Australian architect Kerry Hill dead at 75
Australian architect Kerry Hill, the designer behind some of Asia’s most notable resorts and the inaugural recipient of AHEAD Asia’s Outstanding Contribution award, has passed away aged 75.
Graduating as one of the first architecture students from the University of Western Australia in 1968, Hill worked for practices including Howlett & Bailey and Palmer & Turner before founding his eponymous studio a decade later in Singapore. Working extensively throughout tropical Asia over four decades on acclaimed hotel projects including The Datai Langkawi in Malaysia, Aman Tokyo, and The Lalu Hotel, Taiwan, Hill developed a style that would seek to combine abstract statements with locally-influenced accents and underpinnings.
Championing context-sensitive structures, an approach that drew from indigenous building techniques and a distinctive thread of modernist aesthetics, Hill’s work formed a key touchstone in the development of the region’s current hotel aesthetic.
One of Hill’s final projects, Shanghai’s Amanyangyun, will be reviewed in the forthcoming September/October issue of Sleeper. You can watch Hill discuss his unique hotel design philosophy with Dezeen and AHEAD in the video below, recorded in 2017 shortly after the latter awarded him the Outstanding Contribution prize for his widely-praised services.
