Forward... Backword...

It took me forever to finish reading the article. I'm stunned by how much information there are in a downland gridshell to learn before you can "accurately" make one. It seems to me that maybe just because of a small mistake, you can go home one day celebrating how a successful construction day you've had and come back to the site the next day with your jaw falling on the ground looking at your brilliant work turning into a broken basket. Maybe I'm exaggerating it too much. But I did enjoy feeling my guts dancing salsa to the sound of cracking wood today during the group project ^.^

I wonder, that nothing in the nature is perfectly rectilinear, yet when we try to build some organic shapes, it seems so difficult. When things are in straight lines, it's easy to mass-produce, to transport and to put together. However, structures like gridshell requires that each element is unique in shape. The "unlikely-ness" of the elements makes the process of design and construction very complex. Even though each shell starts with a flat mat, when it's start to be raised and shaped, each node on the shell must fall into its exact place. In our discussion on Friday, we mentioned that each gridshell project is different. It's not about we learned our experience this time and we'll make it better next time. We'll move on to a new stage of discovering the technology. When I write to here, I also start to wonder, when gridshell structure become a possibility of a new direction of architecture, are we stepping forward in terms of advancing the technology or looking backward towards how our ancestors started to learn the nature. Like Frei Otto said, he was just letting nature to take place and make the materials to do their own job, are we "relearning" the nature using the new materials that we created? Are we, as human beings, giving up the big ambition of "concurring the nature" and start to realize that nature itself is actually a extremely complex puzzle that we still can't really solve?

After industrial revolution, production processes are broken into pieces in order to achieve mass production and speed. In a large office building, people call different sections of the cubicals "district" and some information are confidential even between departments within one company. The beauty of gridshell construction is during the process, it brings everyone to work together. In many projects nowadays, there's lack of good communication between the architects, the engineers and the builder (crafter). For gridshell, just like each timber component is touching each other and work as a whole, everyone working in the project needs to know what others are doing and how they do it. Again, because of the nature of the working process of downland gridshell, are we stepping back to the traditional way of collaboration? I'd say it's not going backward, but it's like a cycle of revolution. Maybe many years later, a gridshell structure can be easily constructed by one or few people like a camping tent...

That's enough for now... 晚安～

My Silent Scream

I was quiet like a dead stone today (again, like always). It's not because I didn't want to say anything. I tried to open my mouth but nothing came out. My brain was trying to work in a different language other than the one it was designed with. Then it was like an overworked computer program, it just crashed... Luckily I have this blog thing where I can spit out my thoughts in silence. At least it's so much better than let them explode in my head.

So after reading my blog, if you want to throw bricks or CMU at me, go ahead, but just please be gentle. And I'll go get my safety helmet...

In my opinion, computer is another tool for us to understand the world that we've created, and help us to make things even better. Yes, computer is smart, it does all the calculations as fast as you blink your eyes. But hundreds or thousands of years ago, when people learned how to use tools like a hummer or a knife, I believe it felt as magical as when we see all the fancy things computers can do nowadays. Our hands are one of the tools that we use to understand and create as well. Through touching, seeing, smelling and all the senses we have, the information is transferred to our brain. Then the brain analyzes the information and decides which option works and which don't. What I'm trying to say here is that all the tools that we use to create is valuable for us. Whether it's computer or hand, they are parts of a whole design experience. We can't say one is better or more important that the other. Some people want to achieve the accuracy, and therefore they relay on computer software and machine production. Others prefer the hand print on an object that shows the trace of human creation. We all want different things because none of us are alike. Even in computer itself, people have to create different software that complete similar kind of task, because every program has its downside. Otherwise, why there's not a single 3D modeling program that does everything, instead of formZ, Sketchup, Rino, etc.

Some people argued in the class today that because of the existence of computer, the way we think and act start to change. But what I wanted to mention is that maybe when we compare individuals, there're people that do really good computer work, and people who can do beautiful hand craft. However, if we look at human being as a whole, there will always be both type of people existing. I can't really imagine that because computer technology is really advanced that our mind-thinking ability would be completely disabled and extinguish from the earth. As long as we are still breathing, there will always be a moment where we remember the fundamental senses we have, like sight and touch, and we would want to experience them once again through our process of creating.

Here's something off-topic that I thought is interesting. I was listening to CRI (China Radio International) yesterday and they were talking about email and hand written letter. People complain that letters sometimes get lost and it takes forever to get to the receiver. With email, you just click a button and it's sent right away. However, when we know that someone is writing a letter to us, the time we spend waiting and imagining what the letter would be like is much more special (emotional) than logging into your gmail or yahoo everyday to see how many junk mail you have.

I think because we are human beings, we are not "programmed" to follow a single rule all the time. We want different things at different times, accuracy, efficiency, or emotions and feelings. I just hope that with all these tools we have, we can understand ourselves better and use these tools to create so much more things that we maybe can't even think about right now.

That's enough BS for now. I'm ready for the flying CMUs that's coming my direction. Good night~ 晚安～

行至水穷处，坐看云起时。　

From the Beginning again

New term, new start. Hopefully this is going to be better than the last... Am I too greedy?