Anna is a qualified architect with experience in architecture, art, and landscape, encompassing work in the UK, China, Japan, the US where she grew up, and Taiwan where she was born. In her early career, Anna worked for Arup Associates
in Hong Kong, London, and Manchester, on the Hong Kong Central Station and Manchester Stadium. She set up Tonkin Liu with Mike Tonkin in 2002. Together they taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture for four years, exploring studies of patterns in nature and in human nature, an area they further explored years later with students at the University of Westminster and at universities in Japan and Taiwan.