHERE.
ATMOSPHERE, ANYWHERE.
LUXURY, COMFORT.
LUXURY, COMFORT.
LUXURY, COMFORT.
Engineered into unlikely rooms: a clinic, a desert.
ANTICIPATION, DESIGNED.
PRESENTATION BUILT AS A JOURNEY.
ANTICIPATION, DESIGNED.
Interactive previews that make guests want a place that doesn’t exist yet.
Interactive previews that make guests want a place that doesn’t exist yet.
THREE LAYERS,
ONE STORY.
THREE LAYERS,
ONE STORY.
THREE LAYERS,
ONE STORY.
Elevation, program, and atmosphere read in a single section.
Elevation, program, and atmosphere read in a single section.
THE SAME CARE, AT EVERY SCALE.
THE SAME CARE, AT EVERY SCALE.
THE SAME CARE, AT EVERY SCALE.
What holds at arm’s length holds at any size. The attentiveness in these rooms and objects is the same craft that shapes shows, activations, and events, in a mall, on a tropical island, or both.
SOCIAL CHARGE
RETAIL, EVENTS, AND NIGHTLIFE CHOREOGRAPHED INTO ONE PULSE.
DESIGN LANGUAGE PLAYBOOK.
DESIGN LANGUAGE PLAYBOOK.
DESIGN LANGUAGE PLAYBOOK.
Street-level observation distilled into design guidelines a team can build with and a client can approve.
STREET BELOW, STAGE ABOVE.
STREET BELOW, STAGE ABOVE.
STREET BELOW, STAGE ABOVE.
From street to rooftop: the club and pool form a vertical threshold. Retail movement below turns into visibility, gathering, and release above.
The input was fragmented: cultural references, tenant categories, circulation, leadership direction. Synthesized, it became spatial sequences the whole team could work with.
The district’s energy, lifted: a members’ club above the retail floor.
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT.
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT.
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT.
TESTED AT SKETCH SPEED, THEN THE FEELING BUILT.
TESTED AT SKETCH SPEED, THEN THE FEELING BUILT.
TESTED AT SKETCH SPEED, THEN THE FEELING BUILT.
Watercolor first: fast enough to test a feeling, persuasive enough to align every stakeholder.
Watercolor first: fast enough to test a feeling, persuasive enough to align every stakeholder.
ZONING IS STORYTELLING.
ZONING IS STORYTELLING.
ZONING IS STORYTELLING.
Retail districts and event venues are choreographed as themed zones: each deliberately articulated, each built on a story compelling enough to step inside. The craft is getting deep into those stories and translating them into places people can immerse in.
BUILDING
WORLD BUILDING
CULTURE, CLIMATE, AND TERRAIN WOVEN INTO PLACES YOU CAN STAND IN.
PERFORMANCE AND EXPERIENCE, DRAWN TOGETHER.
PERFORMANCE AND EXPERIENCE, DRAWN TOGETHER.
PERFORMANCE AND EXPERIENCE, DRAWN TOGETHER.
The thinking behind the roof: sun, water, air, all working.
The thinking behind the roof: sun, water, air, all working.
SOLAR SONGKET · BALI, INDONESIA · NOMINATED FOR THE YALE H. I. FELDMAN PRIZE
ONE CANOPY, ONE ATMOSPHERE.
ONE CANOPY, ONE ATMOSPHERE.
ONE CANOPY, ONE ATMOSPHERE.
One woven roof, sized for a crowd.
SKETCH FIRST, SYSTEM SECOND.
SKETCH FIRST, SYSTEM SECOND.
The sketches tested how Songket could operate as spatial logic rather than decoration. The exploded diagram then translates that logic into environmental layers: water, shade, circulation, landscape, and structure, so the project grows from site intelligence outward.
SKETCH FIRST, SYSTEM SECOND.
The sketches tested how Songket could operate as spatial logic rather than decoration. The exploded diagram then translates that logic into environmental layers: water, shade, circulation, landscape, and structure, so the project grows from site intelligence outward.
WEAVING CULTURES:
BLENDING OLD AND NEW
WEAVING CULTURES:
BLENDING OLD AND NEW
WORK, LIVE, PLAY: ONE FABRIC.
WORK, LIVE, PLAY: ONE FABRIC.
WORK, LIVE, PLAY: ONE FABRIC.
Culture as system: work, live, play in one loop.
THE PATTERN IS THE PLAN.
THE PATTERN IS THE PLAN.
THE PATTERN IS THE PLAN.
Bedrooms, spas, retail, and F&B counted inside a cultural motif.
Bedrooms, spas, retail, and F&B counted inside a cultural motif.
NARRATIVE, AT SYSTEM SCALE.
NARRATIVE, AT SYSTEM SCALE.
NARRATIVE, AT SYSTEM SCALE.
One logic. Any fabric. Culture, climate, history, and brand read closely, then woven into one world with memory made real.
AUGMENTED PROCESS
AUGMENTED PROCESS
Emerging tools make experiential judgment visible earlier, while projects are still capable of change.
Emerging tools make experiential judgment visible earlier, while projects are still capable of change.
LISTEN
DESIGN
SHOW
CONVENTIONAL PROCESS · MONTHS
PREVIOUSLY UNREACHABLE
PARALLEL PROCESS · WEEKS
PROJECTS REMAIN FLUID
TIME SAVED
GENERATION IS INFINITE. TASTE IS THE JOB.
GENERATION IS INFINITE. TASTE IS THE JOB.
The tools multiply what can be made. Judgment decides what becomes the story.
One frame from a live project. The full process is a conversation.
RIGOR IN THE WORK. JOY IN THE ROOM.
RIGOR IN THE WORK. JOY IN THE ROOM.
RIGOR IN THE WORK. JOY IN THE ROOM.
The best work is made in good company. Clarity, momentum, and genuine joy are design decisions too.
The best work is made in good company. Clarity, momentum, and genuine joy are design decisions too.
BEFORE ANYONE ARRIVES
CHARGE