:: league in transition ::

July is fading away quick, and so is my summer.

As I had mentioned in my previous blogs, I spent a little “vacation”, more like a social liberation, in Charlotte this past weekend. I was pleased to say the economic crisis was no longer the opening topic of all conversation at dinners; not that we were doing any better, there were just brighter topic to talk about.

“Are you excited about Cornell?” was my friends’ FAQ this weekend.

Am I excited? Sure, very much so; but I am scared simultaneously. You see, this is some competitive ground to step foot into.

Let me bring up an example from the international motor sports. Nelsinho Piquet Jr. was a frequent podium visitor back in his GP2 and Formula 3 days. He had been racing in those sectors for years under his father’s racing team; he was familiar with the machine, his technique was competitively challenged.

This, of course, opened the opportunity for him to enter the holy grail of international motor sports – Formula 1. Since Nelsinho joined Renault in 2007, he never performed outstandingly along his two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.

Return to the topic on my preparation to Cornell. Within the architectural academia, this is top notch stuff, one of the most prestigious architectural school a person can dreams of; just like Formula 1, this is the most competitive chamber of the entire field, the bloody red cherry on top of the cake.

I did well when I was in undergrad at the College of Architecture, or kids liked to call it School of Architecture no-a-day, at the University of North Carolina; and I would never fear to tell anybody that the faculties in this place had changed my life in this most stunting five year I had ever been through.

Now departing this familiar ground on a high note, joining the best from the world in an uncharted territory, I am scare sh*tless. I might very much end up like little Nelsinho failing miserably. My colleague from a different school might leave me in a cloud of tire smoke as I struggle to compete. Oh, yes, this is exactly what is happening to the Brazilian driver, because his GP2 colleague Lewis Hamilton turns out to be an overnight sensation in the first year with McLaren Mercedes.

Well, but these is another real fact, the second seat Renault driver, our boy Nelsinho, had to enable the driving instruction line on the most astonishing and technically advanced racing simulation - Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - behind his G25 racing wheel (shown on a recent twitter feed of his own); but I don’t have to do THAT, I pull decent track time with my MOMO with no instruction line and minimum traction control with professional physic, so maybe I can be survive, maybe I can be Lewis Hamilton instead.

* image was from Nelsinho Piquet twitter in this blog

:: let's play! ::

After two rounds of blog posting, I think it is about time to align my yakking toward thesis research. At this perfect moment, I browsed through a blog post, study model, from one of my architecture friend Josh, who is questioning a similar problem in architectural pedagogy – conceptual representation.

This would not be my initial attempt to explore such issue, but every time half way through the investigation, it had always detoured into an actual design project. Thus this time, I will reserve this as a sub theme for my thesis interest…

Back to the question regarding conceptual representation; the corner stone for all competition entry, project bidding and portfolio building. This skill is so essential that it becomes extremely hard to achieve. Even one has excellent artistic talents and/or design concept, communicating one’s idea flawlessly is as impossible as drawing straight lines during an off-road rally race.

Architectural academies their protégée to crank out overly elaborate design concepts; on the flip side of that coin, talking to the practical architects, who know nothing but how to edit their X-Ref in 1000 really uninteresting manners, will tell you the best design is a Lowe’s buffet.

Why can we not be innovative and playful? For Mies sake, we are part of the design community, is our goal is to seek for a better way to live? Do we all sacrifice sleepless night to dream of something that we hate? No. Aren’t we all do what we do because we love what we do?

If someone walk through the front door of a design firm does not give a damn about design should not only be not hire but should indeed thrown into exile. But for someone walk in an architecture office has no sense of humor should really stop breathing.

It is like my writing style, mostly idiotic and obscene for thesis document, is joyful to write. I must admit reading Jeremy Clarkson’s book and watching too much Top Gear has contribute a fair amount on this lunacy; however, writing in this manner is airy and fun. I dislike scholarly writings not only because they all sounds like a poorly writing instruction on how to defuse a nuclear bomb, I loathe them because you will never hear me talk in such a way even I am presenting a project in critique.

It is like cook, too, despite from all the facebook and twitter photo uploads, I always tell people I don’t cook - I just play. It is the playfulness that yields for happy accident in the end.

Earlier today, I had commented on Josh’s blog entry “in which you could call this a manifesto if you want, but it’s probably not”, saying writings could be as effective as sketch models, nevertheless, they were another medium for design. Since my writing craft was limited, I shall remain in the rhyme of obsessive model making.

Finally, a note to self; I probably should not write at late night because my brain does not know how to slow down, thus when I hit the bed sheet, floating like space debris it keeps thinking. But this habit of blogging is good, it allows me to jog down ridiculous thoughts down and onto the cyber space; more importantly, it gives me a chance to critically polish my not so critical writing skills.

:: the architectural-engineering twilight ::

In today’s civilized society, we, as a collective body of diverse interests, had figured out that the four seasons which the global climate had provided for our comfort (or discomfort) were too plain and boring. Therefore, we figured out ways to define our own spectacle of time as entertainment; there was season that we prefer to go shoot those cute little squeals in our front yard; there were seasons for sport enthusiasts to challenge each other; there was time when children must obey rules and sit quietly in confine environment; there were even seasons when the color of fabric deemed inappropriate to cover our naked bodies.

For personal interest sake I learn to adapt my own seasonal patterns very much like animals that evolve overtime to survive in the ever-changing, now globally warmed, environment; thus, without any doubt, summer is always the ultimate car season.

That doesn’t mean I don’t like car during the rest of the year, (oh no, far from that) but the leisure of having cool breeze tunneling into the driver’s cockpit under blazing hot sun somehow make me increasingly more passionate about what I love.
I have more time on hands, too (hint I have time to write this blog); and these precious moments of freedom translated into hours of Top Gear watching and petrol-head chitchats.

I was so intoxicated on this passion of mine I even made videos last summer (which you can find from my previous post).

Sometime, it troubles me how much I love the automobile industry that I would question myself if architecture is in fact the holy grail as my career path, especially when the construction industry is nothing by a spectacle of unemployment. Since my both of my all-time hero were both non-architects (Anthony Bourdain, being a cool middle-age chef and travel show host for “No Reservation”; while the other as an automobile expert and a TV commentator overwhelmed with ridiculous thoughts – Jeremy Clarkson), my architecture friends might find this particularly disturbing (since the architectural cult usually consisted of pure building believer and build shrine at home worshiping his/her favorite architect).

Until one day, in this summer, I chatted with a friend of mine who happened to be a petrol-head AND an engineer. In a general setting, we, as in my major of study, all know the relationship between engineers and architects are like oil and water; both hate each other but yet need the coexist with the opposing party.

However, in the case of my friend Roger Carter, he appreciates quality design as much as value engineering. Here, we are talking about a guy who know how much horsepower he can extract out of an engineer by reporting its port for 0.01 millimeter and the pitch change through an exhaust system while adding quarter of an inch to the pipe, yet he understand the different between a line drawn by a man with a pencil and one generate by silicon chips.

It is under these extraordinary circumstances when masterpiece is born, shocking the world (exceeded beyond design, architecture, and engineering) by surprise – Antonio Calatrava is certainly the perfect example for such occasion, caught within the delta area of spectacular aesthetic, monumental architectural gesture and mind-blowing engineering.

Now, wait a minute, with that being said, did I just reassured the security of my interest? If a grease monkey understood, and appreciated, the different between minimalistic-cold-architectural concrete and rotting-Victorian-Colonial state of mind, I could comfortably admit my disappointment toward the American automobile industry in the 90’s then admired the Mercedes 300SL as the most astonishing car men had ever created on the drafting board.

But until I can master the craft of impossible imagination, I will take advantage with this petrol-head season of mine; as I driving my coupe with the windows down and a pair of sepia sunglass on, I shall listen to Joyce Cooling, pretending I am living under the California driving culture, where the four seasons are monochromatic, people are as gorgeous as Italian sports cars, and the architectures are doubtlessly brilliant.