Qiong He

2008 SEM 2 NEW START WK 1

2008-07-30T00:38:00.000-07:00

Operation between architecture and landscape

This knowledge might escape the terms of building and landscape altogether, focusing on how elements share an urban space, an ecosystem, or a temporal frame.

Five Operations

Reciprocity
Materiality
Threshold
Insertion
Infrastructure

Reciprocity stands against hierarchy, an ordering principle through which architecture has historically subjugated landscape.
Materiality challenges an aesthetic tradition of disembodied contemplation.
Threshold precludes a fixed and static conception of boundary.
Insertion calls into question a figure/ground formulation of the city.
Infrastructure critiques an assumption of landscape as originary ground.

What is Figure/Ground?

Figure Ground

http://daphne.palomar.edu/design/fandg.html

An understanding of Site : Terrain, Contextual Form, Micro-climate

Review and Thinking

2008-05-08T03:05:00.000-07:00

Swetic gave me a lot of advice:

1. The glass is not a good material for playing the lute. Because its ability of absorbing vibrate is not good.

2. For the idea of eliminating the boundary, the outside skin of bamboo wall is a little bit unwanted. (Personally, I think it's fine because the width of gaps between two bamboo sticks can be adjusted. )

3. The opening is not enough for the idea of eliminating boundary.
(Personally, I consider the site is beside the seaside, so the closed glass curtain wall can stop the strong wind coming in. )

4. Glass is not a good material for the wall of seaside building.

(Personally， I think it depends . Sometimes the use of glass for seaside building realizes the idea of design. The follow picture is from Kengo Kuma 's Water/Glass House.

5. For the model construction, the glass roof can not be directly put on the column. There should be beams on the columns for supporting roof.

The good example of Transparency and Connection( Drowning architecture in the landscape)

In an infinite game of reflections, in his Water/Glass House Kuma is inspired by Taut, who draws on the lessons of Katsura to create a building that once again attempts to satisfy the obsession with drowning architecture in the landscape. A layer of water gently covers the edges of the building, as in Katsura's bamboo verandas, while a stainless steel louver casts the shadow of the roof onto the water. The water surface stretches further out to unite the surface with the Pacific Ocean, and a glass box floats on top of this mirror, breaking up and reflecting the rays of the sun inside and outside. The project becomes "a total environment in which everything dissolves, where there is no disarticulation of space, where boundaries disappear" (Kuma), finally drowned in the water, the ocean and the blue sky.

Final Model of Project 2

2008-05-08T02:19:00.000-07:00

Narrative and Design Concepts

2008-05-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

Eliminating Boundary

You can see that the name of this oil painting is “A Love Letter”. The theme of love offers me all the ideas of design. That man is far from home but never far from her heart. The letter can be seen as a connection which eliminates the distance and boundary between that lady and man

I plan to design a space with large glass wall for that lady playing the lute. The nature light pours in from the upper part to give an ample illumination for that lady playing the lute. Let us pretend the outside view is seascape so it also provides a wide angle of view to see outside scenery. The large transparent glass curtain wall also eliminates the boundary of the internalized room and the outside world.

The shallow pond outside room creates an interesting vagueness expression. People may not distinguish the obvious horizontal lines of sea.

The outside skin of wall can be treated as variety of changes. I decide to use bamboo to offer some privacy of this space. But the gaps of bamboos also provide some kind of opening of wall.

Material Use:

Concrete Slab and Column
Glass Curtain Wall (Inside Skin)
Bamboo Wall (Outside Skin)

Understanding of This Painting

2008-05-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

A scene of this painting is a well-to-do woman is being handed a letter. She glances up questioningly at her maid and paused in her lute playing. Although the lady has not yet opened the letter it is apparently from the picture that it is from a lover. The two pictures in the background indicate this.

Emblem of the Objects in the Painting

A painting within a painting often indicates the artist’s intention in the picture. Here the lower painting is a seascape. In the 17^th century language of imagery the sea stood for love and a ship for a lover. The upper picture shows a man walking along a sandy path: as in the painting of the ship, there is the suggestion of a person on a journey. The lover is far from home but never far from her heart. Vermeer has incorporated even more references to love into this picture. A lute symbolizes the harmony produced by love: when one lute is played, other nearby lutes resonate in sympathy.

Spatial Arrangement in the Painting

The location of the observer is interesting in the painting. It can be seen that a scene of domestic intimacy is revealed by pulling a curtain to one side. So it reveals another space in front of it.

Illumination Analysis of this Painting

The light is going through from left side of the room for that lady playing the lute. And the space in front of it is darker, which indicates the space is more privacy.

ARCH1201 Project 2 Room and Narrative

2008-05-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

A Love Letter

Jan Vermeer
17th Dutch Painting

Final Model of Villa Muller

2008-04-18T23:53:00.001-07:00

Parti and Poche diagrams of Villa Muller

2008-04-18T23:28:00.001-07:00

Understanding and Analysis of Villa Muller (ARCH 1201 Poject 1 Artifice)

2008-04-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Villa Muller by Adolf Loos

Due to its open situation, on a slope between two streets, this house has an introverted character. The main private outside space is thus on the roof.

Adolf's Raumplan idea: Design for space not for plans.
many levels in one story

Adolf played a tricky game with us. Villa Muller is simple outside but abundant inside.

Comparison

Frank Loyd Wright's Fallingwater
Adolf Loos' Villa Muller

While Frank Lloyd Wright was perfecting the seamlessness of the transition from inside to outside, Loos was deliberately keeping the public outside and the private inside of his houses as separate as possible. "The building should be dumb outside and only reveal wealth inside." Outside, the Villa Muller is distinguished by ts cubic shape, with flat roof and terraces, its irregular windows and its clean ,white facade.

My idea statement of EXP3

2007-10-28T20:17:00.001-07:00

Dining Area Design

Two opposite lifts connect the three floors. One is from bottom to top and the others is from top to bottom. The use of elevators inside the hall reinforces the sense of movement of space.

Choice of Textures

My design of whole buildings, pathways, elevators and dining table is based on L shape. So I use five "straight line and rectangle" textures on my building to create a sense of utility.

Dining Table Design

I use many prisms and combine them together in order to respect to my whole building design of this project. You can see from picture below. Also the green structure is designed to support the whole dining table when the inside four layers are pulled out. This " pull out " design can save a lot of space. When 2 clients are absent, the table can be pushed in. Last but the most important idea is that the idea of power is designed on this dining table. Zhang yin runs business of paper recycle. So the efficiency is a kind of her power. And Ratan Tata runs various fields of business so that I got an idea of designing 5 different layers. This idea is developed by me. It can be seen that the 5 different layers can create " Pull Out" &" Push In" function so the space is saved when 2 clients are absent. It respects to the Zhang Yin's Efficiency Power. Also "Pull Out" & " Push In" reflects the idea of Movement.

Elevator and Pathway Design

The elevator can transport people from lower place to higher place . It provides a more convenient way between two places. Moreover, people can receive the sense of environment change on the way. The shifting of different views offers a magic trip.
My design of elevator is not complex. I use two large glasses on both left and right faces of elevator. Because I want to let people inside feel a sense of changing views when elevator is moving. Thus I use many transparent tubes to design my pathways among different rooms in order to make maximum sight view. Also the encounter of each other at different pathway is an interesting way of movement and communication .Last but the most important thing is that the design of elevator and pathway to respect to the power. It can be seen that the business of Zhang Yin and Rantan Tata is like a kind of Net. Aggression and ambition is like an large net. So my pathway design is respect to the aggressive and ambitious idea.

The Pictures of Final Model

2007-10-28T20:16:00.004-07:00

The Frame of ModelFive Textures are used on the Exterior Faces

The frame of the dining space The pure form and shadow of dining area The pathway and outside platform
The office for Zhangyin
The office for Ratan Tata The relationship between inside and outside view of pathway

Final Unreal Model Download

2007-10-28T20:16:00.003-07:00

Draft2

2007-10-28T20:16:00.001-07:00

36 Textures

2007-10-19T19:04:00.003-07:00

Some inspirations about Movement36 Textures about Movement

One Point Perspective

2007-10-19T19:04:00.001-07:00

Two-Point Perspective

2007-10-19T19:03:00.008-07:00

Dining Table (Pics and Animation)

2007-10-19T19:03:00.007-07:00

Video of Dining Table

I use many prisms and combine them together in order to respect to my whole building design of this project. You can see from picture below. Also the green structure is designed to support the whole dining table when the inside four layers are pulled out. This " pull out " design can save a lot of space. When 2 clients are absent, the table can be pushed in. Last but the most important idea is that the idea of power is designed on this dining table. Zhang yin runs business of paper recycle. So the efficiency is a kind of her power. And Ratan Tata runs various fields of business so that I got an idea of designing 5 different layers. This idea is developed by me. It can be seen that the 5 different layers can create " Pull Out" &" Push In" function so the space is saved when 2 clients are absent. It respects to the Zhang Yin's Efficiency Power. Also "Pull Out" & " Push In" reflects the idea of Movement.

Inspirations from other dining tables

2007-10-19T19:03:00.005-07:00

Elevator and Pathways(Pics and 2Animations)

2007-10-19T19:03:00.003-07:00

Video shows the movement of elevator in the pathway

Video shows the change of inside view when elevator is moving

My design of elevator is not complex. I use two large glasses on both left and right faces of elevator. Because I want to let people inside feel a sense of changing views when elevator is moving. Thus I use many transparent tubes to design my pathways among different rooms in order to make maximum sight view. Also the encounter of each other at different pathway is an interesting way of movement and communication . Last but the most important thing is that the design of elevator and pathway to respect to the power. It can be seen that the business of Zhang Yin and Rantan Tata is like a kind of Net. Aggression and ambition is like an large net. So my pathway design is respect to the aggressive and ambitious idea.

Inspirations of Elevator and relationship with space

2007-10-19T19:03:00.001-07:00

Draft 1

2007-10-19T19:02:00.005-07:00

The Three News Articles

2007-10-19T19:02:00.003-07:00

1st Client: Zhang Yin

China's 'Queen of Trash' finds riches in waste paper

"I remember what a man in the business told me back then," Zhang Yin said. "He said, 'Waste paper is like a forest. Paper recycles itself, generation after generation.'"

Her companies take heaps of waste paper from the United States and Europe, ship it to China and recycle it into corrugated cardboard, which is then used for boxes that are packed with toys, electronics and furniture that are stamped "Made in China" and then often shipped right back across the ocean to Western consumers.

"She doesn't mind putting a lot of money in at the beginning, to build the company."

"My goal is to make Nine Dragons, in three to five years, the leader in containerboards," Zhang said emphatically during a short interview in her Hong Kong office. "My desire has always been to be the leader in an industry."

Zhang does not go into detail about how she made her fortune. In a society known for close ties and hidden deals between government officials and business leaders, she says simply, "I'm an honest businesswoman."

"When her employees asked for a pay raise, she would grant it if it was reasonable," he recalled. "But when her employees made mistakes, she would criticize them severely. She made it clear when to reward and when to punish."

There were occasional threats from competitors, but being a woman was not a problem, Zhang said. "Actually, I didn't find it difficult," she said. "I found men respected me."

She has not lost her ambition, though. Sometimes called the Queen of Trash, she doesn't disown the title. But, she said, "Some day, I'd like to be known as the queen of containerboards."

Source from: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/15/business/trash.php?page=

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2nd Client: Rantan Tata

Corus takeover: Who is Ratan Tata?

Aggressive and ambitious

That's a short snapshot of Ratan Tata, 69, who controls the $22bn Tata group, which includes 96 companies manufacturing a range of products from automobiles to watches, steel to fertilisers.

The takeover - the largest by any Indian company - marks yet another transformation in the corporate image of Ratan Tata during his 15 years' stint as the group chairman.

Today, the smooth, suave, and introvert Ratan is being seen as an aggressive and ambitious businessman, whose strategic vision has shifted from local to global.

This change started in February 2000, when Tata Tea purchased the UK-based Tetley for over $400m. In the financial year 2005-06, the group made 14 acquisitions (worth nearly $1.5bn).

In a recent interview to an Indian magazine, Ratan Tata said: "We were very obsessed with ourselves in India. So, I have felt for some time that we didn't need to be that."

Today, nearly a third of group revenues, some $6.7bn, comes from overseas markets.

"I think we've only just begun. If we stay in India, we'll be at a competitive disadvantage," Alan Rosling, director, Tata Sons, which is the group's holding company, told Reuters recently.

Ratan Tata's most important concern, however, was to protect his top lines and bottom lines in the face of ever-increasing competition from domestic and global players.

To achieve this objective, he had no option but to become aggressive, a quality that helped him in other areas.

Source from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6071090.stm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3rd Client: Carlos Slim

The Secrets of the World's Richest Man

The portly Mr. Slim is a study in contradiction. He says he likes competition in business, but blocks it at every turn. He loves talking about technology, but doesn't use a computer and prefers pen and paper. He hosts everyone from Bill Clinton to author Gabriel García Márquez at his Mexico City mansion, but is provincial in many ways, doesn't travel widely, and proudly says he owns no homes outside of Mexico.

Mr. Slim's strategy has been consistent over his long career: Buy companies on the cheap, whip them into shape, and ruthlessly drive competitors out of business. After Mr. Slim got control of Telmex in 1990, he quickly cornered the market for copper cables used by Telmex for telephone wires. He bought one of the two main suppliers and made sure Telmex didn't buy any cable from the other big supplier, eventually prompting the owners to sell the company to him.

source from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118615255900587380.html?mod=home_we_banner_left

Inspirations of Power and Movement and Bridge

2007-10-19T19:02:00.001-07:00

Any Comments?

2007-09-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

1st Client: Zhang Yin

Woman tops China's new rich list

Paper-recycling tycoon Zhang Yin has become the first woman to top the list of China's richest people, with a fortune of $3.4bn (£1.8bn).

Ms Zhang is the 49-year-old founder of Nine Dragons Paper, which buys scrap paper from the US for use in China.

Her wealth rose from $375m last year, when she was 36th in the annual China Rich List, compiled by Hurun Report.

Nine Dragons' shares have almost tripled in value since they were listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Ms Zhang is now the richest self-made woman in the world, ahead of US TV celebrity Oprah Winfrey and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

She takes over the top position from retail magnate Huang Guangyu of Gome Electrical Appliances.

There are 35 women on the 500-strong Hurun list, which contains 15 billionaires, double the number from 2005.

In July, Chinese president Hu Jintao called for greater measures to tackle the wealth gap.

The divide has accelerated as market forces exert a greater control over the economy, which grew at 11.3% in the second quarter of 2006.

BBC NEWS/BUSINESS Wednesday, 11 October 2006, 06:46 GMT 07:46 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6039296.stm

2nd Client: Rantan Tata

Corus takeover: Who is Ratan Tata?

By Alam Srinivas
Business editor, Outlook magazine

Ratan Tata has now emerged as a global player

India's Tata Steel has won the battle to take over the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus by making a £5.75bn ($11.3bn) bid.

Tata chairman Ratan Tata is not among the Forbes' list of 40 richest Indians around the world.

His sprawling business empire is no longer the largest among privately-owned Indian groups.

He's not even considered the most powerful businessman in India.

More importantly, there's still a lack of clarity about who'll be his successor after his planned retirement in 2012.

But he's one of the most respected corporate chieftains in India.

And when London-based steelmaker Corus agreed to his takeover bid in October, he had arrived on the global arena.

Aggressive and ambitious

That's a short snapshot of Ratan Tata, 69, who controls the $22bn Tata group, which includes 96 companies manufacturing a range of products from automobiles to watches, steel to fertilisers.

The takeover - the largest by any Indian company - marks yet another transformation in the corporate image of Ratan Tata during his 15 years' stint as the group chairman.

Today, the smooth, suave, and introvert Ratan is being seen as an aggressive and ambitious businessman, whose strategic vision has shifted from local to global.

Tata defied the critics with the country's first indigenous car

This change started in February 2000, when Tata Tea purchased the UK-based Tetley for over $400m. In the financial year 2005-06, the group made 14 acquisitions (worth nearly $1.5bn).

In a recent interview to an Indian magazine, Ratan Tata said: "We were very obsessed with ourselves in India. So, I have felt for some time that we didn't need to be that."

Today, nearly a third of group revenues, some $6.7bn, comes from overseas markets.

"I think we've only just begun. If we stay in India, we'll be at a competitive disadvantage," Alan Rosling, director, Tata Sons, which is the group's holding company, told Reuters recently.

This realisation has struck many Indian promoters and, after the Tata-Corus deal, India's Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) outflows will exceed FDI inflows in the first seven months of this financial year.

But it hasn't been a smooth ride for Ratan Tata. When he became the chairman in 1991, he was seen as a pushover by the group companies' CEOs, who lorded over their entities.

He had to battle it out with these satraps, who treated their companies as their fiefdoms. So, the new chairman eased out CEOs like Rusi Mody (of Tata Steel) and Ajit Kerkar (Indian Hotels).

Revamps

In the late 1990s, two of the top firms, Tata Steel and Tata Motors went through tumultuous crises and were saddled with huge losses.

Tata steel is now one of the lowest-cost producers in the world

Ratan revamped the operations of Tata Steel and made it one of the lowest-cost producers in the world.

He made the critics eat their own words, when he launched India's first indigenous car, Indica, which turned around Tata Motors' fortunes.

As the group entered the 21st Century, Ratan Tata was obsessed with four critical issues.

The first was to globalise his group's operations, where he has succeeded to a certain extent.

The second was to safeguard his companies against possible hostile takeovers after the London-based Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, purchased the Luxembourg-based Arcelor early in 2006 to become the world's largest steelmaker, and announced his ambitious plans in India.

So, to thwart any threats, Tata decided to up his stakes in most of the group companies.

Ratan Tata's most important concern, however, was to protect his top lines and bottom lines in the face of ever-increasing competition from domestic and global players.

To achieve this objective, he had no option but to become aggressive, a quality that helped him in other areas.

Today, the group, which was seen as risk-averse and cautious, has no qualms about taking on competitors publicly - be it in areas of policy-making, products launched or marketing tactics.

Staying on

Finally, the unmarried Ratan Tata had to look for a successor.

There were several candidates - including his step-brother, Noel - but none of them had an established track record. Some of them didn't have the character to carry on the legacy of a group that's synonymous with reliability of products, honesty, integrity and public service.

Corus employs 24,000 people in the UK

When he couldn't find a credible contender, Tata decided to take the bull by the horns and postponed his retirement.

Last year, the retirement age for non-executive directors of Tata Sons, the holding company, was raised from 70 to 75 years.

Thanks to that, Tata, a non-executive director, who was to retire in 2007, got a five-year extension.

Now it appears it is time for Ratan Tata to establish himself on the global map. The Corus buyout makes Tata Steel the world's fifth largest steelmaker.

But it needs to play the catch-up game with Mittal. Tata has to do the same with Mukesh Ambani, the promoter of India's largest private sector firm, Reliance Industries, which aims to be among the top 100 in the Fortune 500 list.

Ratan Tata has a long way to go before he can bid farewell (or "tata" to use the Hindi word) to the world of work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6071090.stm

3rd Client: Carlos Slim

Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world

The son of a Mexico City shopkeeper has built a staggering $59 billion fortune. Fortune's Stephanie Mehta tells the inside story of how he made it to the top.

By Stephanie N. Mehta, Fortune senior writer

August 20 2007: 12:12 PM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- I remember there was a time when the value of his enterprises was very low," recalls Patrick, the youngest son of Carlos Slim Hel�. It was the early 1980s, and Mexico was in the depths of a massive financial crisis. Periodically the elder Slim would round up his three teenage sons for an economics lesson. Sitting them down in the living room of the family home, Slim would produce a single handwritten list. One line would show, for instance, how a Mexican insurance company was selling for far less than a similar American insurer. Another would show that compared with European candy or cigarette makers, Mexican manufacturers were drastically undervalued. "It was a very, very long time ago," says Patrick, "but I absolutely remember him teaching us at an early age."

For Slim, a onetime math instructor, this was no mere academic exercise. Yes, he wanted to instill in his sons the same lesson his father - a Lebanese immigrant who started acquiring real estate in Mexico City during the Revolution of 1910 - taught him: Though Mexico will have its ups and downs, don't ever count the country out. But Slim wasn't just teaching, he was buying. He spent $55 million on an insurance company. He took a stake in retailer Sanborns. He invested in a hotel chain.

Wireless wealth pushed Carlos Slim Helu to the top of the rich list.

Firstborn Carlos Jr. - the only bachelor among the brothers - cut his teeth on the family's retail chain, Sanborns.

Marco Antonio is known as the moneyman.

Patrick helps run America Movil, the Slim's most valuable division.

More from FORTUNE

This old guy sure can pick 'em

Iraq's oil riches still languish

The man who cuts Rupert's hair

FORTUNE 500

Current Issue

Subscribe to Fortune

Full list: 2007 Global 500

1. Wal-Mart	6. Toyota Motor
2. Exxon Mobil	7. Chevron
3. Royal Dutch Shell	8. Daimler-Chrysler
4. BP	9. ConocoPhillips
5. General Motors	10. Total

Global 500 by country

Top-performing companies

• Sales increases	• Profit growth
• Most profitable	• Big employers

Galleries:

• Top 25

• Most profitable

• Money losers

Now those early investments are paying off big time. His three heirs - Carlos Jr., 40; Marco Antonio, 39; and Patrick, 38, run day-to-day operations at various Slim businesses and are increasingly making strategic decisions, while their father, who had heart surgery in 1997, pulls back. And Slim's investments in downtrodden Mexico? They laid the foundations of a sprawling, $150 billion business empire whose growth in recent months has turned Carlos Slim Hel� into the world's richest man.

By our calculations, the 67-year-old Slim has amassed a $59 billion fortune, based on the value of his public holdings at the end of July. This number puts him just ahead of perennial No. 1, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose net worth is estimated to be at least $58 billion. But Gates is selling off his single greatest source of wealth, Microsoft stock, to fund his foundation, while Slim's fortune is growing at a stunning clip. His net worth jumped $12 billion this year alone. His family's holdings represent more than 5% of Mexico's 2006 gross domestic product, and Slim-controlled companies make up one-third of the $422 billion Mexican Bolsa, or stock exchange.

Portly and often puffing a cigar, Slim could pass for a latter-day Latin American J.P. Morgan. But with his dominant stakes in everything from phones to finance, his business profile more closely resembles that of John D. Rockefeller, who likewise thrived in a loosely regulated environment. (For the record, though, even in current dollars Rockefeller's wealth pales in comparison to Slim's: At his death in 1937, Rockefeller was worth $20.3 billion, representing one fifty-second of 1937 U.S. GDP.) The average Mexican encounters a Slim-owned business when she visits an ATM, drives a car, stops for coffee, and especially when she picks up the phone - Slim's Tel�fonos de M�xico controls 92% of the country's phone lines, and his Am�rica M�vil wireless service has a 70% market share. George W. Grayson, a professor of government at the College of William & Mary, coined the term "Slimlandia" to describe how entrenched the Slim family's companies are in the daily life of Mexicans.

It's not a reverential term. Many Mexicans hoped privatization, which began in the early 1990s, would create competition and drive prices down drastically. That hasn't happened. "Slim is one of a dozen fat cats in Mexico who impede that country's growth because they run monopolies or oligopolies," says Grayson. "The Mexican economy is highly inefficient, and it is losing its competitive standing vis-�-vis other countries because of people like Slim."

Fortune Global 500: América Móvil

"The accusations are not well-founded," Carlos Jr. fires back during an interview. He then pulls out an analyst's report showing how the average price of long-distance phone service in Mexico compares with that in other countries. Mexico is third cheapest, according to the report, behind the U.S. and Finland. (A recent study by the World Bank paints a different picture, showing that Mexico's rates for monthly service and residential phone hookups are among the highest in the developing world.)

Wooing the public isn't exactly a favorite activity for the Slims. "I think sometimes when you are successful in business," says Slim in heavily accented English, "you have others trying to turn public opinion against you because they are trying to compete with you." Slim, however, is beginning to court public opinion, pledging earlier this year to increase the size of his charitable foundations. Meanwhile, his sons are doing what the Slims do best: making more money.

***

Anyone expecting to find monuments to the Slim financial empire in Mexico City - a gleaming TelMex tower jutting out of the skyline or an Am�rica M�vil stadium - would leave disappointed. In fact, Am�rica M�vil, Latin America's largest provider of wireless services, is housed in a converted tire factory. The juxtaposition of austerity and wealth can be quite odd, as evidenced by a recent visit to the headquarters of Inbursa, Slim's financial business. Just beyond the lobby is a makeshift art gallery that features a rotating selection of paintings on loan from the Museo Soumaya, a Slim-financed fine-arts museum named after his wife, who died in 1999. The room is a bit shabby. It is poorly lit and smells faintly of cigarettes; several large crates are propped against one of the walls. "We had several El Grecos here," Arturo Elias Ayub, Slim's son-in-law and spokesman, says matter-of-factly. There's also a folding table in the center of the room. "Mr. Slim sometimes likes to eat his lunch here," Elias adds.

The famous Slim thrift - he used to show up for business meetings wearing a cheap calculator watch - extends across the entire company. Years ago he wrote "official principles" for Grupo Carso, his industrial conglomerate, which are distributed annually to all employees. One tenet translates into English as follows: "Maintain austerity in prosperous times (in times when the cow is fat with milk); it accelerates corporate development and avoids the need for drastic change in times of crisis." So, for example, TelMex's net debt equals Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, a statistic that's unheard-of in its industry, where debt is typically three times cash flow. Am�rica M�vil actually has less debt than Ebitda. "They're rabid about costs," says New York-based Citi investment research analyst Patrick Grenham. "They borrow as little as possible and very carefully."

Slim inherited his head for numbers - and his knack for bottom-fishing - from his father, Julian, who fled to Mexico in 1902 to avoid the Ottoman Empire's military draft. Julian Slim started a general store and bought commercial real estate in downtown Mexico City during the 1910 Revolution. He required his young son to record his childhood purchases in notebooks; Slim, a bit of a pack rat, keeps some of the ledgers on a shelf in his office.

Though he taught math to make money in college, Slim graduated with a degree in engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the early 1960s. He then started a stock brokerage in Mexico City and began to acquire industrial companies he deemed bargains. He would reinvest the cash from those businesses or use it to acquire additional properties, and he named his holding company Grupo Carso ("Carso" is an amalgam of his first name and Soumaya's).

Then came the crash of the Mexican economy in 1982. The country defaulted on foreign-debt payments, investors fled Mexico, and companies traded for centavos on the peso. Slim was able to scoop up assets on the cheap. All the while, he was schooling his heirs on his investments, occasionally even seeking their counsel to test their business savvy - such as the time he asked 12-year-old Patrick if he should acquire cigarette maker Cigatam (he did). "You make it fun," Slim says. "It is one thing to listen to a father lecture. It is better to learn from experience."

The Mexican economy eventually recovered, and by the late 1980s Slim was one of the country's most successful businessmen. When the government put the state-owned telephone company, Tel�fonos de M�xico, up for sale, Slim jumped. He partnered with SBC (now AT&T (Charts, Fortune 500)) and France T�l�com to buy 20% of the company in late 1990 for about $2 billion - a fair price, based on other phone companies' market values at the time. What rankled would-be competitors of TelMex (including U.S. long-distance companies such as MCI) were the terms of the privatization: Slim and company got what amounted to a seven-year guarantee of monopoly status at a time when phone companies around the world had the money - and will - to expand into new markets.

Further clouding the deal was the fact that Slim was a huge contributor to Carlos Salinas de Gortari's PRI party. In his book about Mexican politics Bordering on Chaos, author Andr�s Oppenheimer describes a 1993 dinner party in which Salinas's people solicited 30 Mexican businessmen for contributions. According to Oppenheimer's account, Slim was willing to give but told the group he "wished the funds had been collected privately, rather than at a dinner, because publicity over the banquet could 'turn into a political scandal.'" Oppenheimer writes that the businessmen present pledged to contribute an average of $25 million apiece. A Slim rep declined to comment.

"He made his billions because of an extremely close and advantageous relationship with the Salinas government," says professor Grayson of William & Mary. More recently Slim has been pragmatically investing in multiple parties, a common practice among Mexico's oligarchs.

Slim's cozy relationships weren't limited to powerful government officials. In the 1990s many of Mexico's trade associations were struggling financially because membership in the groups, once compulsory, had become voluntary, and some businesses stopped paying dues. Slim began supporting many of the associations. A trade group leader confessed to a U.S. researcher that he was glad for the financial help, but it certainly kept him from complaining too loudly about phone rates in Mexico.

Middle- and working-class Mexicans are less reticent, says Marco Mu�oz, assistant director at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas. They, too, feel Slim hasn't been a good steward of TelMex: Many Mexicans hoped the privatization would produce new operators and lower rates; instead, the company has a virtual monopoly more than 15 years after the government got out of the phone business.

That is due in part to Slim's masterful neutralization of his opponents. AT&T and MCI told local and U.S. regulators that TelMex consistently stymied their efforts to expand in Mexico by setting exorbitant rates to connect calls to TelMex's network. Meanwhile, consolidation in the U.S. - which reduced the landscape to just two big carriers - worked to Slim's advantage. AT&T, of course, is now owned by SBC, Slim's original partner in TelMex. And Verizon (Charts, Fortune 500) just agreed to sell a bunch of wireless and wireline assets in Latin America to Slim. (CEO Ivan Seidenberg got to know the Mexican businessman a few years ago when he was trying to buy MCI and had to cut a deal with Slim, who turned out to be one of the largest owners of the bankrupt company's distressed debt.)

Even as Slim was keeping competitors out of Mexico, he was looking to expand beyond his home country. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who worked in Mexico from 1992 to 1996 overseeing SBC's investments, vividly remembers talking strategy with Slim in 1995. "It's always a late night with Carlos," says Stephenson, who recalls him laying out his plans to go into the rest of Latin America and bet big on wireless. Slim began acquiring wireless assets in the region, and he also took advantage of the dot-com crash in 2000 to scoop up phone assets that had gone belly-up, including AT&T Latin America, which provided him with a backbone for moving traffic throughout the region.

During a recent visit with Slim, Stephenson says he "pulls out this piece of paper, and he keeps on unfolding and unfolding." It was a handwritten table of all the major communications companies in the world. (Slim doesn't use computers.) In one column he had listed all the companies he owns or controls. Elsewhere he listed the other players, along with their revenue and operating and net incomes. "I took the sheet and made a comment about one of the companies, and he starts going through all the financial metrics for the company," Stephenson says, grinning. "He's got all that information in his head."

Another executive at a U.S. telco remembers being summoned to a pitch meeting in Mexico City a few years back, when Slim was looking to invest in busted phone companies. Slim grilled the group for a couple of hours, asking a seemingly endless number of questions concerning minute details about the business, such as margin information for each of the company's segments. Only after Slim left the room did the stunned executive realize that in addition to doing due diligence, Slim had gleaned valuable information about the competition. (An obsessive baseball buff - especially when it comes to the Yankees - Slim also has a moneyball memory for sports stats. In 1998 he even penned an article in a local magazine extolling the performances of historical baseball figures, both famous and obscure.)

Though Carlos Sr. gets most of the credit for building the Slim empire, the various companies for years have been managed by a network of relatives and confidants. While he was undergoing heart surgery in 1997, all eyes were suddenly on his sons. "When I was sick a few years ago, they were very young," says Slim. Still, "they were in charge, and nobody knew I was gone."

I have been whisked into a sparsely furnished conference room at Inbursa's Mexico City offices, waiting to meet the eldest son of the world's richest man. Security guards pace outside the door. Suddenly Carlos Slim Domit (Domit was his mother's maiden name) walks into the room unannounced, sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up, and apologizes for running late. Though Carlos Sr. has announced no formal succession plans, his eldest son and namesake may end up being the de facto public face of the Slim family (he now runs Grupo Carso, the most complex of Slim's three holding companies). It is a role that suits him: Friends and business associates say all the sons are social, but Carlos Jr. is the most charismatic of the three. A bachelor who enjoys car racing (observing, not driving), he seems to genuinely like interacting with the public. Unlike the children of many international moguls, he and his brothers didn't go to European boarding schools or pursue advanced degrees at B-schools abroad. They studied business as undergraduates in Mexico, and they learned on the job.

For Carlos Jr., that meant working at his father's banking operations in his teens, during breaks from school. He went on to join Sanborns (an old-style emporium known for its lunchtime cafeteria crowd), making frequent early-morning trips to La Merced market in an unsavory part of Mexico City to help purchase produce. Eventually Carlos Jr. took over the chain, and under his watch Sanborns became Mexico's No. 1 bookseller and music retailer. Since 1998 he's been running Grupo Carso.

If Carlos is the customer service guy, Marco Antonio is the moneyman. An intense fellow who has inherited his father's mind for math, the middle son has been in his current job, chairman of Inbursa, since 1992, when he was just 24. The stock has performed respectably but hasn't outpaced the broader market. The laid-back youngest son, Patrick, works with brother-in-law Daniel Hajj at Am�rica M�vil (Charts). That stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Bolsa, has tripled since Patrick became chairman in 2004 and has emerged as the greatest source of the Slim family's wealth.

The Slims have also had their share of clunkers, such as the Carlos Jr.-led 1999 purchase of a 15% stake in CompUSA, which has been a disaster. It was all part of a plan to build an Internet business in both the U.S. and Mexico that included dial-up Internet operator Prodigy and a Spanish-language portal. For once, the Slims' timing was terrible. They unwound their U.S. Prodigy investment as consumers flocked to broadband, but held onto CompUSA too long. The company was squeezed by direct sellers like Dell (Charts, Fortune 500) as well as by electronics retailers like Circuit City. Earlier this year CompUSA announced plans to shutter half its 250 stores, and the Slims have said they would consider selling the business. "If we have to make mistakes, we make small mistakes," Slim says. "We prefer no mistakes, of course, but small mistakes are the best mistakes."

A few days after my first set of interviews, the entire Slim family, including grandchildren, was set to take a vacation together on the beaches of western Mexico near the Sea of Cortez. I asked how many people were going, and Slim's son-in-law Arturo Elias, who was sitting in on the session with Carlos Jr., started to count the family members in his head. "The only bachelor is Carlos," Elias said, smiling. "And my father," Carlos added. "So we count them as a couple," Elias joked.

By all accounts the family seems to enjoy spending time together. The elder Slim and his sons and sons-in-law meet for dinner every Monday night in la casa familiar, the family house. "My mother and father were very close to us," Carlos Jr. told me. "They taught us to try to be happy with your life and also to be conscious of the responsibility we have" as a prosperous clan.

The issue of responsibility is one that is already dominating the thinking of family members and outsiders alike, given Slim's new designation as the richest man in the world. He has a "historical opportunity to become the Rockefeller of Latin America," says Jose Antonio Rios, a former Global Crossing and Tel�fonica executive who now runs a U.S. real estate holding company. "A wealthy, powerful family like the Slims could be a tremendously positive factor in the next 25 years of development in Latin America."

What form will that take exactly? The Slims' three main foundations have roughly $4 billion today, and they've pledged at least another $6 billion over the next several years. Among the causes: institutes for health and education, each seeded with $500 million to start. Slim has been a big backer of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative, and Bill Clinton recently convinced Slim to donate at least $100 million to his foundation's efforts to reduce poverty in Latin America. He also has invested heavily in refurbishing Mexico City's Centro hist�rico, or downtown. That said, the family tends to embrace economic development rather than donations as a way of eradicating poverty. "I think the best way to help people is not to give them money but to give them a job," says Marco Antonio. "We support education, health, and employment - that's what people need for a better life." Carlos Sr. caught a lot of flak from the Mexican press and U.S. commentators earlier this year when he was quoted as saying that he had no intention of "going around like Santa Claus" distributing his wealth.

Indeed, Slim seems to have a slightly different view of how he might give back. A few years ago he won an award from the World Education and Development Fund for his work on infrastructure in the developing world. His entire family accompanied him to the dinner in New York City. In his acceptance speech, Slim explained his life's work: "Many people want to leave a better world for their children," he told the crowd. "I'm trying to leave better children for my world."

REPORTER ASSOCIATES Lisa Bergtraum, Patricia A. Neering and Lillian Ruiz contributed to this article.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/03/news/international/carlosslim.fortune/index3.htm

Final UT Environments and Image Captures

2007-09-07T06:25:00.001-07:00

Inspiration from Quotes and explanation for the design:

Self-words:

In this project, I want to make an experience of using the dynamic light in the space. I want to use light effect to reinforce the space. You can see that I use the natural light effect in two rooms of hawkins' lab and artificial light in the meeting place and the others, I think light is a way to bring people the sense of direction. It can be one kind of leader to tell people where is the road and where is the room.

Stephen Hawkins
"If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory,everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be dscovered."

This quote makes a suppose that life is long enough to find all theories. Indeed, it advocates the pleasing process of discovering unknown things. Life is more interesting with challenges. So I create spaces, using different scale & proportions, and dynamic light effects , to express this idea.

Florence Nightingale

"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. "

This quote reminds people of keeping the sense of dissatisfaction. Because it could be better if people are beyond the current circumstance. So I want to create space from narrow to broad, to stand for breaching the old manner and getting things better.

The overall view The left space: Hawkins
The middle space: Meeting Space
The right space: Nightingale
These three spaces are connected by two ramps

The wireframe image

The lighting only image

This shows how I plan to use the dynamic light to express the ideas of clients.

Hawkins' spaceoutside view

1st room with natural light and shadow

1st Ramp connects Hawkins & meeting space
1st ramp and roof of meeting space

view from Hawkin's space

this picture shows the scale of ramp and human-being

View from meeting space

Meeting space

1st ramp and meeting place (see the light effect to reinforce the way of ramp and meeting place)

roof & meeting place

2nd ramp, meeting place & 1st ramp

2nd Ramp connects Nightingale & meeting space
front view

Light effect from bottom and inside

inside

view from meeting place

view from top

2nd Draft UT Environments and Image Captures

2007-09-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Florence Nightingale

"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. "

This quote reminds people of keeping the sense of dissatisfaction. Because it could be better if people are beyond the current circumstance. So I want to create space from narrow to broad, or put a block in the middle to stand for breaching the old manner and getting things better.
the birdview image

view from 2nd ramp to Nightingale's space

1st small place

2rd larger place

2nd larger place inside

the staircase

the ramp to this room
(I use the curve line to design the ramp. Because I think the curve line is also expressing the idea of breaching things and getting better. You can not see the direct destination because of the curve, so that the exploration is needed.)

1st Draft UT Environments and Image Captures

2007-09-07T06:21:00.000-07:00

Stephen Hawkins
"If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory,everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be dscovered."

the outside view

View from top

The ceiling view

central atrium

1st room inside with natural light

2rd room inside with natural light

Electroliquid Aggregation

2007-09-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

Florence Nightingale
"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. "
(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/florence_nightingale.html)

Stephen Hawkins
"If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory, everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be discovered."
(http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/37152.html)

Electroliquid Aggregation
Humans are always discontented. They wants to find out anything they don't understand. Thus the world will be better for next generation due to some problems have been solved by the previous one. Probably, one day human may find out the way of making his life span long enough to find ultimate theory. But it would lead a result that nothing would be left to be discovered. In the end, the world would never reach anything better.

Parallel Projections

2007-09-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

36 Textures from Light to Dark

2007-09-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

18 Axonometric Drawings

2007-09-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

Florence Nightingale
"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. "

Stephen Hawkins
"If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory, everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be discovered."

This quote makes a suppose that life is long enough to find all theories. Indeed, it advocates the pleasing process of discovering unknown things. Life is more interesting with challenges. So I want to create dynamic rhythm of space,using different scale or proportions, to express this idea.

3 Quotes

2007-08-27T23:45:00.001-07:00

Charles Darwin
"I love fools' experiments. I am always making them. "
(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charles_darwin.html)

The Edge

2007-08-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

EXPERIMENT TWO: THE EDGE

DUE: MONDAY SEPTEMBER 10 10AM.

ASSESSMENT WEIGHTING: 30% (marking schedule)

EXPERIMENT OUTLINE

TIMETABLE: 3 Weeks. 30% of final grade
ARCHITECTURAL ISSUE: The Art of Experimentation
ARCHITECTURAL CONVENTION: The Ramp
ARCHITECTURAL CHALLENGE: Articulating behind, through and in front of a vertical surface. A lab
REFERENCE TEXT: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
CLIENTS: Florence Nightingale, Stephen Hawkins, Charles Darwin
SOFTWARE: UT2004, Fraps, Blogger
TECHNIQUES: The axonometric, Boolean operations, real time image capture, blogging
OUTPUTS: 18 sketch axonometric drawings, 36 custom textures, 2 draft UT2004 environments, 1 final UT2004 environment, 5 real time image captures on a Blogger weblog.
PREMISE: Architecture may be designed by the amalgamation of discrete forms. Such Boolean operations promote an abstract understanding of the relationships required to make whole systems.

PROCEDURE

Choose a specific idea from two of the three clients listed above and create an architecture consisting of three spaces; one behind a vertical surface, one in front of the surface and one on the vertical surface itself. The spaces behind and in front of the vertical surface are the clients laboratories (imagine they actually came up with the idea there). The space on the vertical surfce is a place for your clients to meet and exchange ideas. Create a ramp that allows each client to arrive at their meeting in a distinctive and significant way.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

In addition to the overall course assessment criteria students will be assessed on the level and extent to which they engage with the criteria listed below:

THE THREE QUOTES _ Do the three quotes work together to suggest a distinctive and significant approach to engaging with each clients ideas?
THE 18 SKETCH AXONOMETRICS _ Do the 18 sketch axonometrics communicate a distinctive and significant approach the student has taken with respect to the clients ideas and their relationship to the edge?
THE 36 CUSTOM TEXTURES _ Do the 36 custom textures demonstrate enquiry and experimentation with respect to ideas of light and shadow?
THE RAMP _ Does the ramp demonstrate a distinctive and significant approach to bringing the clients together?
THE IMAGE CAPTURES AND ARCHITECTURE _ Do the image captures demonstrate that the student has thought about the relative size of each element, what their proportions are, their orientation, how texture and color map over their surfaces and how all of the above work together to establish the balance or otherwise of their scheme?

The Datum

2007-08-19T02:27:00.000-07:00

EXPERIMENT 1: THE DATUM

TIMETABLE: 4 Weeks, 25% of final grade.
ARCHITECTURAL ISSUE: Selling Creativity
ARCHITECTURAL CONVENTION: The Stair
ARCHITECTURAL CHALLENGE: Articulating below, on and above a ground plane. A studio
REFERENCE TEXTS: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/ and http://www.saatchi.com/worldwide/index.asp
CLIENTS: Patricia Piccinini, Marcel Duchamp, Leonardo Da Vinci
SOFTWARE: Sketchup, Blogger
TECHNIQUES: The section, texturing and UV mapping, story boarding and animation, blogging
OUTPUTS: 18 sketch sections, 36 custom textures, 2 draft sketchup models, 1 developed sketchup model, 3 animations on a Blogger weblog
PREMISE: We can understand Architecture as a series of relationships between surfaces, objects and spaces. The datum introduces an idea of measurement into these relationships so that we can begin to understand the balance or otherwise of a scheme

3 Pictures From 3 Artists and My own work

Patricia Piccinini

Innocence(n.), Contrast(v.), Original(adj.)

Marcel Duchamp

Bisexuality(n.), Flout(v.), Humorous(adj.)

Leonardo Da Vinci

Body(n.), Proportion(v.), Numeric(adj.)

Qiong He

Skin(n.), Move(v.), Oppressive(adj.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Video

I made a short video about Glenn Murcutt's indigenous projects

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

18 Sections

I choose these two pictures to develop 18 sections.

Patricia Piccinini

Innocence(n.), Contrast(v.), Original(adj.)

Marcel Duchamp

Bisexuality(n.), Flout(v.), Humorous(adj.)

Top Left: Original, Humorous
Bottom Left: Original , Flout
Top Right: Original, Bisexual
Bottom Right: Contrast, Humorous

Top Left: Contrast, Flout
Bottom Left: Contrast, Bisexual
Top Right: Innocence, Humorous
Bottom Right: Innocence, Flout

Top Left: Innocence, Bisexual
Bottom Left: Humorous, Original
Top Right: Flout, Original
Bottom Right: Bisexual, Original

Top Left: Humorous, Contrast
Bottom Left: Flout , Contrast
Top Right: Bisexual, Contrast
Bottom Right: Humorous , Innocence

Top : Flout, Innocence
Bottom : Bisexual, Innocence
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

36 Textures

My thinking process:

Fomal 36 Custom Textures:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8 Staircases

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 Sketchup Models

My design thinking:

The 1st Draft Model and its Video:

Above: Original
Below: Flout

The 2rd Draft Model and its Video:

Above:Innocence
Below:Bisexual

The Final Model and its Video:

Design Process:

Formal Model:

My Final Model in Google Warehouse (CLICK)
1st Draft Model in Google Warehouse
2rd Draft Model in Google Warehouse

Critical Thinking & Comments from Shaowen

My suggestion for you in the coming experiments is to break your tendency creating objects but not space. Try to get inside of a built environment. You can learn this by studying a set of drawings and images of your own choice, say your favorite architecture( E.G. OSCAR NIEMEYER) now. Try to understand what are the architectonic elements and how do they come by? Structure, space and enclosure are basic architectonic elements for architectural design.