When they brought their students almost 10,000km away to Letterfrack in Connemara<\/a> last year, the visit left two lasting impressions of Ireland. They said \u201cthere were beautiful flowers on the sides of the roads\u201d and \u201cthere is so much sky,\u201d says Lee.<\/p>\n The pair met while studying architecture at UCD, graduating as the post-Celtic Tiger recession took hold. \u201cIt was a pretty challenging time,\u201d says Lee. <\/p>\n Although they were fortunate enough to secure architecture jobs in Dublin, thoughts of travel beckoned and they were \u201cquite excited by the possibility of an adventure\u201d, she says. <\/p>\n When an opportunity came up for Holohan to teach in Hong Kong, the couple decided to move for two years. The city\u2019s \u201cvibrancy\u201d and its connection to China and southeast Asia drew them there, says Lee. Those two years gradually turned into 12.<\/p>\n The speed at which building was happening when they arrived was an \u201ceye-opener\u201d and \u201csuper exciting\u201d, Holohan says. \u201cChina was in the middle of an insane building bubble, building cities every year,\u201d he says. China is estimated to have used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the US used in the entire 20th century, according to historian Vaclav Smil. \u201cEach year they were just building, building, building, and with that, there were loads of opportunities for architects,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n But Holohan and Lee\u2019s focus was different. They were influenced by mentors in Ireland who had a \u201csensitivity to materials\u201d and a \u201crelationship to the place in which you work and ecologies\u201d, says Lee. <\/p>\n [\u00a0Irish abroad: I really believe in \u2018one world, one family\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Although \u201cfascinating\u201d, the particular type of architecture happening in China at the time was something \u201cwe didn\u2019t want to necessarily do\u201d, explains Lee.<\/p>\n \u201cWe came at a time when China itself was also changing,\u201d says Holohan, noting how president Xi Jinping criticised \u201cweird\u201d architecture transposed from the US and Europe. \u201cThis idea was that China would begin shaping its own destiny, through its own history, its own way of making.\u201d<\/p>\n This brought opportunities to experiment and look at architecture \u201cin a different way\u201d, says Holohan. \u201cThere was an imperative to build stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Such experiments include a bridge and a shelter in the 800-year-old Peitian village in Fujian province, an area renowned for historic Hakka architecture. An internal tourism boom with proposals for \u201ccrazy hotel buildings\u201d threatened ancient heritage, explains Holohan. There was a move to find a different way to develop tourism infrastructure. \u201cThe question was how can we create new structures in this space in a way which is less damaging … how we build, not what we make.\u201d<\/p>\n The first project, the Wind and Rain Bridge, was made with interlocking timber building techniques native to the region and local materials. The second project, Sun Room shelter and resting place, used local bamboo, a material broadly replaced by plastic in modern usage. <\/p>\n However, there was just one master carpenter in the village to work with timber, and one bamboo expert aged in his 90s. Neither had apprentices. \u201cYou\u2019re very much on the cusp of something being forgotten,\u201d Lee says. For both projects the architects used digital tools to adapt these traditional crafts so they could be used by volunteers with local materials. They hope this model can be rolled out in other Chinese villages.<\/p>\n This model also draws on the old Irish idea of meitheal, and they have brought this approach to adapting local materials and traditional crafts to a Co Clare project. They are helping to develop an agricultural training centre at Moy Hill Farm which is focused on regenerative farming. <\/p>\n Another project which could be \u201cvery applicable in an Irish context\u201d, is in response to Hong Kong\u2019s housing shortage, something Ireland also knows all too well. <\/p>\n We\u2019re kind of like islanders; we move between these islands<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0Donn Holohan<\/p>\n They piloted a transitional housing shelter for homeless people in one of the city\u2019s densest areas. \u201cThe idea is we [in Hong Kong] have a housing crisis, but we also have quite a lot of vacant office space,\u201d says Holohan.<\/p>\n Backpack Housing uses a temporary vacancy, when a building is unoccupied before it\u2019s demolished or reconfigured. It creates small spaces which use the building\u2019s infrastructure (electricity, water). \u201cYou get an enclosure that\u2019s your own, it\u2019s lockable, private and secure,\u201d says Holohan. It is a reconfigurable kit of parts, so occupants can unpack the unit and move it with them through different housing systems. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a question of dignity,\u201d says Holohan. The idea is \u201cnot a solution\u201d to homelessness, \u201cjust a solution to a crisis right now.\u201d <\/p>\n![\"Abroad:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/HDH4RFEHQFF4TPJQLZIJ5P3NM4.png\")
Abroad: Wind and Rain Bridge, outskirts of Peitian Village, Fujian Province, China <\/p>\nAbroad: Sun Room shelter and resting place, Outskirts of Peitian Village, Fujian Province, China <\/p>\n