TCA Architects

Chengmei (May) Ren

tcaeditor - Dec 04, 2018

Chris Williams

tcaeditor - Dec 04, 2018

Chris Williams is the Director of Planning at TCA with over 25 years of experience in planning, architecture and landscape architecture design. Dedicated to pushing a project forward, problem solving and efficiently achieving the client’s goals, his contacts within the land development industry and knowledge of Building, City and County codes help to propel a project through the entitlement process with minimal interruptions.

Prior to joining TCA, Chris worked as an Associate Partner with MVE & Partners, focusing on high density and high profile multifamily and mixed-use projects. He has successfully guided more than 400 projects through entitlement for clients. Because the details are what ultimately bring a project together, he works closely with clients to understand their goals and studies the site to create designs that maximize potential. Chris has developed a deep knowledge of the entitlement process through his extensive experience in the field of design and land development.

Chris received a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design from the University of Oklahoma. He currently resides in Santa Ana and enjoys world adventures such as Running with the Bulls in Pamplona and treks in the Himalayas.

Sandy Chung, AIA

TCA Staff - Nov 29, 2016

Sandy Chung is a Principal and Project Design Director at TCA with over 20 years of design experience in high-density, multifamily, mixed-use projects and urban master plans. She has led project designs from conceptual phase through schematic design, with typologies ranging from wood podiums to dense urban high-rises. Her experience in planning and entitlement procedures makes her a valuable asset to TCA as well as our client base.

Prior to joining TCA, Sandy began her career in multifamily architecture at Togawa Smith Architects, where she first developed a passion for housing design. She also gained international experience at RTKL, then living and working in Hong Kong, where she experienced the epitome of high-density urban livability.

Sandy’s recently completed projects includes TCA’s first pre-fab modular building, 6th Street Place, an affordable housing project located in the heart of LA’s Skid Row.

Sandy holds a BA from Wellesley College and a Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Sandy is a licensed architect in the state of California.

She is proficient in Revit and AutoCAD, SketchUp, Adobe Creative Suite, Blubeam; Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. She is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

Wini Wang, NCARB, LEED AP

TCA Staff - Nov 29, 2016

As a Associate Principal and Studio Director, Wini Wang has worked on several mixed use and high density residential projects at TCA. Her design efforts include Merriweather, a 7-story wrap apartment with ground floor retail, in Columbia, MD (adjacent to the famed Merriweather Post Pavilion); AT Dublin, 4 story wrap apartment building with retail in Dublin, CA; and BTC, 6&7-story podium apartment buildings and hotel in Burbank, CA.

Prior to joining TCA, Wini’s experience included high density podium projects throughout California, as well as international projects in China and Dubai. She also worked at Moshe Safdie Architects in Boston, and was involved in the design of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, and Marina Bay Sands Resort in Singapore. She also has hands-on construction experience at a high-end residential design build firm. One of the custom designed pieces was showcased at ICFF in New York City.

Wini received her Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Duke University and her Master’s in Architecture from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. She is a licensed architect in Massachusetts and a member of NCARB and USGBC.

Tak Katsuura, AIA

TCA Staff - Nov 29, 2016

Tak Katsuura has over 17 years of experience designing a range of projects, including retail, residential and master planning. Since joining TCA in 2014, Tak has been the lead designer on numerous multifamily and mixed-use projects, taking them from concept, to entitlements, to schematic design. He was responsible for the design of 1950 Addison, a seven-story infill building located in downtown Berkeley; Modera Rincon Hill, a high-rise in San Francisco; and Sand City, a master plan with two hotels and two residential buildings. Tak enjoys designing urban sites to support the revitalization of cities and communities.

Before joining TCA, Tak worked as a design director at JRDV Architects in Oakland, CA. At JRDV, he led the design of both international and local projects including Suzhou Village (Suzhou, China), Shanghai Village (Shanghai, China), the Oakland Coliseum Specific Plan (Oakland, CA) and San Pedro Market (San Jose, CA.) The San Pedro Market project was awarded the AIA Santa Clara Valley Chapter Design Merit Award and the San Jose Business Journal’s Community Impact Award.

Tak is a Bay Area native and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He currently lives in Oakland and enjoys building furniture and Japanese woodworking.

Bryan Walker

TCA Staff - Nov 29, 2016

Armine Movsesyan, AIA, LEED AP

TCA Staff - Nov 29, 2016

Armine Movsesyan is a Principal, Studio Director and licensed architect at TCA with over 17 years of experience in single family, multi-family, urban infill & mixed-use housing projects. Armine joined TCA in 2014, and her design talents elevated her to a Studio Director position, where she currently leads her team through the process of Entitlements to CA Phase. Through the process, she works closely with the designer and technical staff in-house, as well as coordinates with clients and consultants. She also plays an integral role in the design of TCA’s annual design journal, Base.

Prior to joining TCA, Armine was a Designer at LCRA, specializing in single family and multi-family housing worldwide, including Dubai and India. In her seven and a half years with LCRA, she grew as a designer by working closely with her mentors at the firm. As a result, she carried several single family residence additions and remodels through permit and construction.

Born and raised in Armenia, Armine moved to the United States in 1993 at the age of 12. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from California State University of Pomona in 2006 with Magna Cum Laude. In 2004, she studied in Florence, Italy as part of her Architecture curriculum; and believes her experiences of living in different parts of the world supports her innate ability to understand and deliver beautiful high-performing, functional designs.

IRWIN YAU, AIA, LEED AP

TCA Staff - Nov 15, 2016

Irwin Yau is the Principal-In-Charge (PIC) of TCA’s Orange County office with over 20 years of architectural design experience. As the PIC, he works closely with multiple Studio Directors and Designers, focused on high density housing projects throughout the state. Irwin started at TCA as a designer and is still heavily involved with the design process and guides multiple projects with national clients from initial conceptualization through design and completion of construction. He enjoys the challenge of designing complex projects and obtaining approvals from demanding municipalities that can positively affect local communities. As Principal-In-Charge, Irwin oversees the operations and profitability of the OC office and works closely with TCA leaders to ensure the success of their projects.

Since he began his tenure at TCA, Irwin has designed and built over 20 projects and 5,000 units. He is a proponent of collaborative design and teamwork by working closely with TCA’s design staff to explore all possible avenues and options. He is skilled in analyzing sites to develop a product that balances the needs of the client’s program with the community’s desires.

Aside from his project responsibilities, Irwin is a Partner at TCA, involved in multiple facets of the firm’s business, internal structure and future planning. In addition to recruiting and leading the Orange County office, he is engaged in the training, mentoring and professional development of the teams.

Irwin is a graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a Bachelor of Architecture degree. He continued his education with postgraduate work at Columbia University in New York, earning a Master of Science in Advanced Architecture degree. His combined education and experience have provided the requisite design skills to create dynamic architecture through a hybrid process of hand drawings and computer 3D visualization.

RADZIAH LOH, AIA, LEED AP

TCA Staff - Nov 15, 2016

A partner at TCA, Radziah Loh has been in the architectural industry for 30 years, working on single family homes, mixed-use, and residential housing to airport terminal projects. She is licensed in the states of California and Arizona, but her work covers across the US, Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Since returning to California in 1999, Ms. Loh worked for notable firms such as, MVE & Partners, KTGY, and Steinberg Architects. She has been involved extensively in mixed use multi-family projects and in Transit Oriented Development (TOD) projects. Having managed more than a dozen such projects with sizes ranging from 167 units to 660 units, Ms. Loh has established herself as an expert on “podium” and “wrap” type projects and is very well versed in the code issues pertaining to such projects.

Ms. Loh is highly involved in her community, taking part in many different local groups including El Cerrito Boyscouts Troop 104 where she served as Treasurer, and was a Commissioner and Chairperson for the Design Review Board Commission from 2009 to 2013.