Liliane Wong’s focus on architectural interventions to existing structures led her to cofound the Int|AR Journal on design interventions and adaptive reuse, which promotes creative and academic explorations of sustainable environments through exemplary works of reuse. A longtime volunteer at soup kitchens, Wong emphasizes in her teaching the importance of public engagement in architecture and design.
Wong’s teaching and research areas include design as social activism, the mathematics of curved space, the affordable modular home and technical textiles. Recent work with students includes Don’t You Sit Down, an installation on Jim Crow laws, and Crossing the Pell, a multi-year investigation of adapting infrastructure, which has since become an immersive exhibition, part of which is installed in the US Capitol. Wong was recognized by Design Intelligence in 2018–19 as one of the top 25 most admired educators in the US in the fields of architecture, interiors and landscape architecture.
Wong is author of Adaptive Reuse in Architecture: A Typological Index and Adaptive Reuse: Extending the Lives of Buildings, co-author of Libraries – A Design Manual, contributing author of Designing Interior Architecture and Flexible Composite Materials in Architecture, Construction and Interiors and co-editor of Interventions and Adaptive Reuse: A Decade of Responsible Practice. A registered architect in Massachusetts, she has practiced through her own firm, Mahon Wong Associates, as well as with the Boston firms of Perry Dean Rogers and FHCM. Key projects include the American Embassy in Jordan, Montclair Public Library, Hartford Public Library and the design of the Kore Library Furnishings Line.
Academic areas of interest
In her teaching and research, Wong focuses on design for the homeless, the mathematics of curved space and affordable modular housing. Her philosophy and teaching on design for the homeless is included in Glimmer – how design can transform your life and maybe even the world by Warren Berger. In the past, her research on non-Euclidean math has been funded, in part, by a grant entitled Knit Space. As a member of the advisory board of Blu Homes, a modular home enterprise, she has incorporated her teaching and research in a studio known as Modular, Demountable + Green.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
INTAR 2370-01 - THEORY OF ADAPTIVE REUSE
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatLecture
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 2370-01
THEORY OF ADAPTIVE REUSE
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatLecture
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: W | 9:40 AM - 12:40 PMInstructor(s): Liliane WongLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 611Enrolled / Capacity: 20Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Defined as transforming an unused or underused building into one that serves a new use, adaptive reuse is defined by its relationship to context. This lecture course examines the pluralism of this practice through weekly lectures that focus on aspects of heritage, conservation, typology & classification and culture. The course will also focus on the differences in the implementation of this practice from countries in Northern Europe with its longstanding regard for reuse to countries with emerging practices. The lectures will include case studies of buildings, unbuilt projects, and urban assemblages, which will be contextualized through the common themes which are critical to understanding reuse. Requirements: weekly lectures and discussions, readings, a mid-term examination and final presentations.
Major Requirement | MA Interior Studies: Adaptive Reuse
INTAR 2378-01 - HISTORY OF ADAPTIVE REUSE
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatLecture
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 2378-01
HISTORY OF ADAPTIVE REUSE
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatLecture
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: M | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PMInstructor(s): Liliane WongLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 103Enrolled / Capacity: 24Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will examine the development of adaptive reuse practice in the context of its social, political, technological, and economic circumstances, as it pertains to the design culture of the period. Special emphasis will be given to interior renovations, additions, transformations and other interventions of adaptive reuse. Attention will also be given to design theory, and the evolving doctrines relating to heritage. This course will be conducted in seminar form with graduate level discourse and discussion. Requirements include midterm, final exam and research presentation.
Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse
INTAR 2397-01 - DESIGN THESIS PREP
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
Period Fall 2024
Credits 3
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
INTAR 2397-01
DESIGN THESIS PREP
LevelGraduate
UnitInterior Architecture
Subject Interior Architecture
PeriodFall 2024
Credits3
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-09-04 to 2024-12-11
Times: W | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Liliane Wong, Nick Haus HeywoodLocation(s): Center for Integrative Technologies, Room 103Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This seminar is the second of the three-part Design Thesis sequence in the department of Interior Architecture. This course is designed to assist students in identifying a thesis topic and respective design project through discussions that include studies of precedents, site related issues, program, and regulations, all of which are specific to adaptive reuse. Through group discussion and individual interviews, outline proposals will be approved in principle, requiring each student to prepare a feasibility report for their proposed Design Thesis. This completed feasibility report will be submitted for evaluation at the end of the Fall semester. Approved proposals will proceed to the next course in the sequence, where the proposal will be further refined, culminating in the design phase that will take place during the following Spring semester.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.
