YEOU UEI CHAI
The spaces we inhabit become part of our memory tapestry, interwoven with recollections of experiences and interactions.
Whether an interior room or an exterior landscape, architecture provides the context and triggers for remembering.
Advisor: Andrea Simitch
Re-envisioning the urban landscape could reconnect Santiago. Daily rituals like commutes, markets, and performances might resonate across once fragmented strips, threading city life together. Temporary festivals reveal longing for unity; harnessing fleeting connections through ongoing public gatherings could seed enduring bonds. The “Interior Boulevard” concept proposes reimagining discrete public spaces as an interconnected network blending fluidly with Alameda’s vitality. Citizens would engage vibrant communal layers, promoting social blending.
At downtown Santa Rosa site, high-rise apartments exist uneasily amid old neighborhoods deemed dangerous. Yet diversity glimmers - balconies display residents’ cultural heritage. Reimagining vacant buildings could catalyze public spaces reflecting this diversity through inclusive, inspiring designs. Markets, performances and art would bridge groups, forging bonds and collective pride. New complex threads homes together via circulation pathways, allowing communities to flourish across previous divides through shared daily rituals. As re-unified spaces nurture organic connections, the whole becomes greater than the fragmented parts.
Keywords: fragmentation, isolation, public spaces, cohesion, unity, connection, rituals, cultural diversity, barriers, hybrid spaces, shared identity
Advisor: Hideki Hirahara
Memory comprises what we recall from the past, including words or images. Light directly informs spatial memories and perceptions. For instance, in weather project, lighting designed an interior sunny space where people made matching actions based on memories. Likewise, the indistinct firefly light in Norwegian Wood conjures hazy memories through images. Overall, light molds our spatial remembrances, even without sight.
Tainan's accumulated memories comprise everyday details. The historic city evolved through Dutch forts, Qing gates, Japanese circles. Over time, small mundane sights layered its memory. Though forgettable individually, together they reconstruct Tainan with eyes shut. The city's true memory lives in trivialities.
Looking back on Tainan's history, the Dutch erected forts, starting development. In the Qing dynasty, city gates arose, spreading life inside. Later, the Japanese brought quicker growth via commerce. Now lively with everyday details, Tainan overlays memories into a rich collage. As the city evolved, forgettable sights shaped its image most. Though individually insignificant, collectively they form Tainan's memory.
Xinmei Street displays light-shadow memories, not direct colors. A hotel exhibits the spectrum via routes through the street's history. The goal becomes recognizing Tainan with eyes closed. Light and shadow shape an empirical impression, steeping guests in the city's aura.
On Xinmei Street, a hotel displays memories through light and shadow, not bright colors. It routes guests through the area's history, from Dutch castles to modern times. The goal is conjuring Tainan without seeing. Light and shadow craft an experiential impression, immersing visitors in the city's ambience.
Keywords: Light, memory, perception, spatial, images, Tainan, city, history, spectrum, hotel, route
Advisor: Leslie Lok
The Proton car factory exemplifies this boom, its kilometers-long plant churning out vehicle frames. Nearby, the Hengyuan refinery powers regional energy needs. Further, furniture factories supply international big box retailers while concrete plants provide foundations across rapidly urbanizing South Asia.
To staff these factories, migrant workers enter varying gates – retrofitted farm to fortress – becoming “voluntary prisoners.” Donning company uniforms, they work regimented shifts on repetitive tasks, disconnected from the outside world.
At the Proton plant, Hamid has tightened bolt 1974 for hours, the crash of metal marking time. On brief cafeteria breaks, he and others in matching jumpsuits share village stories. Their long days finance survival, trading rural poverty for urban opportunity.
Though back-breaking and mind-numbing, factory work provides steadier wages than rice farming. That bargain seems fair, for now. Malacca’s rural landscape and populations are transformed, progress partitioned from the pastoral past.
Keywords: Malacca's decline and industrialization of rural areas, voluntary prisoners, Regimented factory life and labor, Progress divided from rural past