PSFK Conference Asia Speaker Mark Dytham

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September 18, 2008

We’re excited to have Mark Dytham, Co-Founder of Klein Dytham architecture and PechaKucha Night joining us in Singapore at PSFK Conference Asia on our “Make It With Us” panel. Mark will be sharing his insights on collaborative co-working and how companies and institutions can benefit from engaging their audience, staff, partners and the community to drive innovation. We asked him to tell us a little bit about himself and what we can look forward to at PSFK Conference Asia.

First, who are you and what do you do?

My name is Mark Dytham. I live and work in Japan. Along with Astrid Klein, we run Klein Dytham architecture (KDa) in Tokyo. It is a border-less office designing not only buildings but interiors, products, construction fences, installations and situations. Our architectural practice is our ‘day office’ but our ‘night office’, SuperDeluxe is where we get our inspiration. SuperDeluxe, which we established six years ago, is a gallery, salon de jour, bar, creative kitchen and according to Time Magazine one of Asia’s top 100 spaces. SuperDeluxe is also the birth place of PechaKucha Night a show and tell based on people sharing 20 slides shown for only 20 seconds each, a kind of ‘design karaoke’ which has spread virally to over 140 cities around the world. Today just being and architect is not enough.

You’ll be speaking with Andrew Hoppin in our “Make it With Us” discussion. In one paragraph, can you explain how companies/creatives benefit from collaboration and engaging their audience, staff, partners and the community?

Design is a very horizontal design process for us. Sometimes the youngest member of office has the best idea, sometimes we are inspired by what our children get up to. Naiveté is a good thing as we all carry too much design baggage the older we get! The client will have a different set of view points, the project site or surroundings generate another set of elements to work with. The end user brings another dimension to the project brief. Everyone’s point of view is valid and our job as an architect is to direct and edit without preconceived ideas. Working in this way always produces building and interiors which are totally appropriate and unique to the brief. They days of imposing a style are dead.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration?