Anthony Kong

I have joined ACA as an architectural assistant in August 2014. I was assigned to one of the planning team. it took me a couple of months to get the grip with the workflow. Soon I was coupled with an associate and were involved in a 360 unit residential scheme in Bexley. I learned a lot more about local planning policies as the project progressed and granted approval.

As I begin my part III in 2015, I requested to work for a year in the construction team in the quest of learning more of the other side in architecture. Fortunately, both team leaders agreed and I was able to shadow a more senior architect on one of the projects on-site. The experience was completely new and also the way how the construction team worked is completely different to the planning team. I have gained a lot of useful knowledge in both technical and management on the construction side of the company.

Once I have returned from the construction team. I started to be involved in Phoebes Garden which is the first project that I lead. It soon got its planning permission in 2017 and handover in February 2021.

Since becoming an architect at ACA, our planning team began to receive bigger projects(Cantium and later. At the same time, our forward-thinking practise was transitioning to Revit, a step towards BIM. During our first transition period, I was part of the ‘Revit workshop’ where we weekly discussed issues and improvements that would allow us to do what we want but at the same time, improves the efficiency of our work flow. For example, the BIM manager will make custom family and script that would be added to the office template and library. Over the past years, we built a complete library of tools that will help us to design.

I worked at Barrie Ho Architecture for 10 months during my part 1. Initially, I do find it different in terms of work style and design methodology, but soon I began to familiarize with it and become very efficient working with my team. The reasons I applied for Mr. Ho's firm was because his firm is well known in Hong Kong for various project and most of his projects are located in Hong Kong. I have always enjoyed seeing a building grow a little each day. Furthermore, site visits can be easily arrange, so that I can get first-hand experience of the site context and perceive more inspiration from its diverse surrounding. In our architecture team, I am glad that I am working with three other year-out students where they came from different architectural schools around the world. Together we enjoy working, designing, and sharing our different experience, thoughts and knowledge of architecture.

I had two month work experience in CAPA located in Shenzhen. I worked as a architectural designer and contribute on varies type of projects such as residential housing, commercial building, refurbishing facade, and even a exhibition unit.

Although my Mandarin is not fluent as I spent a lot of time in England, I managed to work with several teams and communicate ideas with my colleges efficiently.

The work experience gave me an insight to a professional working atmosphere within a architectural firm and being able to work in a bigger team is something that I have always wanted to try. Working in CAPA was a unique experience and it had prepared me to work efficiently in my next step in this career.