- Howdy.

- [Audience] Howdy.

- It's my honor to introduce today's speaker, Miss Julia Hager, and also Chad Porter.

So, my name's Zhipeng Lu, I'm the Associate Director for the Center for Health System and design, Texas A&M University.

So, Julia is a project manager and medical planner in Dallas office health studio.

And she's currently engaged in a range of projects from master planning, project implementation and construction.

And Chad, now is a principal and leader of the Dallas line studio.

He's actively engaged in health, life science, and federal work.

So, Julian and Chad, they are couple.

They moved to Singapore back in 2015.

Established the Singapore HKS office.

So, their work abroad in multiple countries, in 11 countries.

That's impressive.

And in China, in India, also Philippines.

So the projects ranging from Hyper-Efficient Ambulatory Surgical Center in Hong Kong and Teespring Academic Medical Campus in Philippines.

So we are looking forward to your lectures.

The floor is yours.

- So this is the office today.

I think this picture was literally taken last week.

Maybe even we are back in the states, we came back in 2019.

But the office in Singapore is still growing and they've done so well over the past three years, and they've expanded rapidly in working on all of these projects.

Through the pandemic there was a lot of work that was happening in Singapore, which was something that we never really experienced while we were over there.

We were always going to other places.

So that's a part that we are especially proud of.

- So they're thriving, they're doing even better.

And the office is kind of like our firstborn child.

So to see it to be so successful and to continue its success, (laughs) it makes us happy.

- So what's life like in Singapore.

We had never been to Singapore before we signed up for this.

We left most of our worldly possessions in the states and just packed the bag and went over there.

Space is at a premium in Singapore.

And a lot of large Asian cities are very similar in that regard.

This is a typical block that people will be living in.

So each of these little squares is literally an apartment and that's where you live.

We didn't have a lot of time to get really used to all of this.

We just kind of jumped in, we were buried in projects right off the bat.

Singapore is a melting pot of all of these different cultures, but in all of that, it always keeps its sort of orderly manner.

So things are very organized.

Things are very orderly.

But you do get all of these glimpses of all of these different people that bring all of these different customs to the table.

We did learn the 15 different ways of how to order coffee in the local slang.

So if you ever need to order coffee in Singapore, let us know, (both chuckles) we'll help with that.

And then there was always food.

So here's where we would have lunch every day, a local hawker center.

There is still a few of them in Singapore.

They are a great tradition, a dying tradition.

So people would come and rent these stalls and cook their specialty dish.

And they would do that for 20, 30, 40 years.

We would buy food, go back to the office and eat it with everyone.

That was something that was very important to us, was always to have food together and sort of share, share time and share life beyond just the project work.

Another thing that we had to learn was local holidays.

The way that the holiday calendar is set up in Singapore is that all of the major religions that are represented on the island get a few holidays on that calendar.

So a lot of times we would be going to work and realizing, "oops, it's a holiday, no one's coming to work today."

This is a lion dance that was happening during Chinese new year in our office.

So we'd invite in the lion dancers to bring us good fortune.

And then it all sums back up to food, it always does.

We had so many family meals with everyone in the office, and that really became our extended family.

We were working a lot, but always greatly enjoyed everyone's company, had a lot of young people who were graduating school and then coming to work with us.

So we always made sure we wanted to treat everyone as part of our family.

And that's the same that they were bringing back to us too.

- Okay, so in having all of that fun and getting to eat all of that good food, we also did a lot of work.

If anyone's sort of familiar with the context, it's a very high-paced, very stressful, very intense environment.

And building upon what Julia was talking about, there in that first section is having that kind of strong sense of community and family within the office, even though we're working so hard constantly, it was just fun at that point.

It was brutal at times, but it was fun.

So getting into the other half of this sort of experience is the work aspect of it.

And we stumbled upon this book, probably either right before or right when we got there.

And it's a fantastic little book called "East Meets West."

And it's an entire collection of these sort of little pictograms, and diagrams that demonstrate the differences in the two cultures.

And it's helpful, it was helpful for us to see it.

But I think it also kind of illustrates, what it's like when you are coming from a western context, and you're trying to go practice work in an eastern context, and then vice versa.

When you have your classmates and colleagues who are coming from the far east, coming from Asia and they coming into the states.

And when you start to think about how to engage with these different folks, when you start to think about how to engage with your clients.

Being able to empathize and understand where people are coming from, and how they may approach problems differently, which much like in this diagram, you can see the way that we deal with it in the US, or in the western culture.

When you got a problem, you attack it head-on and you just barrel right through it.

But you know, that's not the way it works everywhere.

And in the eastern context, it's a lot more of trying to work your way around a problem.

So, negotiations can get very complex.

You learn to read body very well.

You learn each country, even from like India, Philippines, China, they have very sort of non-verbal forms of communication that you can begin to infer as to what they mean, even if it's not what they're saying.

And learning that, and being able to navigate that becomes a crucial context or a crucial component to operating in a context of 11 different countries.

- So this is me and how I got to my client meeting one day.

I don't know what this says.

Still don't know what this says, but I think one of the big lessons for me, and I'm a type A personality.

So this was a very hard lesson for me, was to just have faith, have faith that things will work out.

A lot of times, you're going into your meetings with your clients, and there's gonna be a translator there, and you're not talking directly to the client, but you still have to convey what you want to convey.

And you have to have a conversation with them.

- And you have to be able to get to the meeting.

- And you have to be able to get to the meeting.

Yeah, also a very crucial point here.

So having that faith that things will work out, and having sort of that flexibility and that, if you're not getting to a shared place, you'll have to find another way to get there.

And it might take a little bit longer and it will require you to think on your toes, but it'll work out.

So here's in the category of stuff we learned.

We also had to learn that hospitals over there are handling a different amount of people than they will here.

So on the screen here, you see a typical public hospital.

I think this one is in China?

- [Chad] It's in Wuhan.

- Wuhan, famous Wuhan now.

To us who had never practiced in Asia to imagine the amount of people that are coming through these spaces every day and trying to find ways in our designs of how to handle them.

Another aspect that at the time, this is 2015, it's probably changed now, more was that there is sort of a fascination with technology and how to use technology to move these crowds through the building.

In 2015, 16, when we were working over there, there was a lot of focus that was put on, self-registration machines or AGVs, using robots or robotics to move people and items through these facilities.

SARS came to Asia in 2003, 2004.

So something that we got to see over there before we were living in this pandemic world now was isolation hospitals.

We went through Hong Kong and we saw facilities where the entire building was set up for isolation patients.

So you would put that isolation into a glass box.

There was one way up through the floor, different way down.

So you had a very distinct one-way separate flow.

So something I'm curious to see if we will be seeing this in our post-pandemic world, in the states now.

And then really another lesson that we had to learn right off the bat was that as US medical planners, we go into these facilities and there is a lot of knowledge that we have, but we will never know the full picture.

There will be local customs.

There will be things that we will have to do in our designs that we will have to observe that are just non-negotiable.

So here on the screen, this is one of my clients, and she is crossing over the red line into the surgical suite in China.

So the way that you do that is you change your shoes.

You sit down on that bench, take your shoes off, swing your feet around, and put on a new set of shoes, so that's sort of an extra step there.

Something that we would do in our hospitals that we were designing over there.

- And then, to share a bit of work.

This was the first project that we built as an established office.

It's located in Chengdu.

It's a former shopping mall that the Singaporean operator Parkway that we were also working on that Shanghai project with, moved in and wanted to fit that shopping mall out and it turned it into a hospital.

Big directive here is you can kind of see with the finishes and experience that they wanted it to be very hospitality like, and create that sort of sense of high-end.

Even moving up this being outpatient waiting.

So, again, following that thread of hospitality and more of a high-end experience, it feels a lot more like an airline lounge.

Maybe like a first class airline lounge rather than what one might see when you're waiting for a clinic, say, here in the states.

And then there's a couple of room types that became new to us.

VIP rooms, thinking about very important clients and patients who do not really want to be with the general population, or they may have security guards and bodyguards who are gonna need a place to stay.

So this being a room that has almost as if you would have really in like a hotel.

And then following that also things that we don't experience anymore is single or double patient rooms, excuse me.

So just kind of really flexing across that spectrum of the different room types, and sort of the different class levels.

But even coming down into the double patient room is still needed to have a high-end level of finish to it.

And there was even some sort of interesting things that were happening here in terms of how we were handling concealing gases, as you notice, there's not a large panel there on the head wall.

So we introduced our presentation with the Gleneagles competition that we had done in Shanghai.

There was a lot of evolution from where the competition started versus where it is today.

This is still a rendering because it's still under construction as to what it will look like.

And really one of the key takeaways with this project is, Julia went back to the faith aspect of it, of trying to get around town by getting instructions, 'cause you have to get places here practicing as a western entity in Southeast Asia we're not licensed to take our drawings through construction, we're not licensed to get them built.

So we rely on local partners, and you know that you have to build that trust and you have to build that relationship with them because they are the ones who are going to get it from the way you want it to look to the way that it's gonna took.

And if you don't have that relationship, and I'm sure you all have seen examples of really beautiful renderings that when it gets built, it doesn't look like that.

So going back to the relationships and going back to that faith, it's important, because you don't have that control going all the way through.

And then getting inside of what it will look like.

It's the same operator as what's in Chengdu.

So again, targeting a more hospitality like environment, following that approach through the experience, and then similarly with the continuation of the VIP suites that are a lot of fun to work on.

(both laughs) And then just kind of thinking about sort of that next level of experience for patient care in some of these facilities.

So moving down from mainland China, we're in Macau right now, Macau only recently kind of gained its independence from Portugal just over 20 years ago.

And it's a very wealthy country, they've done quite well for themselves.

And however, they have been making massive strides on investment and their healthcare infrastructure.

HKS designed, and it's currently under construction, the largest hospital in Macao, Macau Island Hospital.

But this one's on the Macau University of Science and Technology Campus.

The interesting thing about this project, and with a lot of projects operating in this context, is that was the influence that the Feng Shui master had on the design.

The client was very attuned to the beliefs of the recommendations of the Feng Shui master because they wanted the facility to be successful.

And he directed the geometry of what the bridge will be, the color of the panelization on the building, and had strong influence and the approach to the overall form of the building.

And we couldn't get our drawings approved until he was happy.

So it was interesting and we also weren't able to liaise with him.

So we couldn't really dive deep in into what he was thinking.

We just had to go back to faith, go back to relationships.

And that's how we executed the project.

- Just like we had the Feng Shui master in Macau.

We had a Vastu consultant in India.

This project here is in New Delhi.

And that was interesting too.

There were a lot of things that we could not move, like our kitchen had to be in a very specific location that really did not work for, or what we thought would not work for the interior planning of the facility.

This is a 1000 beds on a very tight site.

So we were relying on making our floor plates as efficient as possible to get all of the different functions into it.

So working through those differences in the design and trying to come up with a solution that didn't only satisfy our strive for that efficiency of the floor plate, but also satisfy the Vastu consultant in making sure that he was heard.

And that his recommendations were taken into consideration and really became part of this project were very important.

- So moving over from India, this is in Mandalay in Myanmar.

We got involved in this project, just recently after they had started to...

They had the change in government and sort of political direction.

There was a lot of investment, and a lot of excitement from... A lot of investment from the international as well as the regional community into Myanmar, and their healthcare infrastructure was aging.

So we had an opportunity to get in, and to contribute to that.

But as you all are all aware, the political climate, again, there has changed.

And that has since changed the course of this job.

I'd say probably the key takeaway of that is, when you're working in developing countries, you have to understand and weigh the risk of understanding the particular context in the situation and how things may happen over time.

- We did quite a bit of work in Hong Kong.

One of the things that was the scariest thing about Hong Kong, but also the biggest lesson for us was that Hong Kong Island is a very tight dense island.

And a lot of it's topography, I think something like 70 or 80% of it is very steep and rocky.

So the site that you will get to build your hospital on is always going to be very, very challenging.

We were on a academic campus here, that had a lot of steep topography, and we could not blast the rock.

There were studies done trying to figure out how we could do that to get a level site.

And it was not possible, both from the adjacencies of what was around that particular plot of land.

But then also the cost and time that it would've taken to blast away that rock.

So we started thinking about our hospitals more in section and how we could make use of that, and really use that to split our flows of ambulance and public coming in.

But then also you have those very tight floor plates.

So what do you do with the public space?

You're not gonna end up with a big grand lobby because that's gonna take up all of your floor plates.

So really thinking about the vertical area that you may have available for that, and how to make use of that.

Not only as a public domain, but also as a way finding piece.

- So going east from Hong Kong over to the Philippines.

This was also sort of an interesting project in terms of context, where this is located in Metro Manila is in Quezon City.

And it's proposed to take down and really decant an aging facility, and create an entire new campus around it.

When we were working with the clients there, apart from the fact that if anyone's been to Manila, you know it's crazy in terms of traffic and there's not a lot of open space to kind of get out and walk around.

That was a large component as of this project was to build in not just a place for the hospital, but a place for the community.

Second to that, is that a in the Filipino culture, when one person's in the hospital, the whole family goes to the hospital.

So quite frankly, you can't just gross your rooms up by an extra 20 or 30% to accommodate that because it'll get pretty expensive.

So what we wanted to do was to really try to take advantage and utilize as much outdoor space as possible, to provide those opportunities for that hospital, for the families to be able to flex from indoor and outdoor, and to think about these microclimates because of the heat and the humidity of creating sort of these shaded experiences that could blend both folks from the community, families of patients, staff in this particular facility.

It was sort of interesting because we had a research component, a medical education and a patient care component.

So thinking about how all of that sort of integrated and then bled down into creating these really pleasurable exterior experiences.

- So here's work that we were not involved in.

We can't take any credit.

After we returned back to the states in 2019, and the Singapore office has done incredibly well for itself.

We're very, very, very proud of that.

We've been able to start working in Singapore on the island itself, which is an amazing accomplishment considering how small that island is.

So here's work from Singapore today.

East General Hospital is a public hospital in Singapore that's rebuilding their facility on a different plot of land.

We've been spending a lot of time there working with the advisory group in the states, and coming up with ways to make that hospital very flexible for the future so that it is relevant today as it will be in 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

The other big aspect of that design is a pandemic response, and being able to respond to future pandemics.

So finding ways to isolate portions of that hospital and dedicating that to the care those types of patients was extremely important at design work here.

So with that, we wanna open up the floor to any questions, we're incredibly grateful for being here and letting us a walk down memory lane.

We do have a video here of the Singapore office as it is to date- - As it was.

- Well- - It's much- - In 2019.

- Much bigger and much more involved than what it was, but it at least nonetheless, I think gives a good glimpse of the the culture of the office and of the place.

- So let's do video first, question second?

- Is that possible?

- Can we do that?

- [Zhipeng] Yes, go ahead.

- All right.

- Oh, - Nope.

- [Zhipeng] Did you send a video to- - It's there.

- Or we'll do questions first?

Video second?

Oh, excellent.

There should be sound but (mummers) - So this is our office, it was 51 duxton as we'd showed.

It was a former bar.

The lower level was a large, it was really kind of a large conference and collaboration space.

And then we had all of us really set upstairs, give a sense of the fabric.

- If we want to accommodate 15 people, we can do that.

There's only two people in this space.

We can do that too.

And it doesn't feel like just lost in the big space.

- We want to create an environment where they feel safe and they can be creative and do their best work right here.

(indistinct) - With the open up office concept and with the fact that you will probably notice that our desks are high.

(Chad speaking faintly) - We work in the shop house here, (Angela faintly) - So we have a young office, we have young people, they bring like a youth and a vitality and a completely different way of looking at things architecturally.

It's been a big emphasis for how we operate our culture.

- I think the Asian culture is every, (woman speaking faintly) - Choosing Singapore as a springboard to tap into other emerging Asian markets, Singapore is called the white city 'cause of the strong currency and infrastructure, which in turn, make it the best place for engineers to set office for Asian engineers.

(cool music) - Excellent.

(audience applauding) - And thank you so much for excellent presentation.

And then it's good to see the food on your picture (all laughs) at Singapore, (chuckles) And also our long time friend Angela in Singapore.

And then I would like to invite student to the other mic to ask question, if you have any.

- Howdy, my name is Evan Kennedy, I'm senior environmental design student here, been going into graduate school with construction management.

So I think in that sense, like from my point of view of having an undergraduate in architecture, then a master's in a different profession, construction management.

I think that's a really interesting, applicable thing to where we are headed as a society in the states.

So in that sense, you guys having come from the states, having, I'm assuming a formal education here in the United States.

Probably from this area, 'cause you're practicing here.

I'm assuming you're licensed in Texas, and going over to Singapore, which is not only just a European country, it's not, it's Asian, it's Southeast Asian.

It's as close as it gets truthfully to the heart of Asia, in that mentality, it's a completely different worldview.

So what did that look like battling between your western worldview of design, of this is all about just productivity, and how can we make this efficient?

And we need to get as close to above 80% of sellable space and getting all the mechanics out of the way, switching to that mentality, having like studied abroad, even in Spain for myself, seeing how they think about design, and then you're going that much further into Asia.

So what did that look like with your American mentality to their, I think better mentality.

So it's like, what did that look like?

What did you learn from that?

- It's a phenomenal question.

And I'll tell you that since coming back, my work has been dramatically influenced from the time being over there.

And it's been influenced in terms of how you think about public space, how you think about the environment, and just how you think about experience.

And there's some funny stories, can't get into the particular client, but where we had really challenging budget problems, our building was way too expensive.

So we've all kind of done that dance in the states and you know what happens.

You're gonna lose a couple of floors.

You're gonna take your fancy stuff and it's gonna turn into less expensive things.

And that is just sort of the mindset that we do here.

Over there the strategy was, what is kind of the minimum viable product that we need to be licensed as a hospital?

Let's cut everything else out of the building that we don't need right now.

We'll shell the rest of it.

And then as soon as it gets open, we'll start making money and we can fit it out, it's no big deal, but they just have to get to that point.

So then that way, they're not compromising on the aesthetic, they're not compromising on the experience, they're still delivering care.

But it's just a kind of a different mentality as to treat them.

- Thinking that this building should and will last more than the term of its mortgage.

- Absolutely.

- It's the we'll get there when we get, more of a master planning technique, I think.

- Yeah, playing long game.

- That's phenomenal.

I know like when we came back from Spain last year, our professors were saying, "you're never gonna draw the same.

You're never gonna think the same."

You're never like... you're gonna be forever changed.

And we're like, "okay, yeah, yeah."

As soon as we get off that plane, we're gonna be like, "thank God I'm back in Texas."

But I think it's even from being abroad for the two months we were there.

- Yeah.

- Just like phenomenally influenced who we are as designers.

So I can think that living over there in a country where you don't even understand the syntax and then having to learn that too, it's just gonna influence design, like I dunno.

- And capitalize on any and every opportunity that you get to do it before life changes.

One of the larger reasons as to why we ended up leaving is because, I think it was referenced in the beginning.

We we're married and we became pregnant with our first child while we were overseas.

And it's a great place to raise kids, and it's wonderful and it's safe.

But at the same time the family safety net was back here.

So ultimately we kind of made that decision to come home.

But before four that happens, definitely capitalize on as many opportunities as you can get to get out, go live somewhere else, go be uncomfortable, learn the food, learn the culture, learn the language, have fun and do great work.

And then if you end up living there the rest of your life, that's awesome, if you end up coming back, that's good too.

But yeah, just being a good global citizen.

I think that's important.

- I'm so glad that you had a great experience in Spain, because I would've never in my wildest dreams imagined.

I went to school down the street at Rice.

I never imagined I would live in Asia ever.

I didn't even know where Singapore was.

I must admit that, but it's forever changed me.

And I don't know where I would be today if I hadn't had that experience.

So if you ever have, I mean, we'll give it four thumbs up right here from the podium.

It's something that will forever change anyone.

- Awesome, well, thank you for that.

And just for giving a little bit of insight into like how that can affect design and how important it is to learn from other cultures like that.

So thank you.

- Thank you for your question.

- Any other questions?

Go ahead.

- [Julia] Hi.

- Hi, I'm Abimbola.

I'm a third year MLA graduate student in Landscape Architecture.

And my question is more to how, or a strategy that you use to incorporate culture into the design?

Because just going there, you're new to the culture, but there are a lot of things happening, 'cause you mentioned the Feng Shui master and how they wanted to, what were the things you had to consciously do to, or how did you look at... Like how did you pick things in the culture to actually incorporate into the design?

I think that's my question.

(chuckles) Yes.

- For me it was using a lot less of this, and these and these, just listening and just keeping your eyes peeled.

Because when you're foreign to a context, some of us are sensitive to that and you don't really wanna come in kind of strong and overbearing.

But you do have something to bring to the table, because you're also different from that context.

So it kind of, it can enrich the pot.

So it's really, for myself it was listening and then kind of looking for those opportunities of bringing in things that I brought to the table, but you don't really wanna...

The cultural aspects of some of these things were like, that was the best part.

And nobody wants to see some US facility over there, 'cause that's not exciting.

That's not exciting as being- - It's not going to work- - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Necessarily.

- It's just opening up and just taking it in, and not trying to put your thumb on something or be so aggressive with it.

But just- - Yeah, and it is a dance, it always is, because there is something that you are bringing, you have an experience as a designer that's what you're hired for as an international designer to bring that experience.

So sort of, it's always a dance of how much of that are you you're bringing in and letting influence, and how much of them are you letting in into that facility.

But in the end you want the facility that you're designing to work.

So if you're bringing too much of that international, you might be building the most efficient, most advanced operating room.

But if no one knows to use the light switch to switch on the light, what good is it going to do?

So there's always going to be a little bit of compromise there.

- Okay, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for asking.

- Thank you.

So I do have one question.

And Singapore is leading the world in sustainability, how's that change your view?

When you practice in here, in the United States.

- It completely, it's rigorous, it's built into the culture, it's built into the consultants.

Like it's not a... You don't find yourself which it's... And you gotta preface it.

Like the US has gotten like tremendously better than we were in, like the design practice say like, 20 years ago where sustainability was really trying to nudge its way in.

And there was always sort of, "oh, well it's gonna cost too much," or we doing this or this or this.

And then...

But yeah, it's so much ingrained in part of the DNA.

And I think it helps you, it helped us think more intelligently about some of the things that we were doing and the approaches that we could take.

- And respecting, respecting that environment respecting, I mean, how many buildings in Singapore have vertical landscaping, and that is something that's much loved, and it's an aesthetic that's very much present there.

- And it's almost become an identity of the country now too.

Like if you all Google it or go like any new building that's covered in vegetation.

- Not that that's necessarily a sustainable strategy, but just having that sort of front and center in any sort of design work, I feel like really frames, frames the mind of anyone really looking at that building.

- And in that country specifically from a sustainable aspect, water, thinking about water was one that had a strong influence in terms of how we approached work, because they don't have any- - Fresh water.

- Natural water.

So they've have tremendous advances in recycling water, and desalinization, but as a precious resource as water is like thinking about how to take care of that and design, with your landscape and being smart about it.

That was pretty, that was influential.

- That's really well said, thank you so much.

And thank you for a great lecture again.

- [Julia] Thanks for having us.

- [Chad] Thank you.

(all applauds)