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During our interview, Chang reflected on the experiences that had shaped his outlook over the years. Having grown up in a predominantly Chinese-speaking environment and attended a Chinese-language school, he found himself outside his comfort zone when he moved to Australia to study architecture.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t really speak English even though I had learned a bit of it. When my lecturer asked me to explain more about my presentation, I stood there, nervous and a bit lost,\u201d Chang recalled. Although studying in Australia was initially a culture shock, he found parallels between Melbourne\u2019s multicultural environment and the diversity of his hometown, Kuala Lumpur.<\/span><\/p>\n Another formative experience happened in his childhood. \u201cMy father was a contractor. During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, many contractors lost their jobs or were put on tight contracts so in order to survive, they opened hawker stalls or kopitiams,\u201d shared Chang.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n His father opened a kopitiam along Petaling Street, where Chang spent much of his childhood. He has fond memories of the bustling businesses and eateries in the neighbourhood, making its subsequent decline all the more poignant.<\/span><\/p>\n As an architect, Chang was frustrated that he could design buildings but had little control over what happened inside them once they were completed. \u201cI started to think: what can architects do besides consulting? Why don’t we just do our own projects? I think the hardware is important but the software is often missing,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n For Chang, culture is not confined to buildings. It also takes shape through the interactions between the people who use them. That was partly why he started ChoCha Foodstore. He is proudest when people \u201cforget about the space or design completely because they are too busy living inside, having fun in the space and enjoying being creative.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Chang sees his projects in Chinatown as part of a growing cultural ecosystem. His team continues to explore opportunities in the neighbourhood. \u201cSlowly, we may venture into programs like co-living that might help bring life back. There\u2019re almost no residents living in this part of town. We want to bring that back,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n After all, when done well, a project stops being just about building. \u201cIt becomes a platform, and the real power of a platform is that it builds a community,\u201d Chang asserted in the closing of his talk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n During our interview, Chang reflected on the experiences that had shaped his outlook over the years. Having grown up in a predominantly Chinese-speaking environment and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/97800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}CULTURE IS NOT CONFINED TO BUILDINGS<\/span><\/h2>\n
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