Studio Pararaum, an international partnership established by Meng Li and Linda Zhang, is an award-winning design, art and architecture studio based in Zürich and Toronto. We consider our practice to be a provocation of space’s capacity to communicate through felt experience—affect as a design process towards lived experience.

 


About

Studio Pararaum has been the recipient of awards, fellowships and funding from the Swiss Arts Council, Ikea Foundation Switzerland, Central New York Arts Council, European Ceramic Workcentre, National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts, Myseum of Toronto, among others. Their work has been exhibited and presented internationally in Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, including the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Milan Architecture Design Expo, Canadian Centre for Architecture, London Festival of Architecture, Syracuse Erie Canal Museum, Toronto Offsite Design Festival, Berlin Institute for Endotic Research and the Berlin Centre of Art and Urbanistics. Both principals understand design research and teaching to be essential for the development of architectural ideas in practice.


Team

Meng Li teaches at the Chair of Emanuel Christ & Christoph Gantenbein at ETH Zurich. She was a Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard GSD where she received a M.Arch I AP with distinction, the James Templeton Kelley Thesis Prize and the AIA Henry Adams Medal. She has also completed the exchange program at ETH Zürich. She received her B.Sc.Arch with honors at McGill University Peter Fu SOA and received the Clifford C.F. Wong and the Favretto Scholarships. She was awarded the first prize in the Lyceum competition in 2011. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Prior to founding Studio Pararaum with Linda Zhang, Meng Li has worked for Diener & Diener Architekten (Basel), Studio Olafur Eliasson (Berlin), Prof. Hans Kollhoff Architekten (Berlin) and Valerio Olgiati (Flims).


Linda Zhang is a registered architect (United States) and an Assistant Professor at Ryerson University RSID. She is the recipient of the 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the EKWC, the 2019 Multicultural Fellow at NCECA (National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts), the 2017-2018 Boghosian Fellowship at Syracuse University School of Architecture as well as a 2017 Fellowship at the Berlin Center for Art and Urbanistics. She was a Dean’s Merit Scholar at Harvard University GSD where she received a M.Arch I AP with distinction, the James Templeton Kelley Thesis Prize and the AIA Henry Adams Certificate. She completed her B.Sc.Archwith honours at McGill University Peter Guo-hua Fu SOA. Prior to founding Studio Pararaum with Meng Li, Linda Zhang has worked for Studio Olafur Eliasson (Berlin), Barkow Leibinger (Berlin), Christian Kerez (Zürich), WOJR (Boston), and Approach Architecture Studio (Beijing).


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