Rome Rain Rooms competition 2nd Prize winner - Jun Ho Lee

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the 2nd Prize winner of our Rome Rain Rooms competition – Jun Ho Lee from United Kingdom!

Please tell us about your company (when it was founded, where it is based, how many employees, etc) Alternatively, if you do not have a company, please give us some insights on your own professional/academia background.

I am currently an ARB/RIBA Part 2 student at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, with previous professional experience in architectural practice in South Korea and the UK.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been Involved?

My experience includes residential, cultural and commercial projects, alongside independent architectural research and competitions.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

For me, architecture begins with attention. Places already contain relationships between people, materials, climate, labour, memory and time. I believe the architect's role is first to observe and understand these relationships carefully, particularly those that have become overlooked or invisible. Architecture can then give them a renewed presence and dignity. I am interested in buildings where material, construction, climate and human experience are not separate ideas, but become one architectural decision. When these relationships are precise enough, architecture can feel inevitable—as though it could not have belonged anywhere else.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

Competitions give me the freedom to ask architectural questions before knowing what the final form should be. Rather than beginning with an image, I use competitions to investigate a brief, a place, and its particular conditions, and to search for an architectural response that could only emerge from them. The limited timeframe is also valuable: it forces an idea to become precise enough to be communicated through architecture rather than explanation. For me, a competition is therefore less an opportunity to produce an extraordinary object than a testing ground for architectural ideas.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

I would recommend entering a competition when its brief raises a question that you genuinely want to investigate, regardless of the result. Competitions are most valuable when they become part of a longer architectural journey. Even an unbuilt proposal can help you discover what you care about, test how an idea becomes material and construction, and clarify the kind of architect you want to become. Winning is meaningful, but the greater value is having created a project that continues to influence the work that follows.