Fish Design and Architecture is a Boston based architectural design practice established in 2011 by Myoungkeun Kim, and Hyeonjoo Park.
The rapid growth our portfolio from residential renovation projects to institutional projects reflects our willingness and commitment to explore new territories and our agility to manage projects with new challenges. We constantly reposition ourselves in the context of current building industry to achieve ever-changing projects goals using minimum resources available.
Our project experience uniquely ranges from the nation’s top general contractors such as Turner Construction, Moriarty to self-educated, carpenter turned local contractors and those projects take place simultaneously.
Our ultimate goal lies in “tweaking” our everyday practice, particularly in single- and two- family residential building. We strongly believe that even small changes in this typology can lead to quicker and more impactful results, given its share of the current building inventory. For this reason, these seemingly mundane residential structures often serve as the starting point of our projects. We learn from the cookie-cutter projects and they adapt them to meet new goals and needs. This is what we call Wild Architecture - like wild plants that grow and sustain themselves organically.
Wild architecture is a made up term by us to indicate modern vernacular architecture - a built environment achieved by common materials and techniques. Sometimes we call it a “spec” buildings or conventional approaches. While the word often hints at the negative side of projects, it indicates conventional methods that are once successful responses to new challenges back then. Further they are critical as they are the most widely accepted means to build, therefore their impact on the environment is arguably the largest. Lofty sustainability goals Architectural statements may prove to be more are powerful when they are married with common techniques and materials. While only selective projects can achieve credentials such as LEED or ‘Passive House’ credentials, small ideas that are affordable, easily applicable, and widely acceptable easy to be accommodated can be far more effective in decarbonization. Simply, the common Average carpenter- built homes are wild architecture. Like wild plants, wild architecture is more resilient. Therefore, studying common building techniques and materials is the beginning of our process and meaningful to us.
The name FISH serves as a reminder of the core goals of our design process: Fun, Inclusive, Simple, and Healthy. Our aim is to create spaces—or elements of the built environment—that embody these principles. We are passionate about learning, studying, and uncovering possibilities that may not have been immediately apparent.
Establishing design parameters and generating design options based on the parameters are the key in our design process. Whether successful or less successful, exploring the design options reveals something that did not exist before and guides us to move forward.
As a full architecture, and interior design practice, we have been fortunate to build commercial and residential portfolios with design enthusiast home owners, established local businesses, ambitious developers, and local housing authorities.
Fish Design and Architecture is a Massachusetts certified Minority Owned Enterprise since 2013.
Awards
2013 Boston Society of Architects Biennial Exhibition Finalist
2011 MD AIA Design Award with Machado & Silvetti Associates
2011 NEAIA Design Award with Machado & Silvetti Associates
2011 Shift Boston Barge Design Competition Finalist
Hyeonjoo Park is a partner of the firm with over 25 years of experience domestically and abroad, and registered architect in Massachusetts, Arizona, and Rhode Island. She brings a wide range of design expertise and project management skills, spanning from retail development to complex institutional projects in healthcare and higher-education sectors. Her meticulous approach to design and problem-solving enriches our process and contributes to the success of each project she handles. As a managing principal, she oversees quality control and contracts of all projects, and leads research efforts on particular design issues when arise. She graduated from Korea University with Bachelor’s degree engineering in architecture and received Master ofArchitecture degree from Georgia Tech. She was awarded with SGF prize for her thesis ‘Movement in Time’.
Myoung(keun) Kim is a partner, registered architect, passive house consultant, an educator, and a licensed builder with over 25 years of experience. In 2024, he was appointed as assistant professor at Cummings School of Architecture of Roger Williams University where he has been involved in teaching design studio over 10 years. Prior to founding Fish Design and Architecture in 2011, he worked with prestigious architectural practices in various capacities, including Goody Clancy, Gensler, Kyu Sung Woo Architects, and Machado Silvetti Architects. At Kyu Sung Woo Architects, he was one of the project architects for the Asian Cultural Complex project that was the UIA international competition winner. At Machado Silvetti Architects, he was a vice president and a project manager for the award winning Civic Building at Veterans Plaza project in Silver Spring, MD. He is also active in academia exploring topics around hidden places in our cities and towns. Hidden places are everywhere around us s but most of us do not notice them or simply pass by them. The Hidden Place studio has explored topics around water distribution systems, waste treatment facilities, tank terminals, and transitional housing. He graduated Korea University with Bachelor's degree in engineering in architecture, and MIT with an M.Arch.
