Did anyone ever talk about the issue of environmentally friendly or safety when Korean celebrities started to get driven around in Korea in these massive people carriers? Many people ask why in Korea there are so many black & white cars.
Coffee provides a platform for spatial discussion, more than anything a coffee
shop provides the single most efficient location for people to interact and socialise.
the informal nature of space and the ever present smell of coffee sets a location
for many efficient interactions. the huge consumption around the world of this liquid
knowledge has become almost an addiction for human relationship. The very nature of sitting,
reading, is nothing than an elegant space for humans to rest meet and form connections.
this space is therefore a surface typology, the actual space of a “shop” providing merely
a surface in which stories are written and old and new narratives formed and reformed.
what then becomes of this place in terms of architecture and what would the future of this product become?
taking a more theoretical perspective on this location it would be appropriate to start with
the process of coffee making and coffee building.
caffeine is a drug which serves to increase the speed of one’s metabolic rate
it is a morning drug, and an afternoon or evening indulgence, served in white containers
the usually black substance and the very nature of coffee is in stark
contrast to the surroundings in which it is consumed. This almost quiet irony is the focus in which the project occurs.
A dark mocha coffee shop. (with cream on top) the spent coffee beans are formed into bricks and turned into construction
material, the project then develops to reasearch on the colour of coffee and its subsequent colours that arouse from its planting picking,
roasting, planting and roasting until final consumption and spillage. Reminders of the worlds cheapest and most expensive coffee trigger
memories of the smell of coffee in the morning. The used coffee bags aren’t used as a form of texture or fabric or seating but
becomes more important the actual fibres and textile turned into placemats and packaging material, rather than an aesthetic object.
The visitor to the shop would in part take home a part of the farm in which the coffee has grown. this packaging is then relocated
into the home or office or park or any part of the city which signify’s a place of rest, relaxation or conversation and meeting.
a trace of flavour.
It seems that Seoul truely lacks the cultural spaces it needs to provide for a youth population. Many young people seem to revolve around eating and drinking
whether its the bars in hongdae or the coffee shops or markets in shinsadong or samcheongdong. What really the city needs is truely human scale interactions between the public and spaces
that the construction creates. The row upon row of parked cars on pavements in gangnam seems to suggest that humans are unwanted on the streets of the city.
A preferable cityscape one in which a scene from 28 days later the movie is replayed, all he humans scared to use the sidewalk or even congregate in public spaces for fear of cars running into the pavement to park.
The use of more public street furniture is always a positive reaction to the urban development of a city but it seems that in seoul people either dont have time to sit and wait, or the land owners dont want you to sit on their property. Could it be the pace of life doesnt allow for such a human action to take place? with people always rushing around the city and then using
the time at home to rest?
I feel that in the next few years the reduction of paving space will allow more pedestrians to feel safe walking along the sidewalks and the
appearance of gueri
lla benches all around the city will facilitate in the calming of the urban environment. Car city killed!
Beer was an item of modernity in Korea and was introduced by the Japanese as they colonised the country. The Japanese set up three breweries in Korea serving the local elite however after Korea was liberated there were set up three Korean companies, OB, Cass, and Jinro-Coors. The most dominating two Beer companies in Korea are Hite and OB (bought Cass , Jinro-Coors) however the companies have benefited greatly from Korean politics so therefore are allowed to “brew” watered down beer for so long. There is a 30% import tax for decent beer from Europe compared to 1% in the most of the West. Imported beers have become somewhat of a luxury item, almost like how Brits consume chinese teas like a fine wine? Also to get a brewing license in Korea you must brew at least 3,000,000 litres of beer a year, mass production of partying at its best!
During the 2002 world cup, there was a greater need for better beers so small micro breweries and bars opened serving beer made on site. Most notably one in Apgujeong next to Cine City and in the COEX complex in Gangnm. Although still bottling and selling this beer is not allowed, last year a law was passed that allowed people to bring their own bottles to these micro breweries and take home a couple of gallons of beer to go home and watch the football with. phew………… all thats next is Soju bottles designed to take into baseball stadiums! and the rise and fall of Makguli and Red Wine (not white wines)
Why do humans love to lose control? listening to Future Chaos from Bomb the Bass a 1980′s electronic DJ/VJ it seems that society in the West promotes the progression of humans whereas the East considers a holistic view of the progression of society. I read recently The Geography of Thought: How Culture Colours the Way We Think. by Richard Nisbett. In his book he investigates hw westerners and east asians describe scenes and photographs in different ways. The conclusion to his book,” Westerners are more analytic, paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to explain and predict its behavior.” This probably shows how Western thinking is all system based, about the processes involved in society and culture, however I still believe that the human is not a robot, for example, look at contemporary medicine in the west, treat the symptom, whereas in the east the cause of medical symptons are treated and steps are made to prevent it.
If the hospital acts as a business the entire medical profession could be in doubt, actually they just want you nearly dead because that would make them more money right?
This leads me onto the whole issue of alcohol, possibly the greatest invention of mankind for initiating the act of creativity, drunks doing their job at weekends serve the police a greater source of monetary income and hospitals benefit financially from all the stomach pumping action that goes on at weekends. On October 17, 1814 A brewery vat containing over 610,000 litres of beer collapsed causing other smaller beer vats to explode in the same building on Tottenham Court Road.
over 1,470,000 litres of beer created a wave of beer foam and alcohol into the streets of London killing 8 people. One person died of alcohol poisoning the next day. The site of this brewery was the Doinion Theatre and in a twist of fate its probably the only time alcohol has ever killed someone without getting them drunk!
Beer in Korea is fairly watered down many of my gyopo friends comment, it seems since the Egyptians developed the technique to control fermentation and make booze beer making has turned into a serious craft.
All thats next is Soju and Beer in Korea and to talk about the wonderful whiskey in Scotland!
“We should be thanking BP. It would be a disaster for the arts if BP withdrew its support.” Painter Anthony Fry
A number of small art collectives have commonly gained noteriety over the past few years for their guerilla (or should I say gorilla) tactics of gaining their message across to the pubic. The new era of ‘instamax’ or as Fujifilm likes to call their instant polaroid, INSTAX culture has become more and more evident. A society in which people seek to share their opinions or make comments through instant events with maximum effect.
(London Evening Standard)
Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, last month poured “Oil” and threw feathers a a party hosted by the Tate art gallery in London to call upon the gallery to end its relationship with BP, in a similar act of “INSTAMAX” a group called Culture Beyond Oil has poured “Oil” at the British Museum in front of a large carving of the human head. In a twist of irony the beautiful glossy substance becomes an art work in itself, drilling for oil is in fact something in which nature did not necessarily / obviously derive from our ancestral existance, the black substance becomes something which captures all the metaphors and symbolism of all things mysterious and bad? The act of throwing feathers symbolic of the thousands of lost birds. Oil Paintings, Feathered artist brushes, Black Paint. In some ways the act of protest has in fact failed through its positive relationship with the work that comes as a result of each “Oil Spill” the fact that it is considered a spill instead of a controlled release of oil makes it the ever more beautiful, the black substance of death reminding the viewer of the black plague and the associations of death, and the irony of watching Oil Tankers and Oil Stations painted in beautiful white makes me wonder how different the companies consider oil to the public perception of the substance.
In my later posts I will show you the Petrol Station that I’ve been working on. Lets all toast with a glass of olive oil…. to Richard Wilson’s Oil Room (although for Health and Safety I think he used molasses)
Did Molasses really kill 21 people in 1919 in Boston? I mean how can something so tasty do such a thing! This is a brilliant excerpt from Wikipedia.
Near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by. The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h), and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway’s Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm). As described by author Stephen Puleo:
Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form — whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was… Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings — men and women — suffered likewise.
Never before has food been so dangerous to man, the container is always the bad part isnt it? plastic wappings, paper packaging, fridges, tupperware.
Next post… the London Beer Flood! (this is true!)
The future is now. NJ Paik