North Sydney bus stops

It looks like the North Sydney’s CBD has forgotten to upgrade their bus stops…

How sustainable is that…?

For almost seven weeks now, the West Metro Studio has been researching and discussing TODs (Transit Oriented Developments). As self-proclaiming ‘intellectuals’ (yes, that will include architects/designers/planners), we pride ourselves in the consciousness, responsibilities and ethical considerations behind every decision we make in creating new buildings, places, cities…

I came across this in a forwarded e-mail recently:

Air conditioned bus stops in Dubai!
(Image from thecontaminated.com)

After so many crazy experiments and intense development Dubai has been through, I can already imagine some nature-loving environmentalists going “sheikh bashing” again. Yes it sure doesn’t look very environmental friendly at first glance, but what about the energy the cold-climate countries use to heat their bus stops? What about your car’s air conditioning system…? From this point of view, I’d say they could be equally as bad.

I guess if you look at this from a different angle, these are not as bad an idea as they may seem. Essentially, the whole concept of creating a TOD is to be more environmentally sustainable by switching from cars to public transportation, by converting drivers into commuters… Well, in an unfavorable weather condition, it is perhaps necessary to provide an artificial environment which will enable commuters to get to their destinations comfortably.

And of course there’s more to this equation — Is it worth it?

That, I do not know. I am not taking any sides just yet, and besides, at the moment I cannot say I’m a very “green” person heheh. But there are always two sides to every story. Well in this case I believe we have to consider the greater good.

Oh well! I just personally feel they could have done a better job designing that bus stop!

Sydney train stations

Hey peeps! Of course I am aware I haven’t updated for awhile now. Just a little pre-occupied with uni, as usual. Well after an incredible series of misfortunes in the past weeks, I’ve finally got myself (pretty much) back on track and I’m now passionately working on the West Metro Design Studio with the MUDD students in uni.

So I am sure some of you will not be too surprised to know that THIS is one of my recent interests:

TRAINS! Woooot~

Well I’ve got more work waiting so I’ve really gotta run soon. But for now, here are some photos of a few of the train stations (a little off the Sydney CBD) I’ve visited recently… The photos were taken collectively in the past month, so yeah, they’re quite up-to-date.

Parramatta Station

The Parramatta Station by Hassell, linked to the retail giant Westfield. My group’s currently working on revitalising the Parramatta CBD with a rail proposal for the city for the West Metro Design Studio. A lot of fun

St Leonards Station

I guess this project’s not as new as the rest, but here’s a photo anyway. The Forum Development by PTW creates a pleasant place for the community which lives/works there. Notice the Dubai-esque theme (with the palm trees and water feature) going on in the courtyard there..

Chatswood Station

New exciting interchange project, at the Chatswood Station by Cox, still under construction.

Can’t wait to see the development of these future retail areas (on the left). It will be interesting to see how shopping activities can feed in to the station’s livelihood when it’s all done, or vice versa. Btw more of the Dubai-esque trees here…

Milsons Point Station

Good ol’ Milsons Point Station, simply blessed by fantastic views of Sydney Harbour Just a stone’s throw from the ferry services.

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Alright that’s all for now guys, will try to update more often! Ciao.

Dateline urbanism

Like all other hosts, Beijing became a gigantic stage on Friday — a spectacle for one of the most celebrated triumphs of humanity, the Olympic Games. There has been a high-profile race, a rush, in the urban development of Beijing: “the auspicious 08/08/08″ became the dateline for the completion of new spectacular architectural icons, the subway system, and even for the urban experiment to clear up the hazy Beijing skies.

And it was indeed exciting, with all these developments as the backdrop for the fireworks on the opening night. How could it not be?! These are the projects that flanked the spreads of archimags over and over and over again in the past year. This dateline saw every inch of Herzog de Meuron’s Birds’ Nest finally complete and fully manipulated for show effects; the Water Cube grandly, but unfortunately not-so-tastefully, lit during the Opening Ceremony; OMA’s CCTV glass facade finally complete…

The GoogleMaps have been updated, go play with it!

View Larger Map

What’s next? Sure the event has changed the face of Beijing forever. The buildings look great on TV, and perhaps even on GoogleEarth. But what will happen after the Games? How can these developments contribute to the city and the country after the Olympic traffic is gone?

Preparations for the Olympic Games in Sydney eight years ago created a whole new suburb, major sports village with sports/expo facilities, and upgraded the city centre as well as many tourist sites. The main Olympic site — Homebush Bay — which once attracted hundreds of thousands of people during the Games, now falls short in its integration with the daily urban life of Sydneysiders.

It will definitely be interesting to see the post-Olympic effects of the Beijing sites in five to ten years time.

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P/s: Oh, the new Google Street View is worth trying out too!

Midweek walk

One of the things I really miss, every time I go back to KL, is walking.

Back home, nobody really walks. The longest walk most Malaysians take (on a daily basis) is possibly from their front door to the car, then from the car to the lift lobby, and then to their office desks. Vice versa. Anything that requires more walking, like shopping, is considered additional exercise.

I don’t know, perhaps this could be changing now with the fuel prices jacked up… But even so, KL doesn’t offer a very pleasant walking experience — the city was never really designed for pedestrians. Oh well!

***

So I was taking a walk around Circular Quay and came across Caritas’ presentation for Blueprint for a Better World: The Millennium Development Goals and You in Customs House, possibly in conjunction with the World Youth Day.

Oh btw while many of my Malaysian and Singaporean friends came to Sydney for the WYD, I – being extremely sick of crowds (the crowd was crazy, or so I heard) – cleverly avoided every bit of it when I was back in KL. Muahahahaha!

People left little notes, joining the effort by making personal pledges towards a better world…

Some of these are actually mind-provoking and quite interesting to read, especially those by kids

Kids, nowadays… are becoming pretty much like mini-adults, just ALOT MORE creative.

Dubai urbanism

There is a new type of urbanism: designing islands and coastlines visible from the sky, recorded by satellites and transmitted across the Internet as jpeg attachments. Technologies that are used to monitor wildlife development, hydrography and land drought is now a tool for global transmission of projects under construction. Post-card GIS and reconnaissance technologies turn into spectacle and telegenic fantasy addressing mass tourism. Dubai’s suburbs are rising from the water, in the form of artificial and prosthetic islands, imitating Venice. Dubai is turning into a postcard portrait city of the future. Satellite imagery of unfinished projects gives rise to the exciting promise of fantasy.
– George Katodrytis, Transcity: Dubai’s Satellite Urbanism.

Designing cities to be visible from the sky. It feels to me like SimCity is being played out for real in Dubai. You’ll get what I mean if you are a fan of Google Earth — zoom in and around the Dubai coastline, you’ll find road networks laid out for future developments.

I guess god-games (SimCity, Civilization, etc.) can be extremely addictive because the player is the planner; the all powerful decision-maker; or, quite literally, a god. Quite similarly, we are now planning and designing cities by gazing down on the action from the ‘heavens’ (or watching city growths from Google Earth, in my case).

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Just a thought – Most human advancements in the history of civilization point towards one fact: Man wants to play god.

Are we there yet?

Consumer culture & technological ruins

I am currently working on my research about “the Consumer Culture & Urban Design” for one of my urban design electives.

And came across this:

“Future Ruins”: A photographic critique on the urban planning in the 1970’s.
(Image credits: Ballardian)

A technological detritus of domestic appliances?

Reminds me of Michael Thompson’s “Rubbish Theory”. There is a disjunction between economic decay and physical decay – most of our gadgets cease in economic value before they ‘die’, which is exactly why my poor CRT monitor is still sitting in one corner of my living room after I got it replaced btw.

Which is also precisely why, “in an ideal world,” Thompson writes, “an object would reach zero value and zero expected life-span at the same instant, and then disappear into dust. But, in reality, it usually does not do this; it just continues to exist in a timeless and valueless limbo where, at some later date it has the chance of being discovered.”

In today’s technological frenzy, things which were extremely cool at one point of time stop signifying our social desires – in almost a blink of an eye – but they continue to exist physically… So the backdated version of Playstation gets tucked in some corner of our storage. And the old car parts sit in some junkyard somewhere out there.

Sure i guess, perhaps in a decade or two, you could sell these things as antiques?

But seriously, what do we (really) do… with all the old Playstations and CRT monitors and old car parts in the world?

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Oh well, I’m leaving the CRT monitor there for now (until I find time to dispose it) so let me know if you need one, FOC!

Okay back to work!

Yawn

BIG FAT YAWN~

So when you are extremely sleepy and also extremely hungry at the same time, which one would you solve first?

Hmmmm…. Ish why do silly little things like that require so much thinking?

Inkblot

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Have been busy with uni (are you not sick of this excuse already? heehee) and messing around in Facebook. Yes yes yesss, I have given in to peer pressure and it turns out to be quite addictive! Lol.

What am I up to these days?

Hmmmm…..

Just a whole lot of nonsense, as a result of trying to de-stress!

Yeah so lately I’ve been thinking about inkblots (among lots of other unrelated weird things), I don’t know why.

I’m so convincedthe inkblot must have been quite significant in our lives. I mean, not everyone can distinguish Picasso’s Guernica but I’m quite sure you could ask any art-deprived person and they MUST HAVE seen an inkblot before! Errr…. am I right?

It turned out that the inkblot is not just your everyday art. There was once psychologists believed that these images could be the secret key to your personality. (I don’t think it’s still very popular now though!) But anyway, I am still wondering if it is fair to say that inkblots are just meaningless smears of ink? Is it just my imagination but is it not fun to come up with new interpretations for the same thing over and over and over again? I am quite fascinated with open-ended things that can lead to endless interpretations……….

And I wonder if this could be related to how a child accomplishes a similar situation when he points at the shape of a cloud and announces that there is a cow in the sky? Or a Mickey? Or a spaceship? Oh well, call me immature but I am still extremely engaged in this ‘cloud-naming’ phenomenon. (And, no, I don’t mean the stratus, cumulus crap….) I know that doesn’t sound very sophisticated for a 22 year old archi student like me!

Arrrrrrgggghhhh… I don’t know where this post is going. I guess I am sleep-typing again.

Don’t worry if you didn’t understand a word I said, I was just thinking out loud.

A letter to Mom

Mommy dearest,

Happy happy birthday. It does break my heart to not be able to wish you in person this year. I can hear the loneliness in your voice through the telephone, as if the physical distance is somewhat tearing you apart. We have now all grown up, and we are all on our way to pursue our ambitions, as you have taught us to do.

Did you know, Mom? That I believe we are now who we are, striving to achieve our dreams, because of dad and you. You have taught us to recognize what we want and to reach out for the best, and only the very best. You have taught us that we must not compromise our passion, for anything else in the world. You have provided the best for us. What we are today, is what you have worked very hard to mould us into.

Did you know, Mom? That all three of us do love you very dearly, although we do not know how to express that sometimes. We are all very grateful for what you have done for us. We are very thankful that you encouraged and supported our decisions to go into all these very-costly-courses. I know it have been quite a challenge, but you must know that we are all working very hard to make you proud. And someday, I believe, you will be!

Please forgive us for the times we may have hurt you in the past.  

Have a good birthday.

Love,
Wei-wei
(On behalf of Wen & Horng)

P/s:
Mom, Wen is terribly sorry. I hope you’d read her blog.

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P/p/s:
I know I said I don’t do emo posts, but I am getting emo because my sis IS extremely-emo now. Sorry!

P/p/p/s:
Wen, don’t blame yourself. I know you love Mom. She knows that too. She will forgive you, because you are the best person that I know! *Hugs*