New Year_ 2011

I know the city gettin ready for me
I know the city gettin ready for me
Are you
...ready to go?
I know the city gettin ready for me
I know the city gettin ready
Are you

...ready to go?
I know the city gettin ready for me
I know the city gettin ready
                                      - Good Friday, Kid Cudi




First things first, Happy 2011! I got a new portfolio website under the Atelier RE moniker. One day, I'll get this blog full steam rolling- say this week? I got some reviews of the new Resnick Pavilion at LACMA and others. For the time being, check out the new site. (Preview below...)

Welcome Back MDP

PRECURSOR TO DESIGN FICTION

I had real joy viewing Neil Denari's Artless Drawing at the Ace Gallery. I am still pondering Mike Yong's (of Chicago Art Criticism) critique as well. What is even more fun is manipulating Neil's work...

more images to come ...

PACING AND PROGRESSION

"Temporal pace can sustain itself by its own momentum only locally and briefly."

- George S. Dickerson

IN SEARCH OF THE PRIMAL

There is a really keen young generation of architects in Japan that is questioning minimal/primal architecture and their endless yet ambiguous possibilities. One notable designer is Sou Fujimoto based in Tokyo. He has recently conducted a workshop at UCLA AUD Program and gave the last lecture of their 2009 - 2010 series entitled 'Primal Future'. He discussed his view of architecture through a comparison of a nest vs a cave. One is designed for a sole function of shelter, made of natural elements retouched by the nest's creator, and for immediate ease of comfort. The other, the cave at this point, can be used for shelter as well, represents natural elements to their fullest, and gradually takes accustomed to get used to in terms of occupation. The cave can be, and has been, adapted through creative usages. Thus, Fujimoto's work is an exploration of both creative usages of users and comfortable functions of spaces. 
 
There is a great blog that catalogs these concepts explored by Fujimoto, his peers and predecessors by ROLU called White Out by Nic the Intern .




As I recover from my cold, I pondered...
' How many tools do designers need and how many choices do users want?'

   

PAMPHLET SERIES II

With a touch of Nanjing Metro...for now

PAMPHLET SERIES

I took a play from designer Kuba Sovinski of 2+3 Magazine. 

SAANA @ ELLIS ISLAND

what is not present can be as important as what is present.

Check out ArchDaily's coverage of Kazuyo and Ryue receiving the 2010 Pritzker Prize at Ellis Island in New York. (Full Link)

GETTING THE DUST OUT

OFF THE BOOKS

As you can see, the blog has been named 'Atelier RE'. To simply put it, Atelier RE: is the brand that I wiil conduct all  my architectural speculations, media investigations and overall design frenzy under. I have more details to come, and for the summer, please expect see more small daily posts, more essays and hopefully, more projects. I am currently re-visting my photo collections from my urban studios in Europe and China (2006). So please enjoy a few samples re-touched:

    

ADAM GREENFIELD AND MARK SHEPPARD - URBAN COMPUTING AND IT'S DISCONTENTS

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

The following a 15 minute presentation of a discussion of Mark Sheppard and Adam Greenfield’s Urban Computing and its Discontents. The presentation was collaboration with fellow Media Design Students : Aarti Vashisht, Dee Kim and Ricardo Bojorquez.

Each slide was timed to about 20 seconds each. The original dialogue was originally two hours and edited to about 15 minutes. Each person in the group was given a 30 minute set to edit to about 3 to 4 minutes. The dialogues focused primarily on Sheppard and Greenfield’s concept of urban computing and ambient informatics.

Video to come soon....

TOXIC EXTRACTIONS

More details to come...

OPEN EGO

Done with Ina Xi and Dustin York of the Media Designer Program at Art Center as and enter for WSCA 2010

More details to come after the break








Open Ego is a pop-up store module designed specifically for the shopping activity taking place in Tokyo's narrow alleyways. The shop is made of translucent glowing panels with cut-out shapes that can be used as shelves, stools, displays, hangers etc., and that can be compacted to cubic piles of high mobility. Below is a set of slides articulating the concept and exploring the forms it may take. All the members participated in every step of the creation, while I focused more on the visual design. - Ina Xi

UPDATE: IRAQIMEMORIAL.ORG

Yes its been long and I have been busy. I just finished my Winter Break and submitted projects for Evolo Arch 2010, World Space Creators 2010 and irqimemorial.org. Below is a small transcript of the show that features the project entry I did with Vince Akuin.
The Iraqimemorial.org project will be a featured exhibition at the Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery at the University of Nevada, Reno, from February 15-March 12, 2010. The exhibition will feature over 60 of the proposals submitted to the project - specifically those proposals that were selected by the jurors in either the first or second juror's review process. The exhibition will as well feature computer kiosks for visitors to experience the iraqimemorial.org project online. A panel presentation featuring juror's and artists involved in the project is currently in the works. To date, Dr. David Simpson and Dr. Bernadette Buckley are slated to take part in this event. The panel is tentatively scheduled for March 4, 2010.

More details to come, and I do plan to post the other competition entries as well- along with some interesting stories of my adventures here in Art Center's Media Design Program. DO WORK!

MEET THE NELSONS

Recently, Wes Jones and Craig Hodgetts had a gallery Talk with Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. See the flickr stream for more: Meet the Nelsons.
Exhibit is on until July 6th 2009, 6519 Hollywood Blvd.

PREFAB LAST SUMMER

a reason to live near Wilshire Center





Home Installation: really?

Well, before I dive into this subject I must mention that I am a big KieranTimberlake fan. More so, I believe that plug- in prefabrication win architecture will probably be re-evaluated in a more critical dialog of not just emergency and sustainable housing but economical housing- which is its current handicap in terms of being a pragmatic architecture.


Lastly, I am currently working on some more images for Design for the Children, even though the competition has passed, and I will be showing a re-visited LA housing project that I will be updated for the boards.




I had recently seen the new mall on Serrano/6th in LA Koretown these past few days- and I got say it looks promising since it includes a Korean based grocery store on the ground floor! Say what you want about the architecture, the program itself can make the Whilshire Cooridor in K-town look more promising. Now you have everything from metro lines/ law university to small clubs/ late night eating- what more can you want!?

REAL QUICK

Just trying to get some business cards going...eh, well- I wouldn't exactly call these business cards. These are more informal I believe because they are homemade and are meant to be like a micro contact/ portfolio image teaser/blogger account. If you would like one just let me know, otherwise I'll get to you first.





everyday I'm hustlin'

KICK, PUSH

I wished I had this instead of my Sprint phone! 

I am doing my best to stay committed to this blog in not just document work I am working on- but all other things I talked about in my first post. Right now, however, I am busy (which is a good thing) at my new workplace in Culver City, CA. I have been trying this week to MTA -in compared to last week where I drove along the Sepulveda Pass from the Valley. One thing I realize is that taking MTA allows me to explore sites of the Fairfax district and Mid&West LA- but DAMN I didn't know the 333 Washington and 780 Rapid buslines where horrendous. In the past two days I had and seen buses delibertely miss stops. These are overly congested line and MTA is definitely dropping the ball with not getting light-rail or subway lines out here soon enough!!

I do plan to do update of DFTC 2008 competition submittal we had- date has passed so now the project can be developed alot better. In the meanwhile, everyone should check out Winy Maas coming to UCLA next week and Benjamin Button giving a lecture at Sci_Arc on the 21st I believe.

NY STATE OF MIND

so much to say about NY! I will reconvene with more details but for now I leave you with this photo essay... cheers!





I will have PDFs of this available for upload soon!

update:1/29/09 -----> here it is (with some edits) :careful it's a little big!

NY!

And we're off! Hopefully we will start with a safe flight! Its about 6a at terminal 3 in LAX and I already from friends who went earlier back east to expect some turbulence. I can't wait to see P.S1 and the New Museum of Modern Art and the usual NY attractions. The terminal for Virgin America feels more like an expo than a terminal with its ultra chic-like booths and kiosks. Ah well.







Speaking of NY you might want to check this Woody Allen ode to Manhattan:
http://www.spaceandculture.org/2009/01/12/manhattan/