the scared hamster

HAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

yes! new york here i come (again)!

obama's 30 min infomercial

you might cry.

phwoar

SLEEPY.

Sigh.

i miss living normally.

George Tsypin

I was working on my design for Battery Park City when i chanced on a planned carousel project:







surprise surprise!! George Tsypin is designing the carousel fixtures! George is one of the world's most accomplished scenic designers:











and my favourite one for now:


Tolstoy's War and Peace, where Moscow is depicted as a real 3 dimensional burning backdrop.

This is a really good article about Tsypin and how great designers derive signature styles.

I am inspired by how George began as an architect in moscow, and then studied set design in new york university, before doing brilliant designs through out america, to finally debut at broadway with the Little Mermaid. (I. need. to. watch. that.) just goes to show that i shouldn't be such a baby and keep on designing sets! as well as buildings!

interestingly, just on the topic of signature style, what does it say about designers who make distinct aesthetic choices like zaha hadid and klaus gruenberg as opposed to designers who are so undeniably signature but design with wider palettes? i can think of some possible candidates, but they mostly seem to be scenic designers: and tsypin is one.

we welcome IDR with open arms

what does this all mean? what does this all mean!?!?

another one

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

you know how stressed i am to be discovering so many videos whilst agonising over design.

RIP JBJ 1926 - 2008

I only found out through talkingcock.com

everything you need to know about elections 08

i'm supposed to be designing!

nick is hopping for joy

he has heat!

awesomeness

so, i'm skipping class for this life changing event. try and stop me.

ufo for architects

hahhahahahhaha! if you have identified this within 1-2 seconds you are a good architect.

to everyone else: this one came out in news when triangle ufo landed in bras basah area and unloaded replacement MM cyborg before transfering back to space.

i go hiking.

then the ohiopyle park like a scene from hero. almost got ziyizhang.






cocoa and brian! who were the first singaporeans i met in cmu. they have given me stationery, dinner, grapes and invites to the coolest parties in cmu.








spiderman was here!

the countryside was beautiful. yards decked out for halloween. cows grazing in fields. men in white frocks and pitchforks getting ready for halloween. the only problem was someone had come along and stuck signs saying mccain-palin all over people's gardens. now why would people want that?!

i announce my endorsement of barack obama

now that even colin powell (a republican) has come clean about obama, i feel like it is time that the obama campaign can leverage on my celebrity status to win this election. which is why i, albeit reluctant at first, now publicly endorse obama.


this man has fractured americans!

so my man obama was out at the st louis arch on saturday and damn he made heself look like the blessed martin luther king.

mid sem is OVER!

what a rush. headrush! we had our mid sem review, lighting exam, lighting project submission all within hours of each other. now i'm slaving over linguistics and urban reports for tomorrow. who said exchange was going to be relaxing?

i had a really great review though:



stuff from the past 2 weeks. another 8 more weeks to go...

i'm in really NEW territory sials. never been so curvy. ok. its really difficult to model these things in 3D. my design is for a museum / liberty ferry service / retail / park hybrid on battery park manhattan. my concept about reinstating immigration imagery and creating infrastructure for bird migration into the city was rather well received. see, americans are really so much more open!

singapore first question will be, bird shit how. bird flu how.

americans seem to be more eager to look at things with broader positive spin offs: ie this could be a system that replicates itself all over the city? (having sky habitats for migratory birds)

a whole new learning environment:


John at crit


Woobok at crit


Amanda at crit


Jeff at crit


na's drawing!!!


na's concept sketch


natale's plan.


natale's model. phonetically u can say, ne-t-elz mo-d-el.


niko at crit. today niko has 4 hair colours.


david at crit


my one, lols.


last last friday night the fifth years invited me to their potluck. i thought it was tara's birthday. she had a really pimp place though.






amanda likes hamming it up for me.


i'm going on a fall hike in the wilderness this sat. so that's going to be in celebration of our ONE DAY mid sem break. nus score 1 : cmu 0 on this one.

whew! i'm beat. nick out.

i got first dibs!

phwoar sey, who was expecting marina barrage to have such an epic view corridor? props to the guys who designed it, and for keeping it under wraps for so long. got both sides of the skyline, win liao.

unfortunately, the skyline is certainly going to be obscured by the casinos so frengs you better do your photoshoots before we lose this epic moment of place and time.





dong! tertiary guys, better plan entire series of photos before i come back, i come back the casino will be topping off top floor already. no more epic view!

hahaha

suddenly i'm just sitting in front of my blog and singing along to all my songs on a friday night.

whew, what a week its been. and what a week its gonna be next week: mid sem review, lighting exam, lighting project submission, urban essay due, linguistics paper due.

SIAO.

auy, sometimes i give up editing photos and posting up here cos i get too darned tired. so, tonight is another lazy post.

ya hallo hallo ppls and frengs from singapore. why you all never come and visit me.

ok as u can tell i'm all seh and sleep deprived now.

it must be the rain

that flies horizontally and soaks your feet as you trudge through landscapes of grey and traffic sounds.

or it might be alvin's song. that tanya chua is a suicide siren.

but i suppose its the fact that i'm finally at the half way point of this exchange period - when the thrill of new experiences have ended and the end is also nowhere in sight.

i came to america to rediscover life. not find more of the same. but i guess you're still stuck with yourself no matter where you go.

anymore nostalgia and i will drown.

SKYSCRAPER WARS!

I really got into the whole architecture thing because of skyscrapers. In fact i still dream about them. There was this exhibit at the HK-SZ archi biennale that really got me excited because, finally! someone was making a statement about the way chinese cities were looking at each other and saying, hey i'm bigger! i've got more! they're longer!or in as many ways as you can continue the phallic references.


White team: Citic Plaza, GZ + Taipei 101, TP
Black team: Oriental Pearl, SH + Guangzhou TV Tower, GZ

Now mind you, i've been doing this since i was in primary school, and i lived through the first skyscraper wars in the far east: that of Singapore and Hong Kong's in the 80s - 90s (yea singapore had her day in the spotlight before).



OUB Plaza actually drew first blood and was the world's tallest skyscraper outside of America for half a decade. Ah, the heroism of that age - the metabolist experiments and SPUR drawing to a close in Singapore, who were, Rem Koolhas calls it, "in over 3000 years, architecture's first non white avant gardes". Architecture and the skyscraper project are now centered in the far east, but the epicenter has moved away from the city that once dared to dream.

Round 1:
Singapore 0 : Hong Kong 1

Banksy

Banksy does brilliant grafitti art. he should be offered citizenship in singapore. there's more irony if you re-read that statement.

anyway. fall does have its redeeming moments. like taking that stroll through pittsburgh university park during the evening watching the world turn red gold and violet.

i don't feel like blogging, so here is banksy's grafitti advice for my friends who are potentially law breaking:


"• Think from outside the box.

• Collapse the box and take a fucking sharp knife to it.

• Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.

• Leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.

• Spray the paint sparingly onto the stencil from a distance of 8 inches.

• Be aware that going on a major mission totally drunk out of your head will result in some truly spectacular artwork and at least one night in the cells.

• When explaining yourself to the Police its worth being as reasonable as possible. Graffiti writers are not real villains. I am always reminded of this by real villains who consider the idea of breaking in someplace, not stealing anything and then leaving behind a painting of your name in four foot high letters the most retarded thing they ever heard of.

• The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don’t go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit."