Office Tel: (65) 65124120 Email: kwneo@nafa.edu.sg

Module Leader, NAFA-HU BA/MA programmes (Dept of 3D Design)

Born in 1971, Kent K.W. Neo has been practicing as an architect since late 1990’s after graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture from the National University of Singapore.  The early years of Kent’s working experience mainly focused on commercial residential design in Singapore and China, having won competition awards for the Singapore Chinese Swimming Club Recreational Wing and Far Eastern Bible College design.

In 2003, Kent took a sabbatical break from his position of senior architect to pursue a Master’s degree in Architectural Design, specialising in digital media at the University of Adelaide. He began experimenting on a series of digital improvisations on Toko Shinoda’s calligraphic grammars. Thereafter, he began to develop a non-Euclidean design language for urban objects based on calligraphic metaphors.

With the execution of ‘Softstroke Series’ in 2004, Kent documented his entire research on designing non-standard forms in digital media in a paper entitled ‘AARI–Analysis, Abstraction, Re-Invention and Integration’. With his proposal of a new design methodology in Non-Standard Architectures, Kent was invited to present his findings at the prestigious DCC conference at MIT in 2004. Based on the AARI methodology, ‘Strokehouse_01′ was completed in 2004. The design was based on a liveable house conceived in a continuous digital brush stroke.

Kent graduated with a Master of Architecture (Digital Media) in 2004 with high distinctions from the University of Adelaide, an institution that has produced several Nobel laureates as well as a distinguished alumni of local architects comprising of the late Mr/Mrs Ong Teng Cheong and Mr Liu Tai Ker. Upon his return to Singapore, he continued working on the ‘Softstroke Series’ whilst practicing as a design and visualization architect with Singapore’s visionary architect Mr Tay Kheng Soon from Akitek Tenggara. Kent joint Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts shortly after his first solo exhibition on digital art and architecture in September 2005 so as to continue research in design methodologies. Kent is presently a full-time lecturer at Nanyang of Academy of Fine Arts researching on Singapore’s Design Scene, Visualisation and Design Methodologies  for diploma, BA and MA  courses in Spatial/Object Design of the built environment. In particular, Kent hopes that the prevailing artistic culture in the academy will culminate into a ‘glocal ‘movement in art, design and architecture belonging to Singapore and the world.

Tutoring  Statistics for 2008/2009:

Singapore Arts Scene - 180 students

Diploma Year 2            – 20 students

BA ID/ERD                    – 27 students

Tutoring  Statistics for 2009/2010:

Singapore Arts Scene  - 210 students

BA ID/ERD                      - 32 students

MASP                                 - 2 students

Links:

Past solo exhibition

Online gallery of Calligraphic Architecture

Research on Chinese Historical Architecture in Singapore

Research Interests:

Chinese heritage and identity in Singapore

Creative issues in Singapore

Metholodogies in digital art and architecture

Self-sustainable house design 

Database of emergent materials for the built-environment in the tropical regions

Pedagogic approaches in Digital Design (Proposed PHD title)

Architectural projects pre-2005

see http://dstroke.org/html/004.htm

Exhibitions & projects post -2005

1st solo exhibition – 2005, ‘Strokecity_2005′, Monsoonasia gallery, Singapore

Particle animation for stage effects – 2007, ‘Ice Nymph’, Esplanade, In collaboration with Lim Fei Shen

Joint exhibition – 2008, Asian Arts Festival, ‘Digital Tao Series’, Asian International Arts Festival, Hualian Unversity, Taiwan

Stage design, detailing & furniture styling – 2008. ‘New Asian Imaginations’, NAFA symposium

2nd solo exhibition projected in mid-2010 - exposition of ‘Strokecity’ font, Visions of Stroke architecture integrated with the Urban fabric, Fabrication of ‘Strokechair’