Co-existence with nature
Growing up close to the foothills of Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Bromberg has developed a lifelong passion for roaming in nature. He still regularly hikes up the hills in Hong Kong, where he has now made his home. Each hike grants him a fresh new perspective of the city.
Nature is inherently open and accessible – it does not discriminate. He appreciates the way nature enables us to have deeper connection with our world.
For Bromberg, then, designing a building is not necessarily about getting people from A to B as quickly as possible, vertically or horizontally. Nooks and crannies, light wells, zigzagging elevators, cantilevered landings, crisscrossing giant columns, all serve important purposes in enriching our souls, firing up our imaginations and enabling us to engage with our surroundings more meaningfully.
Roaming architecture
Wayfinding and programming are often intuitively formed in Bromberg’s buildings, leading to unexpected discoveries and encounters. He doesn”t want to be dictatorial; instead he wants users to make discoveries for themselves.
In a way, he is a perfect blend of the East and West, effortlessly combining, on the one hand, the efficient, logical, abstract outlook associated with architecture of the West, which is well suited to serving commercial developments, and on the other, more poetic, mind-bending didactic spatial renditions found in the East, as seen, for example, in traditional teahouses in Japan, designed to change the way we relate to one another as human beings and the world around us.
People-centric, inclusive design
One of the hallmarks of Bromberg’s architectural design is that his buildings are open and welcoming. Fluid, soft edges connect his buildings to the surrounding urban fabric, blurring hard boundaries between inside and outside, between private and public, maximizing accessibility and connectivity, all the while enlivening the streets, neighborhoods and communities in the process.
Cities are man-made. Central to Bromberg’s work is an underlying philosophy valuing not only the environmental sustainability but also human sustainability, manifested as an extension of the public realm and commitment to people’s well-being.