I lived in 6 different NYC neighborhoods in 3 months. This is a review of the branded and unbranded experiences from the neighborhood sampler.

My architect friend works long days in the office drafting plans and elevations. They also play videogames avidly. At night they close Rhino & Autocad and open other drawing editors, still clicking, scrolling, rotating, zooming in modeled spaces. Let’s follow their set of deliverables.

The historical film is a journey into the past. You watch as known narratives or even alternative ones unfold, catching a glimpse of idiosyncrasies, and at times, judging historical accuracy. So if the historical film is a journey into the past, then the historical game, in this case Assassins Creed III, is an experience of that past through the lens of a participant that has a hand in the unfolding of those narratives, occupying space and viscerally reacting to the events that have been coded in.

In an open-world game where you can own homes, what exactly do you experience as a player? What do these homes provide after stripping away our actions in real life, such as eating, cleaning, or sleeping? Here, the definition of home is literal: It does not imply the symbolic meaning of belonging to a player community. Home, here, is also interchangeable with a plethora of synonyms, such as a safe house, hideout, base, home plate, garage, HQ…

In reading Rem’s and Sassen’s writing on globalization – and in part due to their Dutch nationality – I was reminded of the lustfully divergent joy and terror of vanitas style paintings that emanated from the beginnings of globalization in 16th century Holland. (Bayowa) // Koolhaas' Junkspace is a fundamentally thermodynamic and geological phenomenon concerned with the reorganization of matter, a single, giant, convective substrate. On the surface it appears hyperspatial: a collapsing of reality into a topologically connected network of air conditioned nodes. (Wolk)

Its been a long sojourn in an apartment I found on Craigslist.

Looking into ways in which human curiosity and exploration can inspire us to make sensor systems to find more humane information about cities.

A marsh “celebrates the site’s past.” But which other pasts are obscured in this celebration?

As we devised clever ways to interact with the streams of water running below our feet. We will need to imagine new ways to interact and benefit from the increased flow of information from our digital infrastructure. What characteristics might these interactions have?

Ever wonder what it’s like to fully operate a woodshop from home? Kurt, carpenter in Somerville, speaks to his experience of working out of his garage. We learn about the importance and trade-off between attracting customers and having enough space to produce his products; virtual marketplaces have a hidden urbanization pull, and must be addressed with appropriate urban governance.

So, just how did the shophouse go from being an unwanted remnant of colonial Singapore, to some of the most coveted buildings around? The next couple of posts will hone in on the shophouse as a product of conservation.

A personal evaluation of city branding and the role of branding in cities.

In landscape restoration projects, a restored ecology and is not only functional, but an aesthetic object in the landscape, designed to be observed and engaged with: rivers are kayaked in, glades are walked through, marshes are looked out upon. Restoration emerges as an aesthetic exercise, an endeavor to (re)create an image of a past or lost wilderness.

Ever spend hours staring at the confined space of your room at home? While I am ultimately fortunate to be able to work from this cyborgian machine we call a computer, from which I can just spend my whole day in front of and with which I complete all my “incredibly valuable” tasks for society, I began to wonder what it’s like for others who might not rely on a laptop. How does the “home” transform to suit work without a laptop?

I’m not ok with the Mercator projection. In fact I’m not ok with world maps.

Continuing on the concept of the “Context House”, this week’s post will delve into one of the most distinctive elements of the shophouse, and trace its movement and changing reception from Singapore to Southern China.

The (Context) House is a well-loved trope in architecture, conveniently legitimized with tokens of archeological, anthropological or historical significance. 

Places are brands that are made up of collective memories and ever-changing stories. Exploring how place-brands are used and what they can tell you about the built environment.

“Home is where you hang your hat.”

Closets and storage spaces are not only utilitarian. We use them, yes, to store utilitarian things; but we also use them to store things we keep near and dear, whether they be books, crafts, photographs, old letters, clothes, trinkets, or souvenirs. Things that we couldn’t imagine living without, things that make us who we are.