Check Out Jimenez Lai’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jimenez Lai.

Hi Jimenez, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I lived in many places—born in Taiwan, came of age in Canada, worked in the Netherlands, and eventually found my path in the U.S. by way of New York, Chicago and LA —and I think that kind of geographic limbo shows up in everything I do. I never quite felt like I belonged to a single architectural tradition, so I ended up borrowing from many and assembled a composite one for myself.

Comics became my early medium of choice: I loved how a text and image composition could hold narrative friction, how a page could build character, structure and story all at once. I didn’t come into architecture only to draw buildings—I came in wanting to make worlds. Some of those worlds are small: a house slotted together like a dinosaur model, a house within a warehouse, a retail store that operates like a moveable jigsaw puzzle, a room that rotates at once an hour, etc. Some are theoretical: my first book was an architectural graphic novel titled Citizens of No Place. Within this book, there was a story about a 12 km tall building, a story about a man time-traveling and meeting a future archaeologist, and the love life of a prehistoric deer hunter. A few other chapters focused on life without gravity inside a spaceship.

This journey led me to many incredible experiences: an installation at Coachella, inclusion in major museum collections, and representing Taiwan at the Venice Biennale. I continue to teach, write, draw, model, and wake up every morning grateful that I get to push these ideas a little further.

Forming Bureau Spectacular wasn’t only about starting an office. It was about establishing a voice. LA gave me the opportunity to pursue atypical work, and I try to return that generosity by making work that engages back—lighthearted, strange, hopeful, but deeply serious about asking: what could architecture be, if we let it be more than building?

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the ongoing challenges I’ve faced is that my work doesn’t always look like “architecture,” at least not in the traditional sense. Early on, it was hard to convince people that a comic book could be a serious design proposal, or that buildings are characters. I have been told that my work is unrealistic and unbuildable, or that certain types of curves, colors, shapes, or proportions imply a lack of rigor. Some reviewers saw my work as unserious, ungrounded, or lacking cause. In the academic world, that can be isolating. In the professional world, it can close doors.

There were moments—especially in the early years—when I felt like I was speaking a language no one else understood. Grants didn’t land. Projects were shelved. I experienced many highs and lows, some left me almost no room to go on. But through all of it, I kept drawing, writing, modeling— slowly building a body of work that could eventually speak for itself.

Things are slightly easier now. However, I still face rejections all the time. The difference is that I no longer see rejection as a verdict—just a contour of the path. The only constant is the work. The people I look up to the most are the ones who constantly do the work, as they keep transforming. That’s what I’ve chosen to do, too. I have chosen this adventure as my path, and these challenges are the natural side effects.

The full circle is that the very things that once felt like liabilities—humor, storytelling, counter-intuitive thinking, structurally implausible compositions—are now an identity I can build from. That’s been a slow lesson: to give yourself time to cultivate, because the world may understand you better once you do.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I work at the intersection of art, architecture, cultural theory, and fiction writing—and I’ve taught at universities for nearly twenty years. Sometimes that means designing buildings or large-scale installations. Other times, it means creating comics, furniture, exhibitions, essays, academic conferences, or producing videos. The format shifts, but the core remains the same: I use architecture as a space to imagine worlds that don’t yet exist—but could.

Architecture is an essential way for humans to tell stories. A building might behave like a protagonist. An interior elevation may function like a comic strip. A drawing can serve as both floor plan and deliver plot points. A building, too, becomes a kind of time capsule—documenting the way of life of its users. I’m interested in how buildings communicate, how space sequences events, and how architecture can be instrumental in character development.

My built work often evokes creature-like qualities—sometimes introverted, other times friendly. I draw inspiration from movies, manga, music, speculative fiction, and the histories of art and architecture.

Bureau Spectacular, my practice, is a vehicle for all of this—a place where discipline wears an easy outfit. Our work ranges from private houses and public installations to utopian stories and speculative proposals. We approach each project with the belief that architecture isn’t just shelter—it’s also a way to ask better questions.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Each morning, I wake up and thank my lucky stars that I get to do this all over again. Sometimes when I get to walk into an incredible building to do work in it, I have to remember to pinch myself: “I should be so lucky.”

And truly, I should be so lucky – in my lifetime, I have had the opportunity to do all these amazing things and experienced unbelievable episodes. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been on this interesting journey, and to live in this beautiful, complex world. I am grateful for my life.

But I don’t think luck is entirely passive. You can create conditions for it. You can do good work consistently, put it into the world with care, and stay curious even when things go nowhere. That doesn’t guarantee anything—but it increases the surface area where luck might land.

Luck, in a different way, is also about chance – a chance we took on ourselves, a chance others took on us, and a chance we took on others. A stroke of luck is when our hopeful yet blind faith is suddenly rewarded. I am a firm believer in taking chances when your hunch feels right.

I try to remind myself that every opportunity comes from my lucky encounters with people—colleagues, students, mentors, collaborators, institutions—who have been generous with their time, trust, and sometimes even with their forgiveness. If I’ve been lucky, it’s because other people helped shape the conditions. I try to return that favor whenever I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bureau-spectacular.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_bureauspectacular/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/0super