Hong Kong design duo on Quarry Bay’s K11 Atelier office building and the making of a cool weekend space
- Husband-and-wife team Eskyiu are strong proponents of civic engagement and want to boost innovation and public participation in architecture
- Their work on K11 Atelier features an incredibly flexible set of spaces and areas the community can use on weekends
Eskyiu. Let it roll off your tongue and you’ll understand why architects Marisa Yiu Kar-San and Eric Schuldenfrei mashed up their names to come up with a memorable appellation for their Hong Kong-based design studio: its playful homonym, “askew”, characterises their off-kilter approach to design.
“We have both taught architecture … we’re obsessed with it, but we are not traditional architects,” Yiu says.
Less focused on home and office projects, Eskyiu is rooted in a desire to contribute to a “bigger picture”.
“Education and technology are a big part of our practice, and so is using architecture and different disciplines to inspire the public,” says Yiu, who is also co-founder and executive director of Design Trust, a charitable initiative that supports innovative design in Hong Kong.
Strong proponents of civic engagement, Yiu and Schuldenfrei, who heads the architecture department at the University of Hong Kong, want to supercharge the city’s view of architecture with innovation and mass public participation.
Eskyiu’s latest project – its biggest to date – is the interior and landscape design of K11 Atelier, an office building on King’s Road in Quarry Bay. That may sound prosaic until you see the pair of 4m (13ft)-tall preserved olive trees hanging from the forecourt’s ceiling garden that appear to be growing upside down.