Whaaaaat?? There are female architects of colour other than Zaha and the SANAA lady !? It’s true! After scraping every corner of the earth we discovered that there’s at least another four:
1. Cheong Koon Hean
Our girl Cheong Koon Hean is a Singaporean urban planner and architect. After graduating from Harvard Business School and UCL, she returned to Singapore where she balanced new buildings with heritage conservation as CEO of the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority. You go!!
2. Emma Miloyo
Emz is the first woman to chair Kenya’s Architectural Association as well as heading her Nairobi-based firm, Design Source. She’s also on several arts and philanthropy boards and on top of that she also founded a kindergarten???!!
3. Patama Roonrakwit
In absolutely crazy news, here’s an architect doing humanitarian work who isn’t a white dude on his gap yah!! Doing post-disaster work right is Patama Roonrakwit, who built shelters and schools from recycled materials in Phang Nga after the 2004 tsunami. She also co-founded CASE, Community Architects for Shelter and Environment, and continues to work on successful housing projects for local underprivileged communities.
4. Anupama Kundoo
Anumpana is all about earth-friendly, socio-economically positive buildings. Chic. She has worked on projects in the experimental commune, Auroville, in India and has also taught at the Technical University of Berlin and Parsons the New School of Design (yes that’s right Parsons the original home of Project Runway!!)
