University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Architecture Assistant Professor Ho Kyung Lee and Assistant Professor Erin Voss are the 2025–2026 recipients of the Elmer Botsai Professional Practice Fund. The fund supports faculty immersion in the culture and practice of architecture firms outside Hawaiʻi, allowing them to bring global knowledge back to the classroom.
Lee: Timber in tropical contexts
Lee will travel to Portland, Oregon, to be hosted by LEVER Architecture, a nationally recognized leader in mass timber innovation and sustainable material systems. Lee will study research and design, observe project workflows and fabrication processes, and meet with sustainability and fabrication teams to gain insight into how to adapt mass timber for tropical contexts.
“I am incredibly excited to collaborate with LEVER Architecture to understand how their expertise in mass timber can be adapted for Hawaiʻi’s unique environment,” said Lee. “Observing their integrated design process will provide invaluable, cutting-edge knowledge that I look forward to bringing directly back to our architecture students.”
Voss: Māori design principles
Voss will travel to Tāmaki Makaurau-Auckland, Aotearoa-New Zealand, to be hosted by LandLAB, a design-led studio focused on sustainable landscape and urbanism projects. Her exchange will explore outreach methodologies for co-designing opportunities and incorporating Māori design principles to create a strong sense of place. Voss plans to shadow designers, meet with key mana whenua/iwi (local tribal groups), and visit built projects to develop case studies and methodologies to inform future UH architecture courses.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how firms like LandLAB collaborate with local and Indigenous communities to create culturally and ecologically sustainable landscapes,” said Voss. “This is a great chance to learn how outreach and the co-design process is adapted with different Māori communities, which is a model students can engage with in their own projects as they think about place-based design in Hawaiʻi.”
