Clara Koh obtained her Diploma in Product and Industrial Design at Temasek Polytechnic in 2002. During her training as a student, she was selected to go on a 5 month internship program at the IKEA head office in Sweden and had designed products that were sold worldwide. Subsequently, Clara was offered a direct entry into the Masters Course at the prestigious Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands. She graduated with a Masters in Conceptual Design in 2008, under the mentorship of Gijs Bakker, founder of Droog Design in The Netherlands.
Together with Alvin Ho, Clara founded HOKO studio - a Design Research Laboratory focussing on the investigations of the phenomenal conditions situated in our everyday. Besides exhibiting and collaborating with practitioners from various disciplines, HOKO has directed and produced exhibitions extensively in European cities such as Berlin, Liege, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Milan, and also locally at The Substation, Old City Hall, and the Singapore Art Museum. HOKO was the recipient of the Capability Development Grant, and the Overseas Promotion Partnership Programme Grant from the Ministry of Information, Communications and The Arts, Singapore.
As an educator, Clara has been lecturing and conducting workshops at tertiary colleges like Singapore Polytechnic. She was also a design trainer in various secondary schools locally, and had experience as a guest mentor in Shih Chien University,Tapei, as well as Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Clara is currently sharing her experience at SOTA and is involved in developing the Design curriculum.