​In the developed world, we spend over half of our time on the internet, or plugged in to different screens, watching Netflix, tele-conferencing, or on different messaging apps. We look at our phones while commuting, interface with computers at work, read the news before we go to bed, play Fortnite, and wake up to check the weather. In so many ways, we are living in a bifurcated world — the physical environment, where our physical body lives, and the virtual environment, where our mind freely wanders. With all the money, investment, and resources going towards this virtual universe, in Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, this trend sees like it will only exacerbate. All the virtual temptations will increase, and it is up to the individual to find balance between the virtual and the physical.

None of this is news. Throughout history, technology has always changed the way people behave in society. It wasn’t so long ago, that most societies were still agrarian, and industrialization created a modern consumer society, where people worked in factories and offices, rather than tilling the fields. Even before the internet, conservatives and “luddites” everywhere were decrying the dangers of electricity, or the railroad, or the automobile, in their power to uproot tradition and more natural ways of living. Yet, people have survived and adapted. At every stage, we have appeared to have taken two steps forward for every one step back, and it’s turned out generally okay (for most people).

What people sometimes forget, about rapid progress, is that societies often find creative coping mechanisms to ease the chaos, and “disruption”, of technological or social upheaval. Often, this means looking into the past, and giving more value to those things we have overlooked, or taken for granted. It seems to be no coincidence that, soon after photography was invented, a bunch of renegade French artists went on to create Impressionism. When a machine can create realistic renditions of scenes, artists are more free to dream again, to re-examine the fabric of reality. Or, that the American conservation movement started in the early 1900’s, by Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, just at the height of Manifest Destiny, American industrialization, and the Gilded Age of railroad and oil barons. Even more recently, hip hop culture — this colorful, vibrant movement celebrating the body and expression — was born of the block parties of New York, in the shadow of urban renewal, white flight, and brutalist architecture. Even under the most dire socio-economic conditions, people are still able to create something new and beautiful.

Today, the digital economy has coincided with a roaring, furious, and influential environmental movement. There is renewed interest in the artifacts of industrial and pre-industrial “making”, with the advent of rapid prototyping, 3D printing, and handicraft workshops. With people so, so entirely disconnected from nature and production, those earlier modes of living (pre-industrial and industrial) have become important and interesting all over again. The increasing influence of technology has also been met by increased enthusiasm for hiking, house plants, open spaces, local organic foods, and even regional identities, as people try to re-balance, and compensate for, the omnipresence of global technology.
​
And so, I believe, just as the digital economy has taken off today, this is the right moment to reassess architecture — the value, design, and business of the physical environment. 

Things I've built in CSS so far (pure code). I still have a long way to go!

The past two weeks, I've been spending a lot of time learning HTML and CSS. Before graduating to actual programming, I thought it would be a better idea to learn the fundamentals first, such as simple static web pages, and just more fundamental things about the internet.

Here's a great introductory video on the history of the internet:

Simultaneously, DRCAC has been hurdling towards 100% DD, and eventually to the start of CD, ending this summer. I realize I still know very little about architectural detailing - and there's always more to learn, even more about cost estimating and project management.

How can I reconcile the design of physical spaces - the world of architecture - with the design of virtual spaces? ​

In so many ways, it's become really clear to me that design takes up an increasing smaller and smaller portion of the real estate and construction industry. Materials and labor costs are too high, and design is really the "front end soft cost" that is rarely at the forefront of the machine of "building" -- unless the design of the project is directly tied to financial returns, or you are building an institutional monument. Or YOU pay for it yourself. 

Meanwhile, in web development and programming, the "design" of the product is really, ALL that the user is interfacing with. And it's a lot cheaper. Because there is usually no hardware involved, iterations happen a lot faster, and things are not so directly affected by scale, materiality, and costs (at least, to my primitive knowledge). There is also no permanence -- and there are inherent risks and challenges to that. 

Rather than trying to make "smart" objects and "smart cities", imbuing things with data, machine learning, and sensors, can we instead try to make computer systems more human scale, more tangible, with scale and materiality? Rather than making people become more cold and machine-like (i.e. the rising trend towards isolation, depression, and anxiety in the modern world), can we make computers behave more like friendly environmental partners, much as "architecture" was the one of the first man-made technologies that protected us from the outside elements?  

Things to think about on a Thursday night.

I turn 26 tomorrow. I'm both nervous and excited about what the next year will bring.

As I think about the last couple years, I can only be grateful for the opportunities I have been given, and the amazing friends and teachers I have met along the way. Moving from Hong Kong, to Saint Louis, and then to Cornell and beyond, it has been a series of happy accidents -- meeting people who believed in me, who allowed me to be myself, and to find my way in design and other things. A lot of it has been mostly about trying to find love in what I do, in architecture and otherwise. Other times, it has been about finding a way to express something that cannot be easily said in words -- and should be done through a drawing, a model, a dance, or a stand-up routine. I was a very shy and anxious kid growing up, and every time I find myself in an unfamiliar or unexpected environment, I can see myself easily falling back to that default. But, in some other bright moments, I can see myself actually be confident, going after the things that have meaning to me. 

Mostly, following curiosities should be a lasting lesson of the past couple years. During my best years, I think I was fully engaged in learning something I was really interested about -- art, umbrellas, or traveling velo sheds. There's always something interesting to any pursuit, and once I find that -- that special thing -- I can put my whole self in it. Some years, it's about work. Other years, it's about relationships. Some years, it doesn't happen in certain areas I wanted to -- and I think those are subtle signals, telling me to find something else, or to pivot, or to find a better attitude. If challenges or problems arise out of the blue, I hope I can always find a way to take action, directly or indirectly, to solve them. That is one of the greatest motivations of living: to stand back up after you fall down.

This rocky scene has always been inspiring:

As part of my goal of becoming a full "experience designer", comprising of both architectural space and physical space, I have started to learn how to code. Moving through from HTML, CSS, and JS, while simultaneously going through Concept, SD, and DD, I think that building a drawing set is very much like putting together a web page. As the progress evolves, each layer of new information, or insight, generates more insight -- and opportunities for design. Working from the overall building massing and concept, to the minutiae of the wall section, is similar to the condition of flushing out the web structure, from the structure to style to interaction. 

At the end of the day, the two mediums still require the same elusive quality: design. The composition of walls and windows, or the strategy of buttons and images, is up to the designer's taste, experiences, and agenda -- what kind of story the designer is trying to tell. 
Compared to construction or web development, this "storytelling" quality cannot be so easily taught. It is the result of endless trial and experimentation -- and the result of a very clearly defined concept and message.

This quality of "storytelling", I believe, is at the heart of all design pursuits, and why we are all in this game -- why we move forward as designers.