shanghai box

Zhongtai Box - office building with ivy louvers(yet to place the ivy)


two projects in beijing and shanghai.
i have been in charge of these projects literally without a supervisor, guidance, or any real experience.
two great things about china that has probably allowed me to get this far with these projects.
1) the lack of or care towards details -> which fortunately covered my lack of experience
2) the speed in which things are carried thru.

at the end of my second year at this office i will already have two completed projects. true i do work like a bitch but that doesnt necessarily mean that the built work will follow. in this era where buildings are seen to be temporary comodities, there really is no better place than china to be an architect... iguess.

anyhoo, the concept of this project was to create a vertical garden as a facade for an office building. admist all the modern 21century chinese bubble-chitecture, our building chooses to hide itself as a retreat by reflecting the cityscape on the mirror finished louvers which carry the ivy as planter boxes. as a result, we hope, the facade will be a reflection of shanghai thru a green curtain.


closeup












interior atrium

grazing on the grass

can you find me in the herd of mindless sheep?
as a sheep in the chinese zodiac and as a capricorn in the western astrology, it is all too ironic that i try so hard to step out of this predestined mold of a life, and then once again find myself being just another brick in the wall.




i believe that the action speaks louder than anything, however do ones long-term plan ware you out to the point where those moments you refrain from being yorself just keep addin up to finally makin who you are?



there are too many of those with the will to believe and not enough of those trying to find out.
meeeanwhile, let me graze you with some of my daily grass

NPMSB

national palace museum
competetion i slaved over...
time card had read over 500hours the month of submitting the proposal...
unfortunately our boss' presentation blew our good chance of winning this project.

anyhoo, the idea was to create a museum that physically as well as programaticaly emphasize an 'Asian museum'

the program is divided over a chain of artificailly made archipelago. these programs are then wrapped around the lace-like arabesque patter structure to encompass bldgs, islands, and landscape into a whole. the arabesque pattern was chosen as a common theme seen in architctural elements which traveled across the asian continent assimilating and adapting to each and every culture and environment is passed thru. we wanted to creat an extention of this history thru a modern interpretation of an arabesque pattern that becomes a structure as well as a shading device for the interior space.



- main critique was that this project would become too much of an iconic rival to that of the Beijing Olympic Stadium by Herzog De Meuron...which i heard was not going too welll.... and which the taiwanese officials wanted to avoid as a possible conflict





some picts from the teamm

expose yourself

i assisted in this design of a very hot hinoki bath tub here in tokyoo.
For those who may be worried about the privacy... no worries.
when you enter this bathroom @ night all the lights are out...
there is a sensor, which drops a spotlight at the washing area, and there is a light inside the bath that illuminates only the body that is inside the bath.
we wanted the tokyo skyline to light up the room otherwisee.
its kinda decadent but its cool to go thru the process of designing a huge bath in an already built apartment complex. will continue makin nice baths cus its definetly one of the pleasures in my life.
too bad its not my bath though.
boo

extreme eurasia

dudes
EXTREME EURASIA @ spiral hall in tokyo.
i was in charge of this project at my firm.

checkitcheckit out yo.

tis all made out of paper... and love