(click to read)Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
2008.08.08
i) Let the Games begin!
ii) Saw this image in the SCMP today:
The graphics is pleasing, but the event is rather disturbing. A China Airlines plane decided to abort a landing at HK Airport due to strong winds, and so pulls up 100m from the runway to make a detour back to Taipei. Amid high winds and only 100m above ground, is it really safer to fly back into the air (into the wind) as opposed to landing? I'm not a pilot and don't really understand the physics of landing a plane, but my gut instinct is a strong no.
ii) Saw this image in the SCMP today:
The graphics is pleasing, but the event is rather disturbing. A China Airlines plane decided to abort a landing at HK Airport due to strong winds, and so pulls up 100m from the runway to make a detour back to Taipei. Amid high winds and only 100m above ground, is it really safer to fly back into the air (into the wind) as opposed to landing? I'm not a pilot and don't really understand the physics of landing a plane, but my gut instinct is a strong no.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
2008.08.05
I invite you to read this Nytimes article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/sports/olympics/05nest.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) written by Nicolai Ouroussoff regarding the Beijing Olympic National Stadium and tell me your thoughts on his critique. Do you think his detailed, post-construction perspective accurately reflects the design objectives? Or do you think he, like most critics and art historians, attribute more qualities to the architecture than the architects' own intents?
Monday, August 4, 2008
2008.08.04
Madeira Funchal Airport Extension in Portugal: (images from designboom.com)
The elevated runway is simply amazing.
The elevated runway is simply amazing.Sunday, August 3, 2008
2008.08.03
Welcome back. It's been a couple weeks since I updated this blog, and it just seemed like it's about time that I do so. The initial fervor and dedication with which I started this blog has undoubtedly faded a bit, although not for a lack of material. The past couple-weeks have given me plenty of inspiration and topics to write about. I've simply been away, and well, lazy.
On the agenda today: 1) elevators - the mobile vanity unit, 2) Shanghai subway transfer, and 3) the Nike Olympic Games
i) elevators - the mobile vanity unit (MVU)
In the study of architecture, probably not enough literature and thought has been given to the elevator - a wonderful invention that has made possible skyscrapers as well as the simpler task of moving a couch to a fourth floor apartment. We take them for granted of course, as they've been around for as long our memory can recall, and very few of us even acknowledge the fact that riding in an elevator means being suspended in a virtually bottomless chute. Yes, riding up to the 60th floor means there's 60-floors of nothingness below your feet. Sweet! As far as we know, the elevator cabin simply brings us from floors A to Z and back down. The ride is typically smooth and fail-safe, aside from a few glitches that may make you prisoner in the cell awaiting desperate rescue. But then again, there are the roof hatch and emergency call buttons. By all means, the elevator is a safe ride.
Yet, herein lies the missed opportunity in thinking about the elevator as simply a mode of transportation instead of a true architectural space. In fact, a large number of elevator cabins are drab, claustrophobic spaces that warrant little regards, but, as usual, Asia has yet again perfected the banal into an art form. Hong Kong can aptly be characterized as the City of Commerce, Shopping, Culinary Delight, etc., but I choose to label Hong Kong as the City of Reflections. The reflective surface covers all three dimensions of space in the city - from the polished marble floor, to the color-back glass walls, to the chrome ceilings. Reflections are an unavoidable part of the HK experience. Coupled with the people's infamous attention to beauty and image, naturally the combination finds itself manifested in the elevator mobile vanity unit - MVU.
The MVU is simple yet fantastically brilliant. Elevators in HK are thoroughly equipped with reflective surfaces from wall to wall. OL's (aka office ladies) take every opportunity to use the elevator as their private (actually quite public) vanity room - applying makeup, fixing their hair, and generally making sure every piece of their face and clothing is appropriately presentable. In fact, this practice is quite sensibly logical, saving time and maximizing efficiency. Plus it momentarily transforms a public mode of transit - the elevator - into an intimate experience of self-beautification. Other passengers onboard are invited to take in the sight as part of public entertainment, but be forewarned that explicit gazing may be reciprocated with a WTF-are-you-looking-at stare. Fixing one's face, afterall, is supposedly a private matter shielded from the public. Somehow, preservation of public space, even something as public as the elevator, remains one of the most difficult tasks of urban design and architecture.
ii) Shanghai subway transfer
As some of you may know, I spent a few days in Shanghai this past week, and used the extensive subway network as my primary means of transportation. It's fast, clean, and cheap. Trifecta! On one trip, I transferred from the green line (line 2) to the purple line (line 4) at Zhongshan Park station (中山公园）. In typical fashion, the metro map shows the interchange like this (dash line showing my route):
Seeing that I've practiced changing subway lines numerous times before on subways throughout the world (including those in Shanghai), I figured getting from line 2 to 4 would just be like any other experience. But little did I know that switching lines at Zhongshan Park station, perhaps befitting its park name and encouragement for physical recreation, is as much a test in navigation as it is in physical fitness. Rather than the typical hop and a skip from one line to another, I trekked seemingly endlessly stair after stair. Only after I reached my destination did I gather that the trek must've looked something like this:
Yes, that is correct. Getting from line 2 to 4 required approximately 10 flights of stairs. S-T-A-I-R-S. In plan, the two lines simply overlap one over the other, but in section, voila - 10-flights of glutinus maximus toning workout.
iii) Nike Olympic Games
Olympic fever is picking up these days in China and even in Hong Kong. Better late than never I guess. Highlighting pre-Olympic events thus far, at least in Bho's world, are the USA Basketball exhibition games that have been played in nearby Macau and Shanghai. The US has a good chance at gold, but they haven't been as dominant as expected. Their interior defense is mostly absent, and their outside shooting (sans Michael Redd) is suspect at best. A team like Argentina can once again give them fits.
But sports analysis aside, one particular item caught my attention. While watching the USA vs Turkey game the other day, I was struck with a sudden sense of deja vu. No, the game wasn't on replay. What caught my eye were actually team USA's basketball jerseys designed and produced by Nike, and they bore an odd resemblance to team China's basketball jerseys also designed and produced by Nike.
The fronts bear enough dissimilarities to warrant them adequately different. Their trims are the same, but font and color are not. But check out the back:
At first (and second, and third, and fourth, and...) glance, I thought the backs of both jerseys sported an identical pattern. It wasn't until I started typing this blog entry that I realized the patterns are different, but for all intents and purposes, they're identical. No one in the right mind, especially during a fast-paced basketball event, will be able to differentiate the patterns from each other. So essentially Nike produced one jersey design for two rival competitors in the same event. And even more coincidentally, China and USA are placed in the same group for playoff seeding, and in fact the first match of men's basketball on Aug 10 is between these two teams. On one hand, you have the host nation and its throngs of loyal citizens, and on the other hand, presumably the world's most dominant basketball team and its legions of adoring fans. So what will game 1 visually look like on the court? Rather than identifying the game as China vs USA, the identical jerseys pose the risk of the game looking more like a Nike all-star contest between Red Team and Blue Team. Regardless of the score, Nike wins. I have no doubt this was a shrewdly calculated move on the part of Nike marketing, but then again I'm disappointed in Team China's approval of this jersey - one that implicitly and effectively represses national identity and pride in favor of Nike global dominance. I don't necessarily have a problem with corporate success, but it is highly irritating to find that Nike did not make an attempt to distinguish the two teams, and even more irritating to see Team China not reject what is clearly a Team USA outfit.
On the agenda today: 1) elevators - the mobile vanity unit, 2) Shanghai subway transfer, and 3) the Nike Olympic Games
i) elevators - the mobile vanity unit (MVU)
In the study of architecture, probably not enough literature and thought has been given to the elevator - a wonderful invention that has made possible skyscrapers as well as the simpler task of moving a couch to a fourth floor apartment. We take them for granted of course, as they've been around for as long our memory can recall, and very few of us even acknowledge the fact that riding in an elevator means being suspended in a virtually bottomless chute. Yes, riding up to the 60th floor means there's 60-floors of nothingness below your feet. Sweet! As far as we know, the elevator cabin simply brings us from floors A to Z and back down. The ride is typically smooth and fail-safe, aside from a few glitches that may make you prisoner in the cell awaiting desperate rescue. But then again, there are the roof hatch and emergency call buttons. By all means, the elevator is a safe ride.
Yet, herein lies the missed opportunity in thinking about the elevator as simply a mode of transportation instead of a true architectural space. In fact, a large number of elevator cabins are drab, claustrophobic spaces that warrant little regards, but, as usual, Asia has yet again perfected the banal into an art form. Hong Kong can aptly be characterized as the City of Commerce, Shopping, Culinary Delight, etc., but I choose to label Hong Kong as the City of Reflections. The reflective surface covers all three dimensions of space in the city - from the polished marble floor, to the color-back glass walls, to the chrome ceilings. Reflections are an unavoidable part of the HK experience. Coupled with the people's infamous attention to beauty and image, naturally the combination finds itself manifested in the elevator mobile vanity unit - MVU.
The MVU is simple yet fantastically brilliant. Elevators in HK are thoroughly equipped with reflective surfaces from wall to wall. OL's (aka office ladies) take every opportunity to use the elevator as their private (actually quite public) vanity room - applying makeup, fixing their hair, and generally making sure every piece of their face and clothing is appropriately presentable. In fact, this practice is quite sensibly logical, saving time and maximizing efficiency. Plus it momentarily transforms a public mode of transit - the elevator - into an intimate experience of self-beautification. Other passengers onboard are invited to take in the sight as part of public entertainment, but be forewarned that explicit gazing may be reciprocated with a WTF-are-you-looking-at stare. Fixing one's face, afterall, is supposedly a private matter shielded from the public. Somehow, preservation of public space, even something as public as the elevator, remains one of the most difficult tasks of urban design and architecture.
ii) Shanghai subway transfer
As some of you may know, I spent a few days in Shanghai this past week, and used the extensive subway network as my primary means of transportation. It's fast, clean, and cheap. Trifecta! On one trip, I transferred from the green line (line 2) to the purple line (line 4) at Zhongshan Park station (中山公园）. In typical fashion, the metro map shows the interchange like this (dash line showing my route):
Seeing that I've practiced changing subway lines numerous times before on subways throughout the world (including those in Shanghai), I figured getting from line 2 to 4 would just be like any other experience. But little did I know that switching lines at Zhongshan Park station, perhaps befitting its park name and encouragement for physical recreation, is as much a test in navigation as it is in physical fitness. Rather than the typical hop and a skip from one line to another, I trekked seemingly endlessly stair after stair. Only after I reached my destination did I gather that the trek must've looked something like this:
Yes, that is correct. Getting from line 2 to 4 required approximately 10 flights of stairs. S-T-A-I-R-S. In plan, the two lines simply overlap one over the other, but in section, voila - 10-flights of glutinus maximus toning workout.
iii) Nike Olympic Games
Olympic fever is picking up these days in China and even in Hong Kong. Better late than never I guess. Highlighting pre-Olympic events thus far, at least in Bho's world, are the USA Basketball exhibition games that have been played in nearby Macau and Shanghai. The US has a good chance at gold, but they haven't been as dominant as expected. Their interior defense is mostly absent, and their outside shooting (sans Michael Redd) is suspect at best. A team like Argentina can once again give them fits.
But sports analysis aside, one particular item caught my attention. While watching the USA vs Turkey game the other day, I was struck with a sudden sense of deja vu. No, the game wasn't on replay. What caught my eye were actually team USA's basketball jerseys designed and produced by Nike, and they bore an odd resemblance to team China's basketball jerseys also designed and produced by Nike.
The fronts bear enough dissimilarities to warrant them adequately different. Their trims are the same, but font and color are not. But check out the back:
At first (and second, and third, and fourth, and...) glance, I thought the backs of both jerseys sported an identical pattern. It wasn't until I started typing this blog entry that I realized the patterns are different, but for all intents and purposes, they're identical. No one in the right mind, especially during a fast-paced basketball event, will be able to differentiate the patterns from each other. So essentially Nike produced one jersey design for two rival competitors in the same event. And even more coincidentally, China and USA are placed in the same group for playoff seeding, and in fact the first match of men's basketball on Aug 10 is between these two teams. On one hand, you have the host nation and its throngs of loyal citizens, and on the other hand, presumably the world's most dominant basketball team and its legions of adoring fans. So what will game 1 visually look like on the court? Rather than identifying the game as China vs USA, the identical jerseys pose the risk of the game looking more like a Nike all-star contest between Red Team and Blue Team. Regardless of the score, Nike wins. I have no doubt this was a shrewdly calculated move on the part of Nike marketing, but then again I'm disappointed in Team China's approval of this jersey - one that implicitly and effectively represses national identity and pride in favor of Nike global dominance. I don't necessarily have a problem with corporate success, but it is highly irritating to find that Nike did not make an attempt to distinguish the two teams, and even more irritating to see Team China not reject what is clearly a Team USA outfit.
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