I have left my position with Vasconi and am now looking for new work in Hong Kong. To occupy myself, I have entered several competitions. I just finished work on the second of 5. The first one being the zombie safe house competition. I decided to enter it because it sounded easy and fun. However, while doing it, I realized how liberating it was to be executing my own designs. In the last two years, I have worked on 9 projects. I had control over none of them.
Inspired by this excitement, I entered another. The second was to design an innovative parking garage in Hong Kong. This was just as exciting as the first with a little more sense of realism injected into it. The judges are currently voting for both of these competitions now. Zombie Competition on MSNBC.com
On deck are three more competitions, two skyscrapers and a hotel on the moon.
Two weeks ago, I was forced out of Hong Kong. Not in the police escort type of way, but in the "shit, if I answer these questions truthfully I am breaking laws and maybe breaking more if I lie." type of way.
I didn't kill anyone, or steal some delicious dim sum from the street corner. I just may (or may not) have been working without a working visa. Now the plan is to resubmit an application for the visa from the U.S., the legal way.
So, I have a lot more free time for unnecessary things (like blogging). I decided I should upload "The Sweetness" to youtube. This was the skateboarding video where I had a 3min part back in 2004. For those that don't know, this is all I did in high school, thus schoolwork took a back seat and I had to take another year of college as my punishment.
Approaching the 6th month anniversary of my arrival in Hong Kong. It feels like I have finally set up a life here. I'm learning Cantonese and French, running and playing tennis, cooking and eating new things. Setting up the life I want. Maybe now that I have this pointed in the right direction I can start going somewhere with force.
I was lucky enough to travel home for the holidays. It was such a great time. Not just seeing my friends and family, but having fun with them as if we had never been apart.
Now I am back in Hong Kong. I arrived after a grueling 18h10 flight (following two other flights) from San Francisco. One of the other passengers had appendicitis and we were forced to make an unscheduled stop in Anchorage, adding 3.5hours to the flight.
I feel a little more calm here. Something feels different... maybe its just the jet lag.
I escaped Hong Kong for a weekend. Off to the tiny village of Shanghai.
When I arrived, I found a city in love with the new, the large, and the great. Displayed through their love of the automobile and their love of enormous (hideous) buildings.
They may have a top GDP, but they have a long way to go before they are a top country.
Horrible. The only way I would describe work here. The office I work in, with all the other consultants on this project, is in such a horrible neighborhood an hour train ride from my place. People at the office, make it even worse. There are few places, that are not in war zones, that could be worse.
So the weekends become my refuge. They make me feel like I could actually like Hong Kong.
This Sunday I went to Lamma Island. It is a 50 min ferry ride from Central Hong Kong. Its a small island that takes about 2 hours to walk, but has some nice and clean beaches with a laid back local culture. A nice break from the noisy, busy, smelly and packed city.
Lo So Shing Beach was the one I was looking for. I found it just in time for sunset. To make it even better, I was the only one on the beach.
Let us just pretend that we have kept in touch the last couple months. Things have changed a lot and now I live in Hong Kong working on a project for a French architecture firm SAL (Schinko Associes Luxembourg), formerly Vasconi Architects.
You can read a little bit about this shitty project (literally, it's a sludge treatment facility) here.
There are no cool pictures there, but just trust me that it is a cool project.
In the meantime, I have been eating rice, drinking beer, and exploring this massively dense city.
Hopefully soon, I can make it to some other places in Asia and have a look around. When I do, I will certainly upload some photos, as I have been doing already, to possibly entice someone into visiting me!
I meant to post this when it was completed. Nick compiled most of the clips we have had of the machine running in order to best demonstrate its varying uses.
Eight years of work, wrapped into a package weighing less than a pound. All with the purpose of getting a job as an architect. Hopefully, one of these firms I am sending my work to will take the bait!
The only problem is that I never was lucky when it came to fishing.
While spending most of my time in coffee shops working on my portfolio, I thought I would share what I'm listening to. This awesome website called soundcloud.com allows people to upload their own music and remixes for others to listen to. My favorite part is their music player. It allows people to comment at certain points in a song and makes it fun to read what people are thinking about the songs. Massive Attack Remix (FREE DOWNLOAD) by Bassnectar
Now that I graduated and returned from a trip to the Bahamas with the family, I have to ask myself what to do next. All I can come up with is moving back to Lawrence while I search for a job. I hope employers will just take my word when I say they won't regret hiring me.
By the way, this photo is not fake, but actually is me crowd-surfing at commencement.
Happy Earth Day! Slightly on topic... I recently received a bike. It has become my new love. My poor car just sits out in the parking lot all day, never getting used. My goal was, with the help of my bike, make my tank of gas last an entire month. It appears I will easily make this goal. The image shows my tank as of today. Not only has biking been saving gas, but its been burning calories. Not that I like to brag (I do), but I am becoming more fit from all this biking too.
America has an addiction to oil and a large obesity problem. The solution looks quite simple, BUY A BIKE!
The project I worked on in Switzerland was recently reviewed in the New York Times. Though they did not mention the fractal bathrooms I produced, it is still really cool having a project I know so well seen by so many.
Now would be a good time to introduce a new project I have been working on for awhile(if that makes sense). Working with fellow Architecture student/designer Nicholas Reed, we started 183 CANVAS as our little design group for creating whatever little project we want. Today we completed a major part of our first project. The goal is to make a computer controlled machine that can write/paint/draw/spraypaint/takephotos whatever on a wall or canvas of any size. I hope to post some works of "art" soon. http://183canvas.blogspot.com/
It has been a welcome slow start to my final semester of school. My studio professor is out of town for 2 weeks so the class has taken extra time to construct the site model for our project. We chose to use the CNC machine (a computer controlled router) to cut the model out of several layers of MDF. Its been fun watching the machine cut through it but a lot of work to coordinate people to sit there while it cuts for a total of about 20 hours.
Back in the States! After 6 months in Europe, I have made it back. Without a doubt, it has been the most significant part of my life thus far. Though it still feels good to home.
As part of my last day of work in Geneva, everyone in the office took me out to the Boeuf Rouge, a classy old school French restaurant near the office.
"I hope she doesn't choose me to dance." Said Nick Allen to me after the two of us and a friend ended up in a Turkish restaurant on the night they had Oriental Dancers (missed that sign on the door!).
20 seconds after he mentions this line to me, she grabs him by the hands and pulls him to his feet. Startled, he reverts to his instincts; Irish-Jig, Riverdance, and involuntary spasms of the legs. Then he catches the rhythm and the tempo of his partially undressed professional dance partner. Before one can realize what is happening, Nick starts leading the dance. He even starts dancing away from her, towards the rest of the restaurant. The crowd really gets into it. Being the pro that she is, she somehow manages to tame Nick and force him to sit down. Finishing one of the most action packed 5-7 seconds I have had in Paris . Needless to say, this made me very excited for my upcoming trip to Istanbul (since I can't have turkey I am going to Turkey[ok... that was lame]).
Its incredible that after living here for 4 months I still find amazing quarters and areas that I had no idea existed. Perfect example being Rue Saint Anne... incredible Japanese restaurants. Not sushi, but more noodles and tempura. This restaurant had 10-12 seats and a line of about 20 outside to get in. The windows in front of the restaurant are covered in condensation from the hot soups. Passers-by don't look at a menu but instead just peer through the windows to see what people are eating and if it looks good.
After completeing my first project for Ateliers Jean Nouvel, I was given a week off so I traveled to Brussels. It was great getting time out of Paris and I loved that they spoke English pretty much as a second language. That way, I could speak French when I wanted to, but English when I needed to.
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