Unless it's the Sistine Chapel, our natural instinct when entering a building is not to look up. But seeing the interior projects of Hong Kong-based architects davidclovers, you immediately have the sense that "something is happening". And, yes - it's above you.
American architect David Erdman (co-founder of the practice with Hong Kong architect Clover Lee) first played with the notion of ceilings being more than one-dimensional when in Rome.
Studying period architecture for the Rome Prize (an American Academy residency, which he won in 2008), he noted a technique that tapped the senses; things that were not so much seen, as felt.
"Like the ceiling," Erdman says. "There is a lower and upper hemisphere to how space is designed, and often we engage only the lower [how we walk, see and navigate the space]."
The Rome projects showed him that by also engaging the upper hemisphere "architecture becomes something that allows for a greater process of discovery and interaction".
In a davidclovers interior, ceilings are not as one might ordinarily expect, sitting statically atop the walls.
Instead, they twist and bend and even disappear, subtly organising, illuminating and enriching the space.