RISD : Rhode Island School of Design : PROFILES




LILIANE WONG risd connection: Professor, Department of Interior Architecture; at RISD since 1999 about her work: As a principal of Mahon Wong Associates in Cambridge, MA, and a consultant architect at Fletcher Harkness Cohen Moneyhun in Boston, Liliane Wong has taken on many public and commercial projects in the northeast and beyond. Her award-winning work in library design can be seen at the Rowan University Library in Glassboro, NJ; Montclair [NJ] Public Library; Merriam-Gilbert Library in West Brookfield, MA; and St. Lawrence University Library in Canton, NY, among others. Between lecturing at Boston Architectural Center and teaching and overseeing RISD’s Interior Architecture Department, she has also completed such commercial projects as the Falcucci Marble Factory and Showroom in Boston and the kore furnishings line for Hodkinson Associates. about her teaching: Having long volunteered at soup kitchens and homeless shelters, Wong recently expanded her interest in affordable housing. With a grant from the Haney Foundation, she has incorporated these interests into RISD studios through a course called Modular, Demountable and Green and another that challenges first-year graduate students to design and build site-specific furnishings for the Pine Street Inn’s transitional shelters in Boston. Why focus on the shelter context rather than more typical private residences? “I want students to see that design has a wide spectrum and can be used as a tool in a larger human context — that it’s not just for people who can afford to pay for it,” she explains. With an undergraduate degree in Pure Mathematics, Wong is preparing to teach a new graduate seminar called Branes, Lines and Doughnuts, which focuses on the connections between design and mathematical theory. selected awards + publications 2002 Women in Design Award, Boston Society of Architects, design of Clear Perception Studios Montclair [NJ] Public Library interior architecture featured in American Libraries, April 1999, and Library Journal, January 1999 kore furnishings line for Hodkinson Associates featured in Interiors, January, 1999 Boston Society of Architects’ Women in Architecture Award for design of Rowan University Library, Glassboro, NJ, 1994 Design of US Embassy in Amman, Jordan, featured in Architectural Record, May 1993 selected exhibitions 2002-03 Women in Design traveling exhibit, 2002/2003 2001 Digital Library studio exhibit, Mass College of Art 2000 Built Boston traveling exhibit 1999 AIA New England Exhibition 1999 RISD Faculty Biennial 1994 Women in Architecture, Boston Society of Architects education Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Masters in Architecture, 1985 Vassar College, BA in Mathematics, 1981 (Phi Beta Kappa, Townsend Fellowship)