[TED] Don Norman: The three ways that good design makes you happy

“Design is to transform the world from the current to the desired state for other people. ” - Brian P. Baily(UIUC)

What is good design?
and What matters should designer care for their final design. During my university studies and when I do my studio projects, I am mostly seeking this questions to get good solution. and I have found my interests are focused in the relationship between space, nature and people and the interaction between these. In my designs I like to develop this relationship further.

In this video, Don Norman indicates some important point for people who hope their design makes good experience to its user.
he studies how real people interact with design, exploring the gulf between what a designer intends and what a regular person actually wants.

but he is himself and that makes him so pleasurable to listen to. So enthusiastic about his subject that i carried on lstening to him and started looking at more of his talks.

I believe his thinking and theory are of course hugely related with landscaep designing. Because Landscape architecture is also the design process to solve exisiting problems and offer good experience to its users. Urban designer and landscape architecture have to care about how their design will effect to its users and visitors.

I also recommend his books.

UK Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010, Heatherwick Studio

I am hugely inspired by this facsinating pavilion which is the winning design of Shanghai Expo 2010. The design team is Heatherwick Studio based in London. The theme of the Expo is “Better City, Better Life” and a key client objective is for the UK Pavilion to be one of the most popular attractions. I believe they strongly accomplished that aims with fabulous design concept and story of 'The Seed Cathedral'. The Seed Cathedral is a platform to show the work of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and their Millennium Seedbank.

This video describes well the narrative of their design concept.



Their works are always strong and creatvie. I also like and want to recommend their lots of other creative architectural works and sculptures susch as rolling bridge in Paddington Basin, London.


Here is their website : http://www.heatherwick.com/

Images, section drawing and original information from - http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

'Landscape is.. Undertanding' _ Sam Johnston from Gustafson Porter

The forth speaker for question of 'what is landscape?' is Sam Johnston. Recently, He is working in Gustafson Porter landscape practice and teaching at Kingston University landscape studio.

His presentation was also about the answer for the question 'what is landscape?'. He described how should we feel and think for 'landscape'.

I like the way he define landscape.
He said,
"everything is under the sun.. out there and in here."
It means we need to have an understanding of the other and an awareness of self.
Those things contain character, emotion, opinion, culture, history, and future, past, present.

Also, He defined; landscape is 'Two sides of our skin, the two sides of consciousness and the two sides of our responsibilities.'

After his lecture I have found that I need to concentrate and be honest to what I taste, smell and see.
I need to try to understand everything around my every day.
Because it is landscape! :)

'Landscape is .. telling the story' _ Studito Weave.

'Landscape is .. telling the story' _ Studito Weave.

Before I attended their lecture, I had already known Studito Weave through their famous work 'The Longest Bench' in littlehampton. Maria and Je who are founded Studio Weave presented their creative, young and energetic works. They are working diverse set of projects across the country. Maria and Je defined 'landscape' as 'story', becuase when they start to develop their project, they focus on researching its historic background character and use the narrative of spaces for their design concept. Most of their architectural, landscape architectural works have some story, therefore understanding their project is like listening a story. They believe strong historic background gives reasonable link and concept to new proposal and I was inspired by this interesting way that Studio Weave approaching to project sites.



Here is their website: http://www.studioweave.com/

'Landscape is .. Experimenting' _ A Models

'Landscape is .. Experimenting' _ A Models

Christian Spencer Davies introduced 'A-models' which is his beautiful model making practice. He presented the series of his models pictures, and it showed how models represent real architectural projects. I like his sophisticated choice of matching colours and materials for models. My favourite is particularly Black & Gold. Beautiful models can support architectural design and could make it as a winning design for competitions. He also described how he get inspirations for his model. It was from various kinds of art works and coming accidentally. I did not really know well about model making practice, however after joining his lecture, I have realised making model is also one of the strong and independent part of the whole architectural design. I became really really big fan of his works!

Here is his website: http://www.amodels.co.uk

What is Landscape?

As a student who is studying landscape architecture, I am always asking the question 'what is landscape?' during my entire academic years in University. The idea of landscape is always chainging and we need to make our own definition for landscape. As a final year student, in order to go further to my next step, I am trying to describe 'landscape' in my way. During over two days in this focus week, The Landscape Interface Studio in Kingston University made a great opportunity to explore many diverse and challenging ideas of landscape through presentations and conversations. Six individuals discussed their work in the context of “What is landscape?” and they tried to make their description of landscape.

the programme and six individuals were:
***** Tuesday 25 / 2:00 – 5:00pm *****
Heather Ring, Wayward Plants (www.waywardplants.org)
Christian Spencer Davies, AModels (www.amodels.co.uk)
Maria Smith, Studio Weave (www.studioweave.com)

***** Thursday 27 / 2:00 – 5:00pm *****
Sam Johnston, Gustafson Porter (www.gustafson-porter.com)
Will Sandy, Three Green Dots
Trenton Oldfield, This is Not A Gateway (www.thisisnotagateway.net)

I attended both two days presentations and conversations and it allowed me to observe other peoples way of thinking, getting inspirations, and solving problems and to share their concerns.

[Film Review]How much does your building weigh, Mr. Foster?

This 78mins film tracks the success of the world's leading architects, Norman Foster, and his continuing quest to improve the quality of life through design. It includes interview not only with Norman himself but also from colleagues, friends and other colleagues ranging from artists such as Anish kappor, architects including former partner Richard Rogers to U2 musician Bono.

For me, there were two interesting aspects that was covered by the film. The first thing was his journey from design student to pioneering architect and second thing was Normans ecological and sustainabillity ethos. Indeed, his buildings have provided revolutionary ideas about sustainability issues. Most importantly and ground breaking though is his work on Masdar City, the world’s first and only self-sustainable city in Abu Dhabi, relying completely on its own resources and renewable energy.

The film is so beautiful and captivate to watch that I felt the run time is too short.

After watching the film, I wanted to meet his work in real world and visited British Museum to see and feel his masterpiece in modern world.