Mr. Chris Law

Chris Law is an acknowledged leading expert and practitioner on sustainable urbanism and neighbourhood development. He is an ardent supporter of community participation and encourages this form of engagement across social, ecological, and economic capital aspects in the placemaking process. Chris founded the Oval Partnership with Patrick Bruce in 1992, and is a director of its subsidiary, the sustainable and smart city action research group INTEGER that develops many ground-breaking initiatives in sustainable development, notably the world’s first in the use of structural laminated bamboo in multi-storey buildings. Under his leadership the Oval Partnership developed the Open City design principle and transmedia narrative methodology, manifested in the award-winning Sanlitun Taikoo Li Beijing and Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li Chengdu projects. He is member of a number of public sector and third sector committees in Hong Kong . He is a director of the UNESCO award-winning heritage conservation and community participatory Viva Blue House development in Hong Kong, and chairman of the Community Development Committee of the St James' Settlement. He is the chief curator and founder of the public space organization Very Hong Kong and its community land place making initiative Collaborate Hong Kong. The Venice Biennale Hong Kong Pavilion 2012 on urban regeneration of Kowloon East, curated by Chris was selected as the top 5 globally by The Architects’ Journal. A graduate of Stonyhurst College and the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL, Chris' projects have received awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects, The Royal Academy of Arts, The Hong Kong Institute of Architects, The Hong Kong Institute of Planners, The Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design, Urban Land Institute and World Architecture Festival. He was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects for his contribution to Architecture. He is a Justice of the Peace of the Hong Kong SA