Hoo-ha-ha Friends is an architecture firm three friends opened in 2013. The name is playful, but their approach to architecture is dead serious. At this year's Design Summit, co-CEO Han Seung-jae brings up collaboration as his central theme in the video. Working alone, he says, only ever gets you exactly what you'd already imagined — real collaboration is what produces something better than that.
His condition is clear: he can't work with people who are content to just get by on their share of the work. On the flip side, he recalls how a project like the Hive headquarters, where everyone involved brought real ambition to the table, ended up exceeding expectations. His take on AI is equally level-headed. It's a tool that does whatever you tell it to, he says, but he asks whether that can really stay as interesting, or last as long, as working alongside actual people, friction and all. And he flags this as a pretty significant question for life in general — the moment you stop treating it as a real question, AI starts looking like the answer to everything. His whole theory of collaboration sits right on that line.
What's in the video is really just a short trailer for the "seven secrets" he'll lay out on stage at Design Summit 2026 — a culture the team has built over 13 years without leaning on soulless AI replication or the old habit of grinding people down. Design Summit 2026 runs Thursday, August 6 through Friday, August 7 at the COEX Auditorium, alongside Korea Build Week and Space Design Fair. Han Seung-jae's talk is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. on the first day, August 6.
