WEDA 2023: Ong Sun Sun on embracing growth from designer to Design Director

by Aisha Capulong

Sun Sun — the energetic Design Director at Buildnberg — approaches both life and work with an open mind, which has helped her foster a creative environment where innovation thrives through spontaneous learning

With her enthusiastic spirit, Buildnberg’s Sun Sun is someone who is easy to develop a fondness towards. Having first started in the industry as a designer, she sees life entirely spontaneously and is always quick on her feet at solving issues as they came. Now a Design Director, Sun Sun encourages her team to approach their projects in a similar vein, and to not be afraid of making mistakes as they learn.

At the question of what ‘female designer misconception’ she has had to dispel, she expresses how she has been lucky to not have come across any moments like so in her illustrious career. Nevertheless, Sun Sun strongly believes that there are many roles that women can do just as well as their male counterparts, or sometimes even better! She reinforces this with how women can wield their attention to detail and ability to coordinate between various departments to reach for the positions of leadership they dream of.

A big source of inspiration for Sun Sun is Hong Kong & London-based interior designer, Joyce Wang. She absolutely admires Wang’s multi-cultural, collaborative approach and is fascinated by how Wang is very involved in all aspects of her design, from material sourcing to even creating one-off bespoke fittings for her projects.

Despite this, Sun Sun’s truest role models are closer to home: her parents. “My mum, she wholeheartedly intends to seize the day every day. My dad, he taught me [that] I don’t have to be perfect — I just have to give it [my] all, no matter how small or unimportant the task may seem at the time.”