friend from the aa went str8 back home to hongkong after graduating last year. supposedly for 2 mths but its been 8 mths now. she got back yesterday and gave me a call this morning. wat a nice surprise. another one on the hunt for work in big old london.

friend from nus graduated last year as well. he completed his father's house and is now ready for a new challenge. he wants to be part of the new upstart generation that is determined to return to singapore with ideas, challenges, real steps to address architecture. not more overdetailed copies and rehashed tropical aesthetics. he is so welcome and i am looking forward to his arrival.

all good. except that i should be getting myself a job soon or i'll lag behind even these two!

gotta pay the rent, gotta feed the family!

a beautiful woman goes through life unchallenged.
for some of these women, beauty is their only talent.

but there's always someone younger, someone more beautiful.
-gene hackman in Under Suspicion

arsenal 1 brilliant goal - manchester united 1 up their arse.

bring 'em on in the cup tie. come on ole!

yesterday saw the conclusion of the aa asian forum organised by ken yeang, the chief proponent of an asian face in the aa. i had mixed reactions to the whole event but admit that i was stirred to thought by the things said, the manner of the presentation, the slides picked and shown, the language used, the people involved, the attitudes they brought with them and the limits of the world they defined for themselves in their practice and/or the limits of the society that they come from.

i'm sure my thoughts will become clearer as i bounce it around a little more and let it simmer. for now, for the record:

1. asian discussion revolves around criticality and identity and ethics. it is alien from the prevalent 'western' discourse of quantitative and qualitative performance, of criteria and of techniques. highlights blindspots of both concerns - can performative criteria differentiate? can it localise and get to issues of identity and types? can the performative project not find overlaps with the critical project?

2. the need for transport, physical proximity and face-to-face contact is decreasing in the general lives of people, with the increasing means of communication, business transaction and forms of entertainment and leisure. the former factors were the key components of the economic machine and this was the chief driver of the city and its making. with this becoming less important (never obsolete, just another splinter, another proliferation), the city is increasingly being driven by issues of culture.

3. the excitement of asia is its freedom from the crippling burdens to imagine new beginnings.

4. is the city an organism or a system?

5. if former, what are the changes at system level that affects the organism that is the city?

6. in cities where the structures of power allow its own transgression, it is manifested in space and it becomes the city. e.g. thailand.

7. i read that gone are the days of the retrospective manifesto. the hongkong presentation was 2/3 retrospective manifesto without a clue as to how it changes practice. the third speaker never went into that territory but spoke from his own almost impassioned experience of designing airports (well). but already, it seems that hongkong casts their architectural concerns much wider than their own little financial spreadsheet and year3 type of middleclass thought-patterns/frequency.

ok. new home too.

third one after jessie and paikoot. lets see how long we'll remain here, i.e. how long this blogging site will remain free.