ubcsala [china] 2007

The Sun Yat-sen mausoleum in Nanjing was designed in the late 1920s by the Chinese architect Lu Yangzhi. The historic style preserves an attitude of traditional Chinese forms of ornamentation but, through abstraction and re-interpretation, and the use of reinforced concrete and smooth-faced granite, the mausoleum also makes a distinctly modern impression which coincides with […]

The design institute has been communicated as a variety of roles, most common as the overriding power that prevents architects and engineers to enter their own site, manage the site and ensure that their projects are managed and working by a schedule.

Members of Arup is one of such groups restricted from the site of […]

The residential towers here in Beijing have not learned some basic lessons from their Vancouver look-a-likes. Often each floor type is the same, stacking each on top of the other – much like those in Vancouver. In Beijing, the repeated floor type goes all the way to the ground floor. Lacking the basic acknowledgement […]

There are subtle and vast differences in how buildings get built in china in comparison to my experience in North America. These extend to the hierarchy in engineering and architecture, safety standards of the workers. The most visible difference between North American and Chinese building process is easily found on the construction site. Scaffolding that […]

When walking the streets of Paris, San Francisco, or any number of other western cities, one can experience cafes with crowds spilling over into the sidewalks. Beijing does those cities one better. The shops often have no indoor seating, with all seating on the sidewalk [as a matter fact, often the kitchen is on the […]

Many of the housing developments in Beijing are just that – developments. Meaning, they often contain a gate and feel very isolated from the community. There is a clear sense of boundary. This may or may not be able to be traced back to historic patterns in the city/culture. What is not debatable is whether […]

According to the Beijing Tourism Administration, one-third of all tourist complaints are related to public toilet conditions.(NBC News, Nov.17,2004) What most tourists objected, according to Zhou Shuqi, the deputy director of Planning Statistics Department of the Beijing Tourism Administration, can be described in four words: ““smell” (tourists said they could find a toilet by its […]

Leisure space can be public or private. It’s everywhere and situated in the everyday. It can be the foosball room in a busy architecture office, a bench off a sidewalk, a neighborhood café. It can also be one’s living room, the front yard, or the space inside one’s mind. In Beijing, the concept of public […]