so some unexpected turn of events (rem's powerpoint presentation file becoming corrupted on his flight) turned the lecture scheduled today into an improvised discussion on the state of dutch architecture, globalisation in the post 9/11 world, and the trajectory of OMA's body of work. the resulting... View full entry

so rem will be at mit tomorrow. the title of his lecture will be "lagos." if anyone is in the boston area and is interested, it will be at 5pm in room 10-250. i don't know what time non-mit students and faculty will be allowed to find their seats tho. what one question would you ask the rem? View full entry

so the pilot episode of fight club went relatively well. That's not saying it couldn't do without some tweaking to the format, but some opening day hitches are to be expected with launching of an event such as this. Some interesting excerpts from the fight: chang opens with images of old beijing... View full entry

so here at MIT we've started a new event bringing together professors on opposing sides of an issue and flinging them into a battle royale debate to see who's got the right stuff. tomorrow its yung ho "the fabric" chang vs. alexander "the monument" d'hooghe. seeing as they are both my studio... View full entry

so i decided to introduce each element of my city in the book with a short story not to just diagram use, but to place the element in exaggerated urban situations, and to look at how those situations along with the element create, alter, or destroy urban space. this is my first attempt at one of... View full entry

so here are some images from my studio's trip to hong kong, shenzhen, and guangming (more coming, but i got tired of uploading). it was a crazy whirlwind trip, culminating with an extended stay in a golfing resort hotel in the middle of an agrarian hamlet that glowed green at night (the hotel... View full entry

or i'd be pissed about being in studio at 5 in the morning. all the sensible people are gone. i remain, however - purely a function of my inefficiency as a worker. i suppose the fact that i'm posting is a testament to that. anyway, here's a collage - its an "inter-modal monument" (working... View full entry

so much to say so little time. our studio's got midreview's on tuesday, so all of us are tearing up indesign getting our books completed (at least, the first half of the book). i'll finally be able to update after then - so for now, i'll just post an image i might include in my book.extracting... View full entry

So, after much stress and liquidated cash, I've got my visa, which means I'm headed to Shenzhen on friday. It also means I need to nail down my research agenda before our studio ships out. I know what it is I want to study, but figuring out where I want to study it might be difficult. here's an... View full entry

How do the conventions of live, work, play really apply/find relevance to modern life? Do these conventions' physical and programmatical relationships translate to the globalized condition of the city? How is a city really used? What is the nature of the relationship between the city's inhabitants... View full entry

Well, my studio will be headed to China on Friday to conduct some research and make some observations for our Ideal City project. We're headed to Shenzen (right after a 2 day stop in Hong Kong) to speak with local representatives (the details of which I'm still not entirely sure of). So, barring... View full entry

So here was the first assignment in our studio -- to categorize/describe everything that could happen or could have to do with the city in 3 or 4 words (Athens Charter Style). Then diagram the relationship between these words/institutions/abstractions to illustrate their dynamic. This will then be... View full entry

This is what happens when my easily distractable mind wanders in class ...the programming scheme for our urban design videogame (overly simplified)this just sorta happened ...just some quick sketches in boston View full entry

In colloquium today, Sanford got the class talking about things like master/slave relationships, power/knoledge, urbanism, globalisation, computations, and I'm sure the meaning of life (pretty common stomping grounds for Mr. Kwinter). Along the way, he drops the names of books we all should think... View full entry

So this week was spent very irritated at how hard it is to find a good figure ground map of Mumbai. I'm doing a case study on the city for my methods class, and need good city plans to trace its growth. So far all that seems to be available (after scouring both MIT's and Harvard's map collections... View full entry

If you havn't heard about an experiment in Europe that scientists are defending by saying "it has a very low chance of destroying the planet," check out this news story. View full entry

So i saw this graphic on MSN's home page. I honestly didn't pay any attention to the caption written -- the image was just that strange.[image taken from msn.com] So I decided to I insert my own caption..... It got me thinking about something Sanford told us in class yesterday -- that by... View full entry

So Olafur Eliasson gave his lecture and presented some work tonite at MIT. It was a pretty good talk. Some favorites of mine from his selections: Beauty Green River ('98) The Weather Project - Tate Modern ('03) Black Horizon ('05) Your Space Embracer ('04) I was aware of only a few of his works... View full entry

Seeing as I've spent most of my acedemic time outside of class in the library, I thought I'd post a few pics. Not to mention that Rotch Library and the main building are cheek to cheek, but connected and separated at different places, while sharing a common roof. Confusing? Yes. But besides... View full entry

SA+P is looking to expand their roster of faculty, and is bringing in potential candidates for tenured positions. Today was Rahul Mehrotra. He gave a great lecture on his work and his thoughts on the "kinetic" and "static" city conditions in asia, particularly in Mumbai. Afterwards, we gave him a... View full entry

www.iso50.com Scott Hanson is one of my favorite artists and his website is a great way to distract yourself if your stuck in front of a computer (or in front of one voluntarily for that matter). I've been following this guy since he had just a few prints on his site, and now he's got a clothing... View full entry

So it seems the direction we're going to take in my studio won't be nearly what I expected, but has the potential to be a very refreshing experience. We're designing an Ideal City and will be producing a book with our ideas, concepts, implementation, contextual backdrop, etc, in a manner akin to... View full entry

I know this has nothing to do with architecture but ..... Plugging for the alma mater here (and moreso given that MIT isn't really known for basketball) -- the Jayhawks are ranked #2 on ESPN's preseason poll. I like it better than #1, because every year we get to the top spot, we choke. #2 is a... View full entry

so i guess the hacking has begun at MIT. Don't know if this hack was internal or the fruit of another school's efforts, but either way, MIT had a firetruck on its dome today. **update** found out that it was us. View full entry

I really like this town. I didn't realize that when I decided to come to MIT, i was deciding to attend night school. None of my classes start before 2pm, and my classes wont end till around 7 - 10 pm. i dont mind the late start. the late ending, however ..... took a lot of vertical photos today... View full entry

I think all this walking has taken its toll. My feet are numb. Went around to some art galleries today. Saw some good work, some bad work, and some in between. More importantly, saw more of Boston. And took more random pics. probably the friendliest building in the world. random doorway found in... View full entry

So imagine my surprise today when I check the adjusted results from last nights Level III studio lottery and see my name under Yung Ho's Ideal City studio? It was a nice surprise to start the day with. Classwise, it means I drop out of real estate development to accomodate the 21 hrs of studio... View full entry

The movie adaptation of the lottery was very strange, and I believe featured that one guy from the tv show "wings" but I don't recall for sure ..... Anyway, had the studio presentations yesterday and the lottery results for studios were posted this morning ... sort of. On the morning of the first... View full entry

So funny thing when I signed up for this blog thing ... turns out I already had a blog on archinect and didn't know it. I applied for a blog about 2 years ago in the middle of my fourth year at KU. Never got a response. "oh well," i figured, "guess they're just gonna miss out on the hot Kansas... View full entry

Howdy internet. This is Arjun. Nice to meet you. I love that this blog gives me an excuse to carry my camera everywhere. Just moved in a week ago and signed up for classes today. The freedom you're given as an SMArchS is both refreshing and incredibly stressful. I'm hoping to take a computations... View full entry