informal

 Working on my Hong Kong design project, I keep thinking back to my visit to Tai O and how interesting it was to see how the residents there have constructed their living environment. Informality is a quality that is often sought after in architecture but rarely [i.e. never] achieved as successfully bottom-up developments like Tai O. What I hope to take from this place is the ability to adapt to surroundings.. something very much reflected in the streets, homes and structures of the village. It was a really inspirational place to visit.

My trip to Scandinavia was wonderful.. I should have some photos to share soon!

mong kok

 Some photos from Mong Kok, one of the busiest places I have ever been to.

After being featured on Freshly Pressed last week my blog’s views/followers grew exponentially.. I’m still finding it very overwhelming. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment.. I’m glad you all enjoy the photographs. All of this has kind of got me thinking about why I started this blog and what I want it to be. I’m left with a lot of questions about the future of this site.. none of which I can really answer quite yet.

Anyways, enjoy the photos for now. I’m going to be doing a little road trip with a few friends this weekend. Hopefully will have some nice photos of Germany and Luxembourg to share when I’m back.

harbour to peak

 A few photos following a journey from Victoria harbour to The Peak. The view from up there is pretty amazing.. we were lucky to have a fairly clear night. One of the coolest things in Hong Kong is the Mid-levels Escalator [second to last photo]. Because it’s so steep in Hong Kong, they built a series of escalators going from the residential  areas up the hill down to the business district. The elevation change is something like 135 meters, and the escalator goes down during the morning and uphill for the rest of the day.. cool huh?

I had my P2 presentation yesterday and got a “go” from my professors and the external reviewers so I was pretty happy about that! The graduation process at this school is pretty regimented.. the next go/no go presentation will be in May I think. I basically have a free week now so I’m looking forward to getting out of the apartment and making a few small trips around NL. Will try to get some new film developed too.

 

collage

 I’m working on making a collage as part of my design proposal/strategy for my presentation and was looking through some of my Hong Kong photos for inspiration. Still having a bit of a tough time determining a direction though..

What do you do when you’re in need of some inspiration?

details

 Some photos of details around Tai O…proof that even the small things in life are beautiful.

With two out of three big deadlines out of the way I’m feeling pretty relieved.. but I still have the P2 coming in a week so I’ll be pretty busy. All this talk of snow back home is really making me wish for some wintery weather here in Holland. It’s finally getting colder but so far doesn’t look like any snow anytime soon. Oh well.. I’ll keep hoping. Hope you all are having a great start to the year so far!

tai o

 Our flight left Hong Kong at 11:30 pm so we decided to head to the airport early, drop our bags of and take the bus from Tung Chung, the city closest to the airport, to Tai O, a fishing village further along the coast. The bus ride itself was amazing.. even though Tai O is on the same side of the island as the airport, the bus took us through the mountains, along the coast on the other side and back through the mountains [and past a really cool looking monastery]. There were quite a few tourists there but they didn’t venture quite as far into the village as we did. Anyway, it was really a great way to end our time in Hong Kong.. and I have lots more pictures to share.

Apologies for not updating more.. I have a big deadline for this paper [basically the theoretical basis for my thesis] tomorrow so I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing. Hope to share more with you soon.

2011 [part II]

 Second half of my “year in review.” I’m back in Delft now after a pretty brutal day of flying, delays, turbulence and multiple landing attempts. Glad to be on the ground for a while. I love to travel but flying is not my favourite… was just reminded of that fact yesterday.

[1] made it back to Vancouver and spent a day downtown with my mom and sister [2] nothing beats driving on the Sea to Sky Highway after a great weekend camping [3] did a West Coast road trip with my family and stopped at Deception Pass [4] we spent a few days at Cannon Beach in Oregon, watching the fog roll in and out [5] and exploring the beach a bit [6] then it was off to Portland.. it was great, and pretty close to Vancouver.. will have to visit more often [7] my mom and I made a trip to Salt on my last full day in Vancouver [8] my sister came back to NL with me and we made a trip to London [9] back in NL we spent a day biking in the Hoge Veluwe Park and it was stunning [10] tired of lame/overpriced sushi in Delft we made our own [11] I went to Hong Kong with my studio and it was a sensory overload.. loved it! [12] on our last day we went to Tai O, a fishing village, which was an amazing contrast to the city.

Will share more photos from Tai O soon.. they turned out to be some of my favourite from the trip. Hope everyone is enjoying 2012 so far.

urban condition

Hong Kong is a fast city. One thing I’ve learned from visiting and researching the city is that things change at a pretty rapid pace in Hong Kong.. and the area that I’ve chosen to study is no exception. Most of the neighbourhood is comprised of post-war tong lau, 6-7 storey walk ups with commercial space on the bottom. Wing Lee street, where most of these photos were taken, is one of the rare spots in the city where older tong lau still exist. The area was slighted for demolition but the decision was reversed after a movie filmed at the site won an award at the Berlin Film Festival. Some of the nearby housing blocks are still under threat and luxury towers have begun to pop up around the area. While it’s easy to overly romanticize the worn and lived-in nature of these areas, there is something to be said about preserving the tong lau typologies as an alternative to the massive housing towers which are both out of scale and out of touch with their surroundings.

Hopefully I’ll be able to address some of these issues with my design project. Anyway, Hong Kong has turned out to be a fascinating and complex place to study.. super glad I chose this studio!

I’m heading home on Sunday.. can’t wait to be back in Vancouver for a few weeks

pet street

I heard about the goldfish market in Mong Kok but when I went to see it, it was much different than I imagined. Plus the entire street was full of pet stores of every kind [including a store just for bunnies!]. It was definitely a sensory overload.. like many other places in Hong Kong.

Things have been good but busy here in Delft. My friends and I had a homemade sushi night on Friday and it was pretty delicious. Next week at this time I’ll be on a plane back to Vancouver! In the mean time I have a bunch of work to do for studio and my other courses, the Festival of Lights is coming up on Tuesday night and a birthday/Christmas cocktail party on Thursday. Lots to do and look forward to in the coming week.. Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far!

stanley beach

I think this is one of the only times where I can say I’ve enjoyed spending the afternoon at the beach in November. Making the relatively short trip to Stanley that Sunday with a few classmates was definitely worth it. Stanley is just on the other side of Hong Kong Island and it was a nice [and much needed] break from the busy city environment where we had spent most of our time. One of the best parts of the trip was the fact that my studio mates and I were able to spend time together in a totally different environment than the usual classroom setting, and I’ve made some great new friends because of it.

Even though it’s not that cold in Delft yet [hanging around 10 degrees], I definitely would like to be back on this beach!