HKU Department of Architecture

Fall 2025 Public Lecture Series

Speaker: 

Yutaka Sho

Principal & Co-Founder, General Architecture Collaborative (GAC); 

Professor, Meiji University, Tokyo

Lecture Title: Building and Entering

Date: 14 Nov 2025 (Friday)

Time:  6:30–8:00pm

Venue: Room 419, 4/F, Knowles Building, The University of Hong Kong (map) 

[Live via Zoom] Webinar Registration: 

https://hku.zoom.us/j/91208617020?pwd=o1xhuEnAZErcyMPDaStYmBludvshED.1

Meeting ID: 912 0861 7020

Password: 419358

Lecture Abstract:

Within the Global Development Industry where the Global North finances the Global South’s “progress,” architects build buildings and, in the process, they enter communities that are not their own. This lecture explores the ethics and contradictions of participatory design and design justice, and considers how these practices might be transformed.

Biography:

Yutaka Sho is a partner of nonprofit architecture firm General Architecture Collaborative (GAC). Sho is also a professor of architecture at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan. GAC has been working in Rwanda with underrepresented communities to build sustainable and aesthetically engaging spaces while using the construction sites for end-user training since 2008. GAC’s work includes EarthBag self-build homes in 2015; the Masoro Health Center in 2020; and the Masoro Learning and Sports Center in 2021. In Rwanda Housing Project, GAC documented 370 rural homes with students from Rwanda and Syracuse, NY. Sho’s scholarly research focuses on the roles of architecture in the global development industry and in post-conflict reconciliation processes. The findings have been published in numerous papers.

Sho received her Ph.D. from Tokyo University, Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Bachelor of Landscape Architecture and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design.

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Enquiry: arcevent@hku.hk

All lectures are open to the general public. Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis and no prior reservation is needed.

CPD Credit Hours and AIA CES Learning Unit Hours are offered to members of the HKIA and the AIA.

An attendance record sheet will be provided at the venue entrances for members to register their attendance.

If you wish to add the Lecture Series to your Google calendar, please select the following link: https://bit.ly/3Hd9QIg

Remark: By default, shared calendars won’t show up on smartphones. In order to change these settings, you must click on the following link and turn on the ‘HKU Lecture Series’ calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect