Interview with Sun Hu

I became a landscape architect after my graduation. But what really matters is how to make people’s dwelling become more poetic and creative. I am lucky to have lots of co-workers and clients who have the same willing as well.

Culture, site and design method are the priority while I work.
I prefer to sketch and draw at the very beginning of new project. Sketching and drawing is a great way to improve my creative skills and start thinking in a different way. Art shows me that there is normally more than one way to solve a problem. Art encourages open ended thinking and creativity.

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being invited to give a guest lecture at a real-estate developer. The week’s topic was new landscape. I believe happiness in design comes from contributing to a greater good — getting rid of your ego and aligning yourself with a goal that’s bigger than you.

My background in drawing and travelling study will be invaluable to the landscape architecture realm. Our projects are very detail and deadline oriented. We really need to take stock of every word and image and think of all possible reactions to the campaign.

I wish people could remember me via the landscape projects. In the coming years, urban landscape and municipal planning are the field I will continue to working on.

Practice every minute you have a chance. In order to get good, there’s simply no replacement for actually doing the work. There’s a study that’s mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers that suggests that it takes a person about 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything. That means you have many years and hours of practice before you can become really good. When I look back at my early design work now, it’s embarrassing, but that’s a good thing. It shows how far I’ve come.

In my experience, true designers have a self-fuelling passion for good design. They will be motivated to improve naturally, find design mentors and hone their design skills, all essential to their career development.
The largest gap is in building client relationships. Many designers focus on design expertise and wonder why they struggle to make a living, while perhaps less-talented designers are successful.
The key is to understand how to make design value obvious. How our work can solve real business problems might be clear to us, but a complete mystery to a client.
Many designers feel they can win a project or charge higher fees by showing how complicated everything is, getting into nuances of visual hierarchy, design philosophy and language, negative space and balance. But the opposite is true.
Distill your work into the simplest statement of how you will solve the problem. That’s where the value lies for a client, and how you will ultimately develop a relationship of trust, win more clients, gain repeat business and referrals, and build a successful design career.

As a senior landscape architect, my schedule varies widely every day. I spend most of my time in session with my colleagues. Typically these are online or offline meetings and projects discussion. I also spend a few hours of each day training, observing, and reading. So about half of my time is spent working directly with colleagues, and a quarter of my time is spent working with my clients. Much of the rest of the time is spent getting along with my family and setting goals for the following week.

Landscape architect trends change quickly. This can sometimes make it feel like a full-time job trying to keep up to date with what’s hot, and what’s not. I always takes time out of each day to walk outside and see what is going on and how people use environment around them.

I believe that only time and users can define good design. Because good design is classic, eternal and touching. In other words, good design is impressive rather than disposable. To give an improper example, the good design seems classic in the clothing industry, rather than the popular and short-lived shows. Take Yujingshan project which I designed in 2007 as an example, we did a customer satisfaction survey in 2017 and gained a lot of praise from it. Interviewees told us that this project is a good design by satisficing using experience during the past decade.

Next, the classic, eternal and touching design need designer thinking a lot. As we all know, design cannot be only created by imagining. Don Norman said that design should start at understanding people’s demands. So, users pay an important role in landscape design. Among them, participation is a good method to achieve this goal. Recently, I am applying this method in the "Jianye 27 Bamboo Garden" project. I propose four important principles on this project: understanding, co-design, co-contribute and sharing. The developer, designers, shareholders and third party organizations were invited into the whole project. Change the situation in which the design only dominated by developers and designers in the past. It is worth spending more time on understanding the demands of people to build fascinates designs.

A design is never done, especially landscape architecture. The site, the plant and the people will continually change.

It was in 2007, a landscape project named Da yi Villas was designed by us. The house flows in the forest shadow and the people walk in the painting are the concept of the landscaping planning and design of this project. Through the design style of nature, randomness, modernity and classical garden artistic conception, combined with the characteristics of the rich and low change of the mountain and the natural ecological characteristics of the vegetation. It has become a fine art product. In terms of landscaping design, we have integrated the natural ecological environment system of Baiyun mountain in Guangzhou, combining modern gardening techniques with the charm of classical gardens to create an atmosphere, nature and harmony with Chinese characteristics on the basis of modernity.

Le Corbusier, Álvaro Siza, Louis Kahn, Geoffrey Bawa, Kengo Kuma…

I live in China. China has lots of world heritage sites, including palaces, sacred sites, gardens, historic centers, cultural landscapes, and rural landscapes. They are heritage properties and landscapes that continue to change over time. Of course they will influence on my design, I always got inspiration from Chinese culture.

Guangzhou S.P.I Design Co., Ltd was founded at 2007 with its headquarters in Guangzhou. Now it has 10 branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Kunming, Changsha, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu and Nanjing, including 2 modules of ‘S.P.I real estate’ and ‘S.P.I culture and tourism’ with completion of more than 3000 excellent projects in over 100 cities. S.P.I has deep collaboration with China top 20 realty groups and provide superior schemes and resolutions for local governments, owning honors such as ‘National Landscape Architecture Design Qualification Class A’, ‘The Best Creative Brand Institution of China Architecture & Planning’ and ‘National Top 10 Landscape Architecture Enterprises’. S.P.I has won the first place in the competitiveness of Chinese Real Estate landscape design in Times House for 3 consecutive years, as well as other international ones of IFLA, Survey and Design Award, Kinpan Award, etc. It also won the first place of new media influence in ARCHINA industry for many times.
As an expert of systematic landscape service, S.P.I pay attention to the business mission of ‘Innovation leads the poetic dwellings’, customizing systematic and integrative solutions in the fields of community environment, commercial, culture & tourism, theme towns, urban design and regional planning, which depends on new S.P.I design concept. The huge team of over 1000 will keep working for the ideal dwellings in the future, and have interdisciplinary cooperation, techniques, social and environmental responsibilities to be a world-class Landscape Architecture company with remarkable design, full service, poetic spaces and extremely explored innovative aesthetics.

Design is not for individual but for public. Under the field of my profession, I turned to pay more attention on community landscape design and urban planning rather than sales center design in the last few years. Because we must consider environmental factors as well as community needs and the long-term development plans for a specific region. We need to weigh a lot of information when deciding where parks or businesses should be constructed, and make recommendations about what types of projects should or should not be allowed in different parts of their city.

1、Take our project out of the comfort zone and into a real world setting. It builds our portfolio and gives it credibility.
2、Competitions provide opportunities for emerging professionals to be recognized for design concept and a platform to showcase their work.
3、Winning a competition can help us gain the attention of potential employers, land new clients or get a promotion.

Innovation leads the poetic dwelling.

I work in customizing systematic and integrative solutions in the fields of community environment, commercial, culture & tourism, theme towns, urban design and regional planning.

I don’t think I am a design legend at this moment. Learning is an endless process.

Bringing that subtle difference into our designs and paying close attention to human being’s requirement is what separates a great designer from a good designer.

I believe that only time and users can define good design. Because good design is classic, eternal and touching. In other words, good design is impressive rather than disposable. To give an improper example, the good design seems classic in the clothing industry, rather than the popular and short-lived shows. Take Yujingshan project which I designed in 2007 as an example, we did a customer satisfaction survey in 2017 and gained a lot of praise from it. Interviewees told us that this project is a good design by satisficing using experience during the past decade.

Next, the classic, eternal and touching design need designer thinking a lot. As we all know, design cannot be only created by imagining. Don Norman said that design should start at understanding people’s demands. So, users pay an important role in landscape design. Among them, participation is a good method to achieve this goal. Recently, I am applying this method in the "Jianye 27 Bamboo Garden" project. I propose four important principles on this project: understanding, co-design, co-contribute and sharing. The developer, designers, shareholders and third party organizations were invited into the whole project. Change the situation in which the design only dominated by developers and designers in the past. It is worth spending more time on understanding the demands of people to build fascinates designs.

The good design represents the accumulation of many professionals during decades. All efforts are creating a better life. I think that no one can refuse a better life.

I believe that success is contributed by 99% hard work and 1% luck. It is normal for me to work until the early hours. You know, no one can get everything easily. At the same time, I am appreciated for my supportive family, good teachers, hardworking term and nice customers.

Le Corbusier, Álvaro Siza, Louis Kahn, Geoffrey Bawa, Kengo Kuma

Studying, observation and thinking. Studying（reading or studying from life） is a very good method to improve self-competitiveness. It makes me continue to accumulate and apply in my design. At the same time, observation and thinking are also very important. At the very beginning, I always observe good designs and thinking about the reasons for touching points in this design. After that，I always summarizing, accumulating and absorbing from my observation and thinking. Finding touching points helps us understand the essence of design and help young designers make rapid progress.

The constant support from my family and work in harmony with my colleagues and clients help me a lot.

Recently, we have a culture and tourism project in Guizhou, China in process, which worked with Pritzker award’s winner, Mr Shigeru Ban.

Landscape design has a profound impact on our daily lives. Good landscapes help to make healthy and happy communities. One of the most important aspects of landscape design is its influence on quality of life and social interaction. Well-designed green spaces improve social connection and safety, they can support people to exercise more and they can even help to moderate temperature. Integrated landscape-led design has the power to transform a place into somewhere which is highly functional and has strong character and beauty.

I don’t think anyone can predict what will happen in the coming years in landscape design. The field changes too quickly. In the next five years, though, there are a few emerging threads that will continue to grow stronger: much more money and people flowing into the industry; tools and skillsets merging; emerging technologies, etc…

It depends on clients’ expectation and marketing requirement. Generally speaking, 1-2 years at least.

Understand the character of the site, the demands of inhabitants and customers.

First, the design is the product of the times. For example, Jane Jacob's theory of the city's eye and Corbusier's glorious city seem contradictory, but they are reasonable existences in the context of their respective times. So, the design is based on characteristics, demands and technology of the times.

However, only the distinctive and outstanding design can set the trends. Recently, there is a very popular word called influencers. It means something people always discuss on the internet. Those influencers are the embodiment of design leading the trend, in the design world. Having the value of being discussed means that it is outstanding and attractive in at least respects. However, those influencers might not be praised for a good design. As we all know, trend changes frequently. Only designs based on users might become a classical design. Personally, I am more focused on creating classics, rather than simply leading the trend.

Technology can only help me think and express my thinking. The most important thing is understanding and thinking through my brain.

I always use paper or iPad to draw in my work. Technology can never inspire me like hand-drawing.

Color is part of the material. Materials create different ambience. Each material has unique characteristic. Every designer has their own a distinct language to expressing design and create atmosphere by those indispensable methods.

I hope that people ask me questions related to the New Shanshui theory. New Shanshui, the golden rule in my landscape design is a theoretical system about the development of Chinese landscape. That is, utilizes the natural spirit and cultural value rooted in the landscape, uses the emotional communication between people and nature as the medium, reshapes the aesthetics of urban life, innovates the way of current life through new technologies, new processes and new materials to achieve product updates, endow a high premium for the region, and construct a poetic space for the information flow of all life evolution. I hope that people can have more discussion about the content of New Shanshui with me and tell me their feeling of landscape architecture. I expect that the development of Chinese landscape can have a great promotion through more communication.

First of all，I think of the reason of greatness. Why I am so touching from this design? Secondly, I habitually record those touching parts by drawing or taking photos, as an accumulation. And then, I always share those photos or printings with my team. Because, I hope that we can learn and progress together.

My ideal partner is someone who has the same design dreams and strives to make progress with me. I am lucky because I have such an excellent team as my expectation. Many of my schemes were designed and completed by my team. Without them, many of my ideas cannot be realized.

Learning from masters has a huge influence in my life. During cooperation and chatting, I learned a lot from it. Of course, it is also important for me to observation and thinking during communication with them.

The Craft of Gardens by Chinese author Ji Cheng

I prefers to travel learning and designing exercise.

When I was a kid, I dreamt to be a famous singer. The place where I grew up is such a beautiful and irreplaceable small town, with a crowded vista of hills and rooftops. Maybe that is the subtle influence in my later landscape designer career.

Future is changing. I cannot predict what will happen after 1000 years. But I hope Chinese landscape designers can also pay an important role in the world.

I hope my fans can pay more attention to my design, Sun Hu Studio and Guangzhou S.P.I Design Co., Ltd. We are creating a new design world.

Guangzhou S.P.I Design Co., Ltd was founded at 2007 with its headquarters in Guangzhou. Now it has 10 branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Kunming, Changsha, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu and Nanjing, including 2 modules of ‘S.P.I real estate’ and ‘S.P.I culture and tourism’ with completion of more than 3000 excellent projects in over 100 cities. S.P.I has deep collaboration with China top 20 realty groups and provide superior schemes and resolutions for local governments, owning honors such as ‘National Landscape Architecture Design Qualification Class A’, ‘The Best Creative Brand Institution of China Architecture & Planning’ and ‘National Top 10 Landscape Architecture Enterprises’. S.P.I has won the first place in the competitiveness of Chinese Real Estate landscape design in Times House for 3 consecutive years, as well as other international ones of IFLA, Survey and Design Award, Kinpan Award, etc. It also won the first place of new media influence in ARCHINA industry for many times.
As an expert of systematic landscape service, S.P.I pay attention to the business mission of ‘Innovation leads the poetic dwellings’, customizing systematic and integrative solutions in the fields of community environment, commercial, culture & tourism, theme towns, urban design and regional planning, which depends on new S.P.I design concept. The huge team of over 1000 will keep working for the ideal dwellings in the future, and have interdisciplinary cooperation, techniques, social and environmental responsibilities to be a world-class Landscape Architecture company with remarkable design, full service, poetic spaces and extremely explored innovative aesthetics.

Design is one of the most important part of my life.

The practicality and aesthetics design is the best choice.

In depends，I think. I do not have special materials and techniques. I think materials just a method of expressing emotions and create atmosphere. According to different emotions, I always use different materials to create my ideal landscape design. Turning to technology, rapid technology advanced have improved design efficiency and make impossible become possible. I will never forget that I relied on my hands to design when I just graduated. But now, various software can help us to design. Actually，I always maintain a curiosity for new technologies and realize the integration of traditional culture and modern technology, which has reached eternity.

Sustainable development, environmental-friendly, aesthetics

I always had many ideas and inspirations to express during the design process. When I think about design, I tend to be tireless and energetic, because I love my design as if I love life.

Exciting, of course! To be honest, I spend a lot of time in my work and I am always touched by them. I am excited for my efforts can be recognized and my design theory can put into practice. However, after excitement, I always critical myself and sum up my experience to strive for the next project.

Studying, observation and thinking. Studying（reading or studying from life） is a very good method to improve self-competitiveness. It makes me continue to accumulate and keep creative in my design. At the same time, observation and thinking are also very important. I always observe good designs and thinking about the reasons for touching points of it. After that，I always summarizing, accumulating and absorbing from my observation and thinking. Finding touching points helps us understand the essence of design and help me make rapid progress.

Landscape is one of the crucial elements in urban sustainable development. It is the art and science of organizing land, spaces, and the elements on them to be used in an appropriate, healthy and pleasant way. What a landscape design does to people psychologically, or how it has the power to transform our society, is hard to measure but increasingly important. Good landscape design improves how people live; great landscape design improves how society operates. If we don’t practice a more sustainable form of landscape design, we risk harmful side effects to people and society that could have been avoided.

Sustainable development, environmental-friendly, aesthetics

It is difficult to predict the future，because world changes rapidly. However, I have maintained a curiosity about the world，trying to respond to traditions, facing the future, contributing to the Chinese landscape design industry.

The last December in the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China.
The next exhibition is supposed to be held in December, we sincerely hope the coronavirus will be defeated at that time.

Nature and life.

To be honest, I don't have a fixed design style. I do not want to be constrained by the ‘style’. Actually, I have been trying and exploring the development of the Chinese landscape during the past decades. However, I can say responsibly that no matter how my design style changes, the root of my design comes from traditional Chinese culture. Chinese culture is extensive and profound. As a Chinese, I have an obligation and responsibility to inherit tradition. But I am not just copying Chinese traditional landscapes, instead of innovation based on the tradition of re-creation, facing the future. I hope that hundreds of years later when people look at my design, they will see not only the shadow of the ancient Chinese landscape but also the traces of the 21st century.

I live in China. China has lots of world heritage sites, including palaces, sacred sites, gardens, historic centers, cultural landscapes, and rural landscapes. They are heritage properties and landscapes that continue to change over time. Of course they will influence on my design, I always got inspiration from Chinese culture.

Being a young designer is a demanding yet rewarding work. It is way beyond making human being’s life more pretty and sustainable. We may work as the landscape designers for different reasons and goals with different philosophies. But one thing we have in common for sure is we all went/are going/will go through a fresh stage. Use it to learn, fail and grow with the precious humble curiosity and courage unique in the fresh stage.

New Shanshui, the golden rule in my landscape design. That is, utilizes the natural spirit and cultural value rooted in the landscape, uses the emotional communication between people and nature as the medium, reshapes the aesthetics of urban life, innovates the way of current life through new technologies, new processes and new materials to achieve product updates, endow a high premium for the region, and construct a poetic space for the information flow of all life evolution.

Thinking! All designs are based on our thinking. Observation, thinking, learning from good designs can help us make rapid progress. Some people might believe that technology is the most important skill in design. However, all technical just help us for expressing ideas. Only the improvement of thought can achieve a touching design.

I always use paper or iPad to draw in my work. Technology can never inspire me like hand-drawing.

Admittedly, design takes me lots of time, so I can only compress sleepy and work until the early hours. Firstly, my secretary can arrange my time reasonably to ensure my work efficiency. Secondly, using my trivial leisure time to keep accumulating and creativity in my design. Finally, I have an excellent design team. We work together to create better designs. I appreciate that I have such a hardworking team. Without them, many of my ideas cannot be realized.

It depends on the clients’ expectation and marketing requirement. Generally speaking, 1-2 years at least.

It must be my design theory，named New Shanshui. It is a theoretical system about the development of Chinese landscape.

Vanke, Poly, Country Garden, , Evergrande , Wanda Group, CIFI,etc…
Some government and other organizations are in our clients list either.

I believe landscape design is part of my life. It is difficult to give up，because I have spent a lot of time and energy on it.

Working with my team is the best choice. You know, my own strength is limited, only teamwork can create more excellent designs.

Please feel free to contact me via sunhu@gz-spi.com or 13503079158@163.com

No，thanks