Transforming China's architectural scene

ARCHITECT/DESIGNER Lyndon Neri recalls attending a church when he was a child in Cebu. "The men would go up the staircase on the right, and the women on the left," he says. "For the longest time, I thought a church is built this way." Even today, when men and women can go up either staircase, he still goes up the one meant for men.

"Architecture has a way of changing the way a society thinks, which is why we can't just design and build buildings with reckless abandon. When a building is completed, it is there for years. You can't just demolish it after a few days," he says.

Mr Neri is one half of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, which he founded in 2004 with his wife Rossana Hu. The duo were in Singapore recently to give a talk at the World Architecture Festival, and also at Dream Interiors …