Good design grows from deep dialogue with colleagues, collaborators, and the public.
Richard Wood, Managing Director Asia of Snøhetta, leads the Norwegian architectural firms operations in the region. 2025 marked a strong year for the firm, with the opening of a new ground-floor office in Hong Kong, the launch of a new project in Thailand, and significant project wins in China.
Congratulations on the new office opening. Could you walk us through the thought process and highlights of the space?
Thank you, we’re really happy in this new space. We’re looking forward to the space functioning more often as a more dynamic and engaging environment throughout the year – not just for events but also for educational activities, creative discussions and opportunities to connect with the local and design communities which was a huge factor during the design discussions.
After our old location we knew we wanted to continue to live on the ground floor, connected to the city, and we wanted to work with the premises as a refurb, keeping what we could from the existing restaurant. In this way the new larger studio was designed as a space of openness, collaboration, and civic connection, values that sit at the heart of our practice.
Situated at street level on Third Street, we wanted to keep the existing generous outdoor entrance and expansive street facing windows that work quite well to blur the boundary to the city. We’re not sitting in a white hermetic box with views. This was a key driver from the beginning. We wanted the neighborhood to feel welcome and for the studio to actively participate in the life of the city rather than sit apart from it.
Most of the space inside is very open and really aims to reflect our transdisciplinary way of working. The open plan means we all have a good overview of what is going on in each discipline, be it architecture, landscape, interiors, product and art. We now have a lot of breakout spaces, which are happily getting a little messy with sketches, prints, materials, and sometimes slightly unusual tests for various projects. It is quite nice when some of these cross over and you realize that different projects are cross fertilizing each other and inspiration is flowing between the different approaches of the team.
We held onto many of the more traditional Snøhetta components. A long communal table, a signature element across our global studios, forms the social heart of the space and encourages shared meals and informal conversations. One thing we were keen to explore was an almost ‘extreme’ flexibility, with partitions and adaptable areas that allow the meeting spaces to open to the workshop etc. So we can merge the design process with more formal meetings with clients. We can subdivide the front of the office.
As mentioned, we are working on using this area as a venue for talks, exhibitions, and community programming, and we are very open to suggestions on how to use it. Ultimately the space should reinforce our long-standing belief that good design grows from deep dialogue with colleagues, collaborators, and the public.
Your proudest architectural projects in 2025?
As the previous question suggests, I’m really proud of our new space. It really was the right moment to make this change, and a great sign of how the office has advanced over the years. Building a space that truly reflects a dynamic organisation takes a huge amount of work, and I think we now have a place where we can confidently invite people in to experience who we are.
Opening Cloud 11 was also special. It’s a very large project, one where many details need to align perfectly in the later stages for the building to realise the vision we originally set out. Walking through the space and feeling the climate on the raised lawn functioning exactly as we designed was particularly meaningful. And of course, the project wins are important, remaining cultural.
The Beijing Art Museum, a landmark cultural destination now under construction, is a major milestone. Designed together with BIAD, the museum spans more than 110,000 square metres and will serve as another of our significant civic and artistic hubs when it opens in 2029. The Hangzhou Art Gallery is another project that showcases many of our strengths, especially the way we integrate architecture, landscape, placemaking. This site and brief really allows us to bring those qualities together in a seamless way.
What do you do in your free time to keep your creativity alive?
We’re quite an active team. A good number of people in the studio just completed a race during the Hong Kong Marathon weekend and getting out into the city during these events is important. We always try to stay curious, there’s so much happening in Hong Kong and Shenzhen beyond architecture that we like to be part of. I guess we’re deeply invested in the pulse of Hong Kong – and, of course, the wider region around us. Many of us are fans of hiking in the wonderful surrounding nature and landscapes. After all, we are named after a mountain!
