Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu, founders and directors of the UK-based multidisciplinary design studio Tonkin Liu sincerely believe that "a good architect is an empath," as they relayed to STIR at the now concluded FAB (Future of Architecture and Building) Conclave 2024. As creators straddling the realms of architecture, landscape design as well as art, they genuinely emphasise connections with nature, an ethos that has continued to render their practice. Remarkably, this might make Tonkin Liu one of the most thoughtful global creative practices presently, with a research-led creative approach begetting works they describe as ‘puritanical and fantastical.’

Liu, dressed in a sharp floral suit, with cropped hair and sparkling, inquisitive eyes, explained how the former “is about an execution and the purity of details,” while Tonkin, gently animated, friendly and bespeckled, clarified how the “fantastical is about what people dream of—it is about what’s in the subconscious, about what’s universal.” Translating that into works of public art, landscape architecture as well as architectural interventions is a task, that seems simpler than it is.

With STIR as a media partner, the design event’s third edition was held at the Sheila Gopal Raheja Auditorium in Bandra, Mumbai, India, on March 27, 2024 and revolved around the theme of LIFE: Looking Inward for the Environment. Its programme included speakers such as Dr Ferdinand Ludwig, Nripal Adhikary and Tonkin and Liu, who expounded on ‘The Nature of Place’. 

Founded in 2002, “on a storytelling methodology and passion for technical innovation,” (which they elaborate on in our exclusive interview at length), the studio has delivered award-winning endeavours in architecture, sculpture and landscape, winning 23 RIBA Awards in 22 years. Each is sieved through and gathered upon “a time perspective of present, past, future, endeavouring to unearth and tell a new story particular to nature, people, place…We put emphasis on place-making, connecting people to nature and pioneering innovative construction techniques,” their official website mentions. Deeply analysing sites and their contextual fabrics, the values of the space and its relationship with nature and community renders works that leave clients at the end so convinced that they don’t need them anymore, something that Tonkin cheerfully admits in the interview at the architecture festival.

As a limitless cornucopia of inspiration, nature dictates almost all their design responses—"[it] is central to everything we do,” Tonkin said. “All projects need to be about people and place, but they also need to be about nature and how you can connect people to nature.” The inspiration is further explored within different aspects of nature such as climatic/weather-related elements of natural light, rainfall patterns or wind paths, topographical or symbolic ones like flowers, mountains or rivers, as well as biological motifs such as shells or leaf stems. “Nature comes first,” Liu chimed in agreement.

One such project would be their shell-laced Tower of Light and Wall of Energy which combined biomimicry and digital design, for a flue-enclosing edifice that also becomes a visual landmark for a new low-carbon energy centre in Manchester, UK. Another one is the Singing, Ringing Tree of Lancashire, England, a wind-powered sound sculpture made of steel rings resembling a tree that stands proud atop a hill.

Adding onto empathy as a creative rule of thumb, the duo also mentioned agility, ingenuity and keen observation as hallmarks of growing into a ‘good’ architect. You add healthy doses of travelling into the mix, where exposure to different fabrics of architectural histories, dichotomies and social cultures would essentially flavour one’s traits and awareness as a creative, which includes considering differing perspectives. This exposure translates to understanding and practising architecture as an exercise in inclusivity and knowledge-building, which they practise as frequent travellers.

Nature is central to everything we do. All projects need to be about people and places, but they also need to be about nature and how you can connect people to nature. – Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu, founders and directors, Tonkin Liu

Based out of London, Liu and Tonkin are also academicians and regard teaching as “an essential experience” that “has taught them an awful lot.” By connecting the dots between academia, industry and practice, a receptivity is established wherein each one benefits and learns from the other, an exercise that involves asking, looking, playing and making, which incidentally, is the title of their upcoming book.

Also driven by research and experimentation in structures, the creative duo invites rumination on the intersection of creativity, sensibility, technology and society, a narrative perhaps threadbare, yet barely and successfully implemented. Integrating biomimetic structures and public artworks as engines of ‘empathy,’ while not being a novel concept, is far less evolving or even attempted in earnest. Contemporary architecture, in particular, still remains largely empathy-deficient. When we bring this sensibility into the very core of how architecture is practised, it sets in motion a larger narrative of care, where empathy is regarded on a spectrum: towards the end-user, the knowledge and research required for implementation and learning, to nature and all things, constructs, systems and beings in between. In this regard, what more can architecture be, what more can architects do? Tonkin Liu seems to be on a quest to build paths towards finding concrete answers to this and where there is none, they are persevering to build one. 

Tap the head banner to view our exclusive interview with Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu.