Wendy W Fok
gender pronouns: she/them
Wendy W Fok, trained as an architect, is the creative technologist/director of WE-DESIGNS (architecture/creative strategy) and New Territory (socially missioned real estate venture). Fellow at the Urban Design Forum (since 2018), Macdowell (2022), and Berggruen Institute (2023), they were featured as Autodesk Remake’s Women in Reality Computing (2017), winner of the Autodesk AiR (2016), Digital Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress (2014/15), ADC Young Guns 11 Award (2013), AIA Dallas Women in Architecture (2013), Perspective 40 under 40 (2011), and Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award (2009).
Fok is faculty at the USC Architecture and a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute's School of Architecture. They have previously led the Digital Media and Design Program at the Gerald D Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston. Fok has also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Law School, Tongji University CAUP, AA Visiting Schools, and Parsons' School of Design Strategies at The New School, to name a few.
Fok has Doctor of Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, in collaboration with the Harvard Law School, an M.Arch and Certification of Urban Policy/Planning from Princeton University, and a BA in Architecture with a Concentration in Economics (Statistics) from Barnard College, Columbia University.
Fok is the faculty lead of Future Factory, a student-led research group and think-tank investigating the access and ownership of technological information that is distributed amongst the various private and public players within New York City and Los Angeles.
Fok was the co-editor of AD Journal’s “Digital Property – Open Source Architecture”, published by Wiley. Their book chapter “Bio-Data Matter of New York City” is published by Routledge in “Data, Matter, Design – Strategies in Computational Design”, edited by Frank Melendez, Nancy Diniz, Marcella Del Signore. Fok's newest book, "digitalSTRUCTURES - data and civic strategies of the urban future" is published by AR+D, the peer-reviewed imprint of ORO Editions.
Supervisors: William 'Terry' Fisher, Harvard Law School, Martin Bechthold, Harvard GSD, and Doris Sung, USC
Wendy W Fok, trained as an architect, is the creative technologist/director of WE-DESIGNS (architecture/creative strategy) and New Territory (socially missioned real estate venture). Fellow at the Urban Design Forum (since 2018), Macdowell (2022), and Berggruen Institute (2023), they were featured as Autodesk Remake’s Women in Reality Computing (2017), winner of the Autodesk AiR (2016), Digital Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress (2014/15), ADC Young Guns 11 Award (2013), AIA Dallas Women in Architecture (2013), Perspective 40 under 40 (2011), and Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award (2009).
Fok is faculty at the USC Architecture and a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute's School of Architecture. They have previously led the Digital Media and Design Program at the Gerald D Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston. Fok has also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Law School, Tongji University CAUP, AA Visiting Schools, and Parsons' School of Design Strategies at The New School, to name a few.
Fok has Doctor of Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, in collaboration with the Harvard Law School, an M.Arch and Certification of Urban Policy/Planning from Princeton University, and a BA in Architecture with a Concentration in Economics (Statistics) from Barnard College, Columbia University.
Fok is the faculty lead of Future Factory, a student-led research group and think-tank investigating the access and ownership of technological information that is distributed amongst the various private and public players within New York City and Los Angeles.
Fok was the co-editor of AD Journal’s “Digital Property – Open Source Architecture”, published by Wiley. Their book chapter “Bio-Data Matter of New York City” is published by Routledge in “Data, Matter, Design – Strategies in Computational Design”, edited by Frank Melendez, Nancy Diniz, Marcella Del Signore. Fok's newest book, "digitalSTRUCTURES - data and civic strategies of the urban future" is published by AR+D, the peer-reviewed imprint of ORO Editions.
Supervisors: William 'Terry' Fisher, Harvard Law School, Martin Bechthold, Harvard GSD, and Doris Sung, USC
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Papers by Wendy W Fok
The voice of “the crowd” holds meaning like never before. The advent of network technologies and digital platforms invite the public to participate in the process of collective creation. “Crowdsourcing” is more than an abstract idea. Already it has informed the creation of two signature public projects in New York, and it promises to change the way the public can interact with the design of the built environment. What effect will this new media have on the way cities evolve?
Foreword - Innovation in Practice
by Brian Vargo, Executive Editor
In real estate, ‘innovation’ can be precarious. The industry typically standardizes the spectrum of the built environment into defined asset classes and product types, often confined by conventional financing and public policy. To many, the prospect of ‘innovation’ invites undue peril. Why subject the already risk-prone process of building or operating real estate to additional uncertainty?
Others see ‘innovation’ as the impetus of creating economic value. Beyond real estate, ‘innovation’ is a cornerstone of the modern economy and holds both cultural and practical implications. Many herald changing trends in the demand for real estate as a new generation takes hold, often pairing the ‘innovation economy’ with the ‘disruptive economy.’ Innovation is by its own definition unsettling; it can invoke a fundamental questioning of norms, disruptive of established principle in the pursuit of unique value. Yet not all novel ideas last forever, and only time will distinguish whether an innovative concept is fleeting or substantive.
If real estate follows a basis of standardization, and innovation is naturally disruptive, what is innovation in real estate? What is the conflict between real estate and innovation, and how is it challenged, overcome, or resolved? What is the value of innovation in the design and development of the built environment, and how does one find it?
The 2015 Harvard Journal of Real Estate takes aim at those questions. This year’s Journal features 11 authors from programs across Harvard University, each with distinct approaches to the various facets of the real estate industry. The authors investigate a range of subjects under the umbrella of innovative practice, including opportunistic investment strategies, creative financing mechanisms, progressive public policy, and case studies in unique approaches to real estate development. Following each article is a review written by an invited academic or leading practitioner with a background in the same topic.
The real estate industry faces new frontiers, and its evolution will require many voices. Collectively, these authors investigate the value of innovation in practice, inviting both new ideas and opportunities for further discourse.