CUHK Lives and Legends

40 R obert Wong  is an architect who grew up from humble beginnings: He and his parents and three siblings were crammed into a two-bedroom unit less than 300 square feet. As the first son of a handyman, he needed to help out at his father’s hardware store wedged under a flight of stairs, or scout for unwanted electric wires to pare their plastic skins and sell the interior copper after school. ‘The idea of being spotted and jeered at by my schoolmates kept haunting me.’ Later, he got admitted to a prestigious secondary school located in the affluent district of Kowloon Tong. During Secondary Three, he took part for the first time in a social service activity and visited slum dwellers in the shantytown of Diamond Hill. For the rest of his high school summer breaks, Robert kept returning there to play with the underprivileged children. ‘The way they gawked at the novelties I brought them or told them reminded me of the poverty-stricken years I had gone through.’ The time came when Robert had to choose a major when applying to university. The good-hearted young man had set his sights on social work, but his class teacher knew him well for his whimsical nature and suggested him to go for architecture. ‘So I went for it, without the slightest idea that the discipline requires the skill of drawing.’ After he got into CUHK’s School of Architecture with good exam results, he only managed to land a disappointing D for his first-year graphic studies. It was Prof. Freeman Chan , also the designer of the Pavilion of Harmony at New Asia College, who pointed out a way for him. Professor Chan was an advocate of community architecture. He showed Robert that being a social worker was not the only way to help the needy; instead, an architect has what it takes to change people’s living conditions for the better. ‘I was thrilled to know that social service can be combined with architecture!’ Seventeen years on, Robert is now the project development director of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council, dedicating himself to designing elderly homes, youth centres, rehabilitation centres and assorted service facilities for the deprived. The other hat he wears is the founder of IDEA Foundation Limited, a charity organization that has been designing and building schools and c c An elderly centre designed by Robert Wong as project development director of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council ‘An architect’s role is to make the most of the limited resources to create a comfortable shelter for everyone.’