Doreen Vylette King (nee O’Grady) Studied 1967-1968

Doreen Vylette O’Grady was born in 1932 in Australia, where she studied architecture at the Royal Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT University), graduating in 1959. She began her career as a draftswoman in 1958 and worked as an architect with Hugh Peck & Partners in Melbourne between 1961-66. In 1966, she moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where she worked at HSB’s Industrier AB Borohus and Lars & Bo Myrenberg Arkitektkontor, contributing to early designs of the proposed Swedish Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria. On Jacqueline Tyrwhitt’s recommendation, whom she met at a Delos Symposium in Athens, O’Grady enrolled in the Architectural Association’s Department of Development and Tropical Studies in London (1967-68), studying under Cho Padamsee, Alan Mayhew, Thomas Blair, and Otto Koenigsberger. During this period, she conducted a community study of immigrants’ housing in Brixton with Dr Blair and undertook a study visit to the Netherlands. Her thesis, ‘Below the Surface: Shelter for Man’, examined historic and contemporary activities of utilising earth as shelter, arose from her interest in the movement employing underground construction during the Cold War tensions of the 1960s and 70s. Following her studies, O’Grady remained in London, working with practices including Dry Halasz Dixon before establishing her own practice in Kingston upon Thames. Her built projects include a telephone engineering centre in Margate (1968), medical practices in Ealing, and residential developments in Surrey, Putney, and Kew (1974–79). In 1980, she joined the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), teaching Architectural Design and the History of Western Architecture. She later introduced the undergraduate course Tropical Habitat (later Environmental Studies), focusing on passive design, climate, and environmental performance, and covering topics such as ‘Hong Kong Climate’, ‘Energy Efficient Design’, ‘Air Movement and Ventilation’, etc. Promoted to Senior Lecturer, she remained at HKU until her retirement in 1993. 

With grateful thanks to Doreen Vylette King (née O’Grady).

 Sources:

• Architectural Association Archives. Architectural Association Student Register 1945–1972. London: Architectural Association School of Architecture, London.
• Architectural Association Archives. Architectural Association Department of Tropical Architecture: Student Listing, Otto Koenigsberger Collection, Box OK27. London: Architectural Association, London.
• Doreen King, St John’s Cathedral Hong Kong: A Short History and Guide (St John’s Cathedral, 1987).
• Personal correspondence, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, November 2024.
• Personal correspondence, Doreen King to Suet May Lam, 2025-2026.