Kristof Crolla 高仕棠 is a licensed architect who combines his architectural practice “Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design Ltd.” (LEAD) with his part-time work as Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong and a Visiting Professorship at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau. After graduating Magna Cum Laude as Civil Architectural Engineer at Ghent University in 2003, he practiced in Belgium at Bureau Buildings & Techniques and independently designed and built his first project, House for an Artist. He moved to London in 2005 to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London (AA)’s Master of Architecture program Design Research Laboratory, from where his student work with team “Sugar Inc.” was exhibited at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale. Following this he worked for several years as Lead Architect for the Pritzker prize winning Zaha Hadid Architects, while teaching in parallel at the AA and other institutions worldwide. He is the founder of the International Workshop Series (IWS) which organise workshops worldwide exploring digital design and fabrication in architecture, and has been invited as a jury critic, lecturer and tutor in numerous institutions throughout Europe, China, Chile and South Africa. Kristof Crolla is currently based in Hong kong where he received the Perspective “40 Under40” 2012 – Architecture Award.
Sebastien Delagrange is an architect, designer & graphic designer and is a founding partner of LEAD. He studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture's Design Research Laboratory in London (AA-DRL) after completing his architecture degree in Belgium. He gained his professional experience at Zaha Hadid Architects office before heading down to Rotterdam to join Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Sebastien is currently based in Belgium where he continues LEAD’s architectural exploration through international workshops and various architecture projects.
Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design Ltd. (LEAD) is a young Hong Kong & Antwerp based architectural design and research practice, founded in March 2011 by Kristof Crolla & Sebastien Delagrange. LEAD explores how architectural innovation can stem from the strategic integration and combination of contemporary design technology and highly contextual and project-specific parameters. Through its work LEAD rethinks the premise of digital design by anchoring the paradigm in a strong materiality: static preconceptions of space, geometry, materiality, building practice and construction technique are abandoned to allow for the creative exploration of new design & building methodologies in direct response to client briefs and project contexts. LEAD’s scope covers a wide range of scales and its services stretch from initial design through construction up to project realisation. Within its first two years of operation LEAD won the Hong Kong Global Design 2011 Excellence Award for their Shine Fashion Store, received the 2012 Design For Asia Bronze Award for the Dragon Skin Pavilion, and received the Perspective 2012 40 under 40 Award. LEAD is best known for their recently built “Golden Moon” Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Wonderland 2012 in Victoria Park, Hong Kong. LEAD combines practice with research by organising and teaching in an International Workshop Series (IWS) with now 18 editions completed worldwide in countries as varied as Chile, Finland, South Africa and China.
I don’t really have a favourite building, but was extremely pleasantly surprised when visiting John Hardy’s Green School in Bali, Indonesia, last fall for a workshop with my Hong Kong students. He built an entire campus from only bamboo, using the most unusual and unexpected geometries at a gigantic scale. The spaces were in perfect harmony with their surroundings and produced a most unique and pleasant working environment. In that complex their Millennium Bridge was my favourite, as it merged a unique and inventive tectonic system with a very practical problem in generating a beautiful structure.
Assuming that practicality / functionality is a given, I question what the underlying intentions of the designer was when starting to work on the project, and how well he achieved those in the final design.
We participated with a furniture piece in a small event in Hong Kong which asked visitors to swap and exchange used goods as a way to counter the hyper-consumerist nature of Hong Kong.
Our next exhibition will be in Macau this May where we will work together with architecture students on the construction of a bamboo pavilion and an adjoining gallery show.
We never think of our work as following a particular style. We constantly explore what we find interesting, hence the name of our office Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design. As part of this we are definitely influenced by the tools we use, as today the exploration through digital design and fabrication tools is unprecedented and virtually inexhaustible.
We live in Belgium and Hong Kong, but spent time in the UK, the Netherlands, and have worked with our International Workshop Series in over a dozen countries worldwide and we travel extensively. Seeing how different cultures operate gives you a wide palette of experiences to draw from when tackling design problems.
We operate internationally, but always closely collaborate with local partners for the design development and implementation of our work. Different cultures have different construction and building traditions with which' depths we are unfamiliar, so by teaming up with local specialists we assemble the required knowledge to implement our work.
For each project we set up a design and construction system. Rough hand sketches are instantly translated into systematic 3D computer models and procedural computer scripts. Using dozens of renders, physical models, mock-ups and 3D prints for physical testing, we iteratively upgrade the system. Once all the parameters, limitations and opportunities of the system are known we start designing the final project.
Most days differ greatly, but all contain a bit of sports, a lot of designing in the office or working with students, reading and researching, casually playing around with new design & fabrication tools, meeting to friends, and coffee.