Imagine Bangalore

In Bangalore [visits courtesy and generous support of TEKNION ASIA between 26th to 28th August 2005] work has gone at such incredible pace and scale that office designs are slowly beginning to be driven from concepts previously reserved for cities or campus planning. At such paces, one sees that many proposals begin to generate profoundly interesting new directions for work place internal environment theory and also viewpoints on the application of space planning concepts.

See also Imaginecity.blogspot.com

A Global Design Style-Universal?

The generalisations and universal standards slowly become embodied and accepted as norms in our design systems and as embraced by today's technology will undoubtedly make all archtecture designs more global than it already is, mainly in its physical manifestation. Is there not therefore a UNIFORM or UNIFIED style for the new Millenia is now the pressing question.

Designer Websites to Visit

These are good sites [gems] to visit for those seeking to view products or furniture designs at a glance:
www.dwr.com [design within reach]
www.designboom.com

cinema paradiso

One of my favourite films, it demonstrates the powerful connection between two persons on so many different levels, the two individuals sharing the same passion for everything from films to women to life. Many wonderful cinematic gems and creative angles and shots. To be seen many times over.

Melissa Cruise

An extremely elegant design has come forth from a student whose visual ability is undoubtedly excellent. She executes an idea with ease, but she also manages her mental image of a project just as well, conceiving it. Melissa has obvious rare talent, and she must continue to work intensely with CAD, and that also she has to recognize her special ability to “eye-ball” her things, and put sense into most of what she draws or hopes to draw. She is very fortunate in this sense.

Her project is interesting for a number of reasons. It has been well executed graphically, and yet the program is also interesting, one wonders if indeed if the two building types should be made to blend into one another if the resulting spaces immediately loses character, or personality, and if this is NOT uninteresting, or good. If so, the building that Melissa has given us is pure and simple. She needs to ask if this is satisfactory, for herself. A unique opportunity for her to identify with a style, or a vocabulary so that indeed she can now, with licence, add “character” to her model. She’ll make a good architect no doubt. I enjoyed her work.

Kuo-Yi [Ken] Shen

The starting point of making a reference to a graphic image of a bottle and its cap, or some device with an aperture and a container, supposed to be used as a basis for a concept is both difficult to consume or understand, nor is it of much interest to most. However Ken might indeed have something hidden away, to be revealed at the end perhaps. yet at the end, there was building, rather simple, legibly a building with al the correct spaces, and perhaps not as extraordinary as he had made it.

The real project is one of senses. This is where Ken scores. The application of colors and introducing very graphic interior elements helped to clarify and position the project, but sadly, perhaps not, the blind man cannot appreciate these things. it is really a project that should be developed around the blind man and his inability to see color let alone shape, form and so on. ken landed a big fish, but its not certain if he wants to cook it the way it should be. Needs more work redefining the concept. Go back to step 1, and restart. It should work.

Nicholas Simak-Arese

A very key and significant feature of Nick’s work is that he is certain and fond of the aesthetic. The mechanistic look and feel of the building was maintained throughout the entire process. This is good, and it develops nicely into a legible and sensible building. The potential is there to make more of the wire-stuff that is the rails to transport or even hang works of art . The axonometrics are attractively drawn, but we need to see more of the spatial quality of these things. The clarity of the scheme is obvious, the choice to execute the project in the terms of colours and material again is very impressive, and represents great opportunities for him. These systems have to be translated into enviable and exciting spaces, and not left as diagrams. he understood this and this is therefore a commendable work for the time taken to develop it.

Lu Ying-Mu [Sonia]

Sonia seemed focused, and this is good. Her work is simple, and the inventive suggestion to place a wall that might assist wit the concept of “change” is interesting. Essentially a project that meets all the criteria, technically, but not taken far enough to “win awards”. In so far as developing the concept to a level of resolution, again no. But Sonia has something clever about her building, and this is not yet brought out, unfortunately. The movable wall is left merely as a animated sequence, no doubt impressive, but sadly doesn’t quite add to the project in the way that we had imagined possible. Classroom turning out bars at night or indeed if it was the reverse, this is not clearly shown. Time perhaps will tell. The skylight idea of “holes” in the sky is very attractive, like her door, and the movable wall. Lacking a detailed development , that’s all.

Marguerite Murray

A very suggestive beginning, water features abound, the forest concept, and a potentially attractive environment for an office design. Yet Marguerite had not done that one image, a collage of an office-forest, or a themed garden. Her sketches in fact are wonderful, and almost seem completely belittled by her technical drawings, which seem to remove all of the sensuous and richness of the original scheme. Ideas thinned out as quickly or as soon as an internal elevation or a plan is drawn into CAD.

The ideas for an office-garden building are aplenty, the one here is lacking execution of a detailed design. An internal perspective is missing an essential part of her schema has not been represented in the final round. Even a simple but detailed section would suffice to demonstrate the power of this project. Marguerite understood the lack of resolution, and she knows what is required to make this a great project. Many of the features of her project were there, waiting to be detailed and drawn. Her encounter with CAD is worrying, she has to be able to make CAD a tool and not a stumbling block. Her sketches reveal so much more.

Kara Cristaldi

To simply say this project is ordinary would be unfair. Then again Kara had not made this an opportune project for spatial expression, or differentiation. As a building that has all the necessary functions and one that works, it would suffice to say the project has been developed to a reasonable level of resolution or detail. However it needs to be said Kara’s work lacks fire, it lacks personality or character, simply due to the fact that she had not taken an artistic position, or decide on an art direction for the Project. His would have added some “spirit” to the work.

The project may not be so memorable as a result of Kara’s discretion, or lack of it. An entrance is grand in scale, but may be quite ordinary in design, can be unfortunate. Kara’s starting point of making a series of connecting gallery-classroom spaces has turned out to become a building that is very large, and lacking intensity somehow. No intensity because the entire building is seen to be flat, even and monotonous. Kara could easily have made the entrance more “intense” or that one of the floors take on a “feature”, whatever. The stairs and ramps idea that she started out with quite simply disappeared, and became service cores, whereas in fact they are key elements that make up her project initially. Her project is not aggressive enough, needs personality. Kara indeed needs to put herself into the project a bit more.

Jay-Michael Dompor

Fortunately Jay has an approach that is grounded on personal first experience. the site seemed important , but it is also trivial, in that it doesn’t make great sense to derive so much for so little in terms of conceptualizing something so “commercial”. No doubt Jay has conviction, at least about retail and how to give a cultural reference to his work. Slightly too “responsible” and too “responsive” if it can be said. The idea that art or spaces that contain it must occupy a higher floor, or that retail is to be hidden away, or placed in the basements, is not that convincing, at least if we look at how retail in the real world doesn’t put art outside their realm. Today's examples, the Cartier Foundation, being a recent witness, shows that retail and art or culture, or its awareness, must come together for a successful programme. Jay really needs more time to grow out of his “responsibility” or his gravitation towards a politically correct building. If it might be fairly said, this is totally unnecessary at this point of his career.

Constanee 'Coke' Johnson

Constanee started out with some very promising diagrams representing her intent. Very clearly stated they were immediately attractive, and had great potential. Later, these "ideas" remained undeveloped,, their spatial qualities left mostly unexamined, and not quite developed to the expected level of detail. It may perhaps be due to a lack of conviction on Constanee's part more than anything else. The idea of clustering spaces and making them interlock with each other would have worked well for a scheme of this scale. For Constanee this was not yet accepted as part of the her later schematic.

Had the project had been simply a set of fingers or pods, cloaked in a soft exterior, a transparent skin, this would have been quite acceptable and adequate, even interesting. Constanee had not had the time perhaps to see the details. her work remains a diagram, albeit a very strong one. She needs time to look into the scale of her building, and move into making this a spatial experience, and not something that necessarily makes any conceptual impact alone. The execution of a simple concept should be more important that to merely justify it, or provide rationale.

ANAPURNA AKKINENI

PROFESSOR Philip Beh’s comments would have been completely valid. Anna’s project is ordinary if she had not taken into her stride more complexity. The two elements have potential to be composed under many more complex [less simplistic] ways, and under many more conditions. Still Ann has developed the scheme to a level of detail that is fairly resolved, and the project does not lack interest. The façade elements, the dividing main wall between entry and spa-forest is good.

The entire project seems have a simplistic but bold idea of casually placing rooms in a garden setting. Whilst this can be quite ordinary, if Ann puts in other opportunities, such as massaging the size of the various rooms, or elevating them to different heights, or merely adding a third depth or layer to her project, this would give her more room for development.

Also for the best part, she is able to proceed quite logically with a set of probably beautiful drawings showing how louvers work, and how the garden needs to be planted, and so on.

Vincent Levu Tran

Vincent’s approach to his architecture might be graphic, but perhaps it's too graphic, it is as if he fast-tracked “Frank Gehry” on the first stroke, almost AT ONCE. Somehow with a work such as Vincent's, one hopes there can be more process, simply because one lacks the clarity of a “method”. These steps must be not evolved out of or from a well-defined process. Vincent works directly off his “mental image” of a project, not yet and not quite a systematic and logical way of “assessment” and evaluation of his idea. Vincent will need enormous amount of work to come to understand [better still appreciate] design process, and prototyping, a system of logical ways to assess the results of a visually driven idea, whether of curves, overlapping planes, twisting stairs or vertical shafts of spaces within a building, he needs guidance to appreciate the work in hand. Not totally lost, the design can be interesting, but he needs more polishing of his style of expression.

Building Types: The End

I have been interested to share the concept of design for life for many years. Having trained at the Architectural Association, in England and worked in France and China and now based in Kuala Lumpur, I continue to search for design methodology that works for all cultures.

It is possible, perhaps to do away with all concept of building typology and re-emerge a new concept of universal type for modern times. At ZLG, where we attempt designs based on what we know, the line between any two differnet building forms and functionality can be so narrow we no longer define the space according to their functions, rather to the look and feel of the particular area or zone.