PEOPLE

 

Kupi Cultures’ co-founders have both local insight and international perspective, a deep understanding of design thinking, urban place-making and design, architecture and social innovation. Vida Asrina and Joanne Taylor are the co-founders of Kupi Culture.

 

Vida Asrina is originally from Banda Aceh, and after completing her undergraduate architecture studies at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, moved to Sydney, Australia.

Vida graduated from a Master of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), before diving into UTS’ interdisciplinary design thinking entrepreneurship lab, u.lab. Gaining valuable skills and experience at a range of learning, teaching, facilitation and research programs in Australia, Japan and China with u.lab. More recently Vida is leading design projects and facilitating design thinking workshops with Fusion Labs, working on corporate co-innovation programs with some of Australia’s leading big banks, industry unions and property developers. Vida is passionate about people and their interaction with architecture, human-centred design, design thinking, community engagement, cultural and social issues and entrepreneurship.

 

Joanne Taylor graduated in her Masters of Architecture from the University of Technology Sydney and works between Sydney, Melbourne and Banda Aceh. In addition to being a Co-Founder of Kupi Culture, Joanne is also the Co-Director of the Boiler House Studios, an integrated design and research practice based in Melbourne. Joanne is an independent researcher, writer and speaker; an emerging voice contributing to Australian architecture culture and advancing design practice research. The driving force behind Joanne’s work is her deep interest in applying creative strategy to emergent design models and collaborative systems. She draws inspiration from her architecture and design experience to constantly explore how these new practices can be used to drive positive change in a contemporary society.