Our LuminaireX Exhibition...

I've just realized that I haven't updated my blog for a long time... I need to pick it up again.

So after I came back to Miami I have been working in my old school as a teaching assistant. The pay is not great but I really enjoy the work. Thanks to Mario I get to do some teaching in studios. The students are really great, they're always curious, energetic and hard working. That had really gotten me excited about teaching.

Last Saturday we had a gallery exhibition at LuminaireX in Miami Design district. Apparently the owner of LuminaireX was intrigued by the students' work so he decided to do a show for our projects. It came out pretty great.

Revisiting Studio Project: COHF

This is one of my portfolio pages for the project: Containment of High Speed forces.
Second year school project. The program is a train station.

Revisiting Studio Project: ELEMENTS

Lately I have been doing some serious Remodeling for my old projects. My fourth year studio project ELEMENTS is an investigation of the deep interrelationship between spatial sequence and action sequences within the space.

Photography: Genre work...

Genre: Exit the city. Reference: Fairy Tale; Fantasy; Cubism Painting (Picasso)

Basically I did a field trip around echo park area, I was fascinated by all the narrow paths in-between the houses. They are all going up to the hill, visually generating a dramatic view for the house or elements far away. I received a very different feeling walking through these paths, for the moment I almost felt like I was on my way of escaping from the city. So I wanted to express the experience by manipulating the photographs I've taken from varies angles and collaging them into one composition to reinforce the dreamlike experience I'm trying to illustrate.

This was fun.

The making of MOVE...

We just had the thesis midterm, in the review I came to realize I still have problem with clarifying my thesis through the work I've produced so far. That sucks.
And now we are supposed to be fully engaged into the production of our project. As for me, sadly I really don't feel the drive in me at this point. in fact, I haven't really felt the drive since the beginning of the thesis semester. Some days I was actually thinking about becoming a concept artist might be more suitable for my nature.

But nevertheless, "I've chosen to take the path of doing architecture, therefore I need to be responsible for that decision as well as for my life." ... I kept telling myself.

Yes, I need to make a kickass thesis. So fuck everything else.

First review / Part design 01 Stair/Path

Today we had the first pin-up review with the thesis advisers. I proposed the first design study--The hybrid STAIR-PATH. One significance is that the user needs to complete the first half of the stair before they can stop or they will fall. The juries were generally happy with the progress I made for my thesis.

My Thesis / Parkour

This is an very insightful video documentary about Parkour. The development of my thesis have been heavily inspired by this new urban phenomenon. Although it's extremely amazing to witness those powerful movement that they're capable of doing, I'm more intrigued by the internal journey they were going through during every move. I believe what makes the Parkour concept valuable to our society is its training of one's mind. This goal is very similar to the idea of Buddhism but with a different method. The Buddhism method of mind development is mostly about passive behavior. The way of overcoming fear is to ignore it. Parkour is encouraging individuals to overcome fear by facing it. Both methods are about strengthen our mind. This kind of strength what our society is lacking. We need to look beyond our body and try to learn from our inner self.

Studio Midterm

We just had the midterm this Friday. The project is to design a temporary classroom sized prototype using more efficient material and structural systems. We proposed a structural system based on curved fold morphology. This is our group's presentation.
During the review, we had a very interesting discussion about the idea of model making. Peter had a valuable point on the role of physical models in the design process. It shouldn't be made solely for the sake of formal representation. Especially in a studio where the focus is about structural performance. The physical model should at least have similar structural behaviors as the project in real scale or perhaps constructed with the same fabrication logic.

Sketch update

Series: Desire