Asking, Looking, Playing, Making: a nature-focused design process

Anna Liu and Mike Tonkin, co-founders and directors of Tonkin Liu Architects: Architecture, Landscape, Art, will discuss their new book, Asking, Looking, Playing, Making: a nature-focused design process (RIBA Publishing, April 2025).

Tonkin Liu maintains that there is a current need to achieve beautiful buildings rooted in a sense of place. To do this, applying insights from their practice and teaching, Asking, Looking, Playing, Making enables readers to follow a tried-and-tested, structured and holistic design process that is beneficial across a variety of disciplines from architecture to art and landscape design, and links placemaking to technical innovation.

An investigative storytelling process in four concise, adaptive stages, and deploying appropriate creative tools, draws on influences from culture and nature as part of investigating the specific circumstances of the project.