neurosis/ freedom mutterings

Rudely awakened,
fueled by a yearning-
without the loud sounds of drilling of concrete,
without the incessant nagging by elders;

A place,
where my soul is at peace and mine,
where I can look at the sky and smile,
where I am be-ing my self.

Neurotic to Them,
But I question,
how can one live in a place
where there is We without the I.

(by me)

Generic City and Difference

With all the emotions welling, I suppose it's time to bring us all back to some other views which i think is critical to a critical discussion of our Singapore condition.(especially those who continue to believe they are acting in the service of the people and those who needs to think about the very act of preservation.)

"People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, that's both liberating and alarming. But the generic city, the general urban condition, is happening everywhere, and just the fact that it occurs in such enormous quantities must mean that it's habitable. Architecture can't do anything that the culture doesn't. We all complain that we are confronted by urban environments that are completely similar. We say we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these cities that we have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness provides the best context for living."

—Rem Koolhaas interview in Wired 4.07, July 1996

Here I am paraphrasing:
In the Deleuzean concept of becoming, when A becomes B, A does not give up being A. It continues to be A, yet it becomes B without transforming itself into B.
This redistributed "knowledge network" is more of a scattering that allows the differentiation so dear to Deleuze (Diffe'rence et Re'pe'tition), rather than a simple repetition. With repetition comes difference, and also remebrance.
Derrida defines the archive as a form of memory control. An archive exists where things begin, where there is consignment and gathering. Archives allow one to trace something that is repeated, and to repeat it again.
One always forgets one or several elements, either consciously or unconsciously. Hence the pain of archiving.
For Deleuze there is blockage in repetition and its memory, what matters more is finding a difference. With Derrida, on the other hand, suggest that an archive must be allowed to forget occasionally, because if we are only concerned with knowing where something comes from, we will be blocked in our creativity.

What happens when we think of archiving is for difference rather than commonality? Difference is not between entities, but the reason for the subject's existence. To paraphrase again, we need to stay away from the dangers in some of the thinking concerning city preservation. The architect is consigned to the potentiality of the existing buildings because these buildings asks nothing of him/her, imposes on him nothing other than its ban (of the new).

Hi All! I am Back!

I am back from 60 plus days of travelling and before I organize my experiences and thoughts; I would like to share some of Richard Senna's thoughts on experimentation/ play which I encountered while virtual 'touring' (i am such a tourist. lol) MoMA. It cannot beat going down in person but I guess the hegemonic (the source of constant bitching nowadays) West is still enlightened to share arts and culture online and provide free entry to students. The virtual tour can be found here.

Cliche it might be but here goes:

"Experimentation/ Play… is how one allows oneself to move in directions that one could not have foreseen."

conversation of the day

zihao says
lee hsieng loong is correct when he say sporeans materialistic
jitao enbloc everything one
one day istana also enbloc

amelia says:
HAHAHA!!!

blog update.

nice to see new people on board and adding to the dialogue.

does anyone else find the layout a little old and uninspiring? i've been meaning to do something about the state of this blog, and now that i've stopped studio (again), i guess i can compart some time for the job.

the change will occur over a period of time, so don't expect a spiffy new site that soon.

...
..
.

how's everyone been anyway? :)

respect

my friends break down and cry, almost hit by a car, stone halfway in the middle of lunch, wanna quit, give up, and forever saying they are lousy, they cannot design.


what kind of education fuses such total sense of inferiority complex into urselves?

what makes urself really think ur circle is arbitrary?

who says that in a conservation project ur design must look old school?

why is a superstructure not architecture? when is street design not architecture?



why accord so much respect to the system that does not respect you?



please fight. please enjoy.
enjoy the defiance you throw into the face of the oppressing guardians.


you know your project....
those people just don't get it....
fuck them.... when they die.... its our world....


dun give up...

for OnO: pro-bono soft launch

Hi everyone,

I have started a blog on my travels on the Ong and Ong Travelling Fellowship. Please visit and will appreciate your comments.

codename? lame.

all these new people with names like "r" or j or lameX - identify yourselves.

Thank you bang

thank you bang, for helping me set this up so i can come inside here and type nonsense.
thank you bang~~~

hi all. happy new year.

ameliachans back!!!

wahhhh-tahhhhhh~~~ hoot! hoot!
*make some noise pple!*

hoooot!
~eeheheehhehehee ;p

DHL delivers

alo...just wanna share some pics which i took while on this DHL ballon...i chanced upon this tourist attraction located @Tan Quee Lan St, opp Bugis Junction. Though not a tourist, i decided to come back during the weekend with shups and take it. Its not everyday u get to go up 40 storeys high without a lift and get a aerial view of downtown...enjoy...the ballon is inflated with helium ( i guessed ) and not hot air...it just floats all day long..for about 2 months if i m not wrong...i wonder if they pumps it every now n then...and a huge netting is constructed to "net" the ballon and tied to the round round thing which we stood on...
as we were going up...i looked down and realised that the whole ballon was only secured to the ground by this 40mm thick ( or shd i say thin ) steel cable which u can see in the pic...my knee went abit weak then when i thought about the worst case scenario...

well...u cant miss the NLB...even if u were in the air...the sheer size of NLB simply drawfs the rest of the kiddos around...this building won a Green Mark platinum award for its energy efficient features and extensive landscaping and skygardens
the Palm with a well of wealth....

Bugis and the conservations which D knows best....and where some of us used as our sites for the middle road project in yr3...

didn't know that office tower above Bugis Junction actually has a rooftop garden...i wonder if pple can smoke up there now that singapore has prohibited smoking in most pubilc areas except the yellow boxes....

Raffles City...bread and butter job by I.M Pei ?

The Gateway...also by him...look piercing...

Woh Hup Complex...think it wld still look kinda special if its given a facelift...

Parkview Square...another bread n butter job by DP this time for a wealthy client...built to receive the fengshui from the Gateway...used lots of marbles...someone commented it is super ugly...the statues around and on the building reminds me of Batman's Gotham city in China..

just another view before the ballon got higher

by now...we got off the ballon...and wondered off to Seah's St to check out the new toy museum by SCDA...the middle one...sea of wavy glass....i duno abt the one on the right...but i guess the architect or the client sure like to play with Lego...

another view showing the wavy facade...i think its kinda scary standing below the glass fins...thou i m sure SCDA spent lots time detailing the facade to get BCA's approval...still wun want to stand there for too long in case the fins come slicing down...another idea for Final Destination 4....

hope u guys enjoy the pictures...would post more in the future....pls dun close this blog...i think its really nice and enriching...thou there just a handful of pple posting...i m sure there are more who are quietly reading...

HURRICANE WIND TORNADO RIBA...

Hello everyone,
first and foremost i welcome myself to this BLOG!
how's everyone man?
Amidst the natural disasters hurricane katrinas and rita, there's been another storm brewing quietly in sch - Hurricane RIBA. School's been pretty darn fake this few weeks, in preparation for RIBA visit. All ready for the big show.

Robson send us emaily asking us to pretend to look busy. Year2s coincidentally finish their 8vilion designs by this week and display all the models BIG BIG on level 3. Ground opening ceremony for Year2 Pavilion coincidentally falls on 29thSep2005. and i m suspecting the BREAK OPENed BOX which was never really broken open was chosen for ease of completion by RIBA visit.

Low Boon Liang knock on my studio and ask us to invert the false ceiling panels and return the studio back to shape. Ah heng conveniently came down to my studio a few days back just to scold us to keep the place clean. Kena arrowd to clean up the Auto Hse 1. think they want to impress RIBA during their visit less the mosquito bites.

I printed out the email Robson sent me thinking of conveniently misplacing lotsa them somewhere haha. I think i wanna mess up my studio. make my studio zen zen again.
studio is such a stifling environment. The design is just as stagnant as the weekend air in studio - still.

I think i m a bit hyper now.

ok thats ALL for now.
FOONG out.