Kelvin Ho of Akin Atelier

The focus of an architect is an ever-shifting entity, with multiple jobs to keep tabs on. For Kelvin Ho, founding director of design studio Akin Atelier, it can mean having a working knowledge of the technical ins and outs of resin as a building material or recalling whether fixtures from a previous retail project are suitable for a new iteration.

Before this interview, he had spent the morning dealing with the impact of an unseasonal Sydney downpour on a residential site. With clients across the fashion, hospitality and cultural realms, Akin Atelier has demonstrated its distinctively contemporary approach to spatial planning and experience for nearly two decades.

With clients across the fashion, hospitality and cultural realms, Akin Atelier has demonstrated its distinctively contemporary approach to spatial planning and experience for nearly two decades.

Kelvin admits that he has much the same origin story as many of his peers – “I was always very much interested in, and it’s such a cliché, Lego and making and building things” – but having an engineer father and Hong Kong-based architect uncle gave him tangible experiences that would inform his future. “I’d worked with architects from the age of 14 during summer holidays,” he says. “I spent a lot of time not specifically in architecture, but I was really aware of the urban environment and amazing buildings.”

Studying architecture was “a combination of stubbornness and laziness. And when I say lazy, it was a natural decision that was sort of made for me.” A keen skateboarder and sportsperson growing up, he received a phone call from the Sydney University Football Club offering him a rugby scholarship, the only caveat being that he would have to study at the institution, and the only course he had applied for was architecture. “It was a collision of two worlds, but it was amazing that one part of my life brought another part of my life together.”

While working at Woods Bagot and Andrew Burges Architects were invaluable experiences, Kelvin needed to pursue his own path.

However, it wasn’t until a third-year theoretical subject when he was writing a paper on skateboarding and architecture that everything fell into place. “It really started to bring in narrative and architecture as a conceptual practice. Paralleling skateboarding with architecture as a story or a piece of literature and the transgressive or alternate ways of reading a city [showed me] how architecture has that diversity. That’s when architecture really started to click for me because I found a way, a space within architecture, that was relevant to me.”

While working at Woods Bagot and Andrew Burges Architects were invaluable experiences, Kelvin needed to pursue his own path: “I do work a lot better under my own steam, when I’m self-directed and there’s the pressure of having to deliver.” His own space within architecture would have to speak to his interest in fashion, art and music, and so, at 25, he founded Akin Atelier. “I thought that there must be a way of being able to create a piece of architecture or interior design that starts to pull in some of those influences or ideas,” he says.

This combination of cultural influences caught the eye of local fashion powerhouses such as Incu, Camilla and Marc and Bassike, all now long-term clients.

“There’s so much cool stuff, especially in retail, where it seems very experimental. It’s about creating these immersive environments, these places that speak of a brand, and that it’s not just about showing products, it’s about some sort of idea.”

This combination of cultural influences caught the eye of local fashion powerhouses such as Incu, Camilla and Marc and Bassike, all now long-term clients. “It was quite intense [at the beginning], but it was a good foundation for us,” reflects Kelvin. “We were at odds with a lot of landlords and retail design managers going, ‘You can’t use that. You can’t do this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but you can.’ There’s now more of a calmness and a return to this idea of simplicity in retail, which is probably more my natural comfort level.”

While retail and hospitality projects have become Akin Atelier’s bread and butter, residential briefs are still in the mix, with storytelling the intrinsic link between all the firm’s work.

Akin Atelier’s fruitful collaboration with hospitality juggernaut Merivale has led to nearly 15 years of creating immersive dining spaces. “We work really well together. It’s very challenging in the best way possible. We do our best work because they want the best.” The latest collaboration is Good Luck Restaurant Lounge – a hidden basement venue in Sydney that revisits the successful Good Luck Pinbone pop-up in suburban Kensington – where Kelvin “was really drawing on my experience as a kid, spending time in Hong Kong”.

While retail and hospitality projects have become Akin Atelier’s bread and butter, residential briefs are still in the mix, with storytelling the intrinsic link between all the firm’s work. “The design narrative can be quite different,” says Kelvin when quizzed about the differences between the three. “Retail is a bit more conceptual, so we have space to be abstract and push an idea. Usually, the restaurant briefs are a bit more literal: it’s sometimes more of a story, but still tangible. Residential is a combination of both, but then ties in the client.”

Reflective of Akin Atelier’s diverse portfolio, Kelvin describes his team of 20 being “all- rounders in architecture and interiors with lots of different working typologies”.

Reflective of Akin Atelier’s diverse portfolio, Kelvin describes his team of 20 being “all- rounders in architecture and interiors with lots of different working typologies”. Nearly two decades in, his ethos is unchanged. “Akin is about like-mindedness and shared philosophies, and when we work with our clients or builders or suppliers or even with our team internally, it’s the idea that everyone works better when you are on the same page and you have those shared ideas,” he says.

“When I started Akin, the values that were instilled into me by some of my mentors – collaboration and working together at whatever scale – are really important. And it’s become, interestingly, a big part of my role now in the studio, going, ‘Oh, who are we working with? How do we want to make sure that we’re really nurturing those relationships and looking after the people that are on that same frequency as us?’” While many things have shifted for Kelvin and Akin Atelier, that philosophy remains laser focused.