#DesignIndaba2019: Dong-Ping Wong announced as speaker

Dong-Ping Wong, founder and director of Food, a design firm based in New York, has been announced as one of the speakers at the 2019 Design Indaba.

By Juanita Pienaar

24 Aug 2018

Wong at TEDx Talk. © TEDx Talks Youtube.

Designer of environments

Specialising in public, cultural and hi-density mixed-use buildings, Wong earned his Masters of Architecture from Columbia University (2006) and his Bachelor’s from UC Berkley (2001). In an interview with Ssense, Wong explained that while he was at Berkeley, the school he was at was called the College of Environmental Design and that he only recently started thinking about architecture in that way, as an ‘environment’.

You’re designing environments, but not necessarily in an ecological sense. Everything around you, whether it’s the four walls you’re in, the air temperature, how many plants you put in your place – all those things are an atmosphere you’re creating. You’re designing a component of a much larger environment, which made us realise that we have a bigger responsibility. The environment you grow up in or live in affects how you view the world, what your priorities are, how often you see your friends, how healthy you are or aren’t.

Architect and founding principal of Selldorf Architects, Annabelle Selldorf. © .

#DesignIndaba2019: Annabelle Selldorf announced as speaker

Juanita Pienaar 17 Aug 2018

After doing internships at OMA in New York and EHDD in San Francisco, he worked as a design architect at Rex Architecture in New York for two years and then decided to freelance for another two years before he founded Family, an architectural practice that describes itself as a ‘designer of environments', together with Oana Stanescu.

Kanye West's volcano

One of Family’s fans was the musician, designer, and entrepreneur Kanye West. They collaborated when Stanescu designed the 50-foot-tall volcano (and an accompanying moon-like disc) that appeared on stage for West’s 2013-14 Yeezus tour. “Well, of the people we work with, the best are the ones with a strong sense of their gut,” says Wong in an interview with Curbed. “Kanye is that person,” Wong laughs. “He’ll look at things and say: ‘That’s it!'”

Illustration to reality.#YeezusTour @familynewyork pic.twitter.com/P479Jr2JoV
— TeamKanyeDaily (@TeamKanyeDaily) November 14, 2017

Despite this solid run, Stanescu and Wong have recently decided to go their separate ways and disband the practice. While Stanescu pursues a multifaceted practice under her own name, Wong has also decided to start his own firm, Food, with projects already in the works in New York, San Diego and Hong Kong. Wong is also the co-founder of Friends of + Pool, the world’s first water-filtering floating pool for New York City and one of the largest crowdfunded civic projects in the world.

What if you could change the way #NewYorkers see their #rivers, just by giving them a chance to #swim in it? pic.twitter.com/F980DSh8zL
— + POOL (@pluspoolny) January 9, 2017

Catch Wong at the 2019 Design Indaba where he will join a stellar selection of international speakers whose compelling presentations combine career-changing insights and the most cutting-edge work on the global circuit. Follow our Design Indaba special section for updates on the 2019 Design Indaba, for which tickets are already on sale.