Tssui was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the child of Chinese immigrants, and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Despite the encouragement of his friends and family to pursue medicine, and a wide variety of interests in his youth (including piano and drum playing, martial arts, and flamenco dance), Tssui decided to pursue architecture. After working in numerous offices and institutions, including the Organizing Committee of the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, he was accepted at Columbia University's Graduate School of Design, based on his professional work in architecture offices. His unconventional designs did not match the expectations of the university, and he left to be apprenticed under architect Bruce Goff instead. He later received a bachelor of architecture from the University of Oregon, along with graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned two masters and a doctorate. Tssui specializes in nature influenced architecture, preferring shapes and forms inspired by living creatures and natural constructions to standard rectilinear designs. He has won numerous scholarships and grants for his work in architecture, including those from the Graham Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.