The Cheng’s Architecture and Real Estate Foundation

Our mission is to build affordable, safe and sustainable housing for everyone.

I remember the time when I had my first architecture class; the professor told me that architects only serve 10 percent of the population in the world. I was shocked at that time. However, I think a designer can help more people through their professional skills.  As an architect, what we do is integrate the design and development into building construction. We literally can engage every aspect of the building development. For example, the material, structure, spaces, VAC, Piping. The building is one of a fundamental part of this world, which influences almost everyone’s life.

Our first goal is to provide affordable housing for people who in need. The primary purpose for this is to reduce the construction and developing cost through architect’s role. For example, in our design process, we can choose cheaper and abundant material for construction, which will significantly reduce the price for people who are willing to buy the property. Another way of doing this is to design the economic space for the building. For example, we can create relatively tight space to reduce the price for each unit while developer still achieves their profit purpose. Moreover, we can create a campaign for people who want to help others through their professional skills, the architect can design the building; engineers can construct, a business person can be financial and market. By doing this, less cost in developing and construction also means cheaper housing for people.

Another goal for Cheng’s foundation is to provide a safe building for people. I joined a group in earthquake rescue mission when I was in high school. I experienced the tragedy of disaster. Here is the fact, in most disasters, the unsafe building is killer! However, there are lots of dangerous buildings around the world, especially in developing countries. The one thing for us is to design a building with active, aware and knowledge of building regulation and provide engineering experience in seismic awareness. Another one is monitoring the construction process on whether the works are done in a proper way.

The last goal is to design sustainable housing. Building conserves lots of energy and natural resources. Through active sustainable design, the building can save tons of energy by reducing the use of water and electricity. For example, double façade wall can reduce the utilization of the heater, natural ventilation can reduce the usage of the heater, and natural lights can lessen the use of lightbulb. All above aspect can substantially increase buildings energy performance and conserve energy. In this parts, architect also can place their design role from the building into modifying the infrastructure for clean water and sufficient electricity

Architecture on Making the World Better Place

After reading the “Blue Sweater,” I am moved by the action the author take in Africa to make the world a better place. She used his banking skills to help poor people to get a loan from the bank, which helps them build up their business and take care of their family. As an architecture student, I think I also can do something like helping people to build and design an affordable house. Through my skills, I can design community or condominium which can satisfy the need of the people and reduce the developing cost. Providing the house for poor people will greatly change their life. If they have a home, they will have better life quality. Saving on housing means they will have extra money for food and education. As the world with kids has enough food and affordable education is a better world.

Through architecture, we are not only can provide housing for people in need, but we also can provide clean water and electricity for the people if we carefully integrate the design with utility infrastructure. A better design will also provide them better community space for gathering and social, therefore with the help of architecture, it really can make the world a better place.

Connection behind the Artwork

Background

The Exhibition of “The Art of Our Time” is assembled by Chief Curator of MOCA Grand Avenue, Hellen Molesworth. From the title “The Art of Our Time”, we can know that the exhibition will talk about the Contemporary Art. The Contemporary Art is diverse. Therefore, it is hard for the curator to create a single theme for various art pieces. However, Hellen is trying to install the exhibition with the connection between the artwork and the artists. In the Official Website of MOCA, it says that the exhibition is a representation of the link between the artists and artwork.[1] The exhibition is carefully divided into two parts based on its topic. One of them is a connection between movements, such as abstract expressionism, pop art, conceptual art, and feminism. Another one is a connection of ideas, such as sharing, caring and reflecting, which is not the following the trend or movement. From a review by William Poundstone, the MOCA exhibition is based on time and theme. [2] From the MOCA, the link behind the artwork is based on friendships, history of art school and artists’ personal interests.[3] Through series painting, sculpture, and photography, the show expresses the topic of “Connections”.

Connection of Ideas

The first part of the show is ideas in connection. The ideas are main reinterpreted in three different ways. One is the School of Black Mountain, which contains various experimentation on ideas between the Modernism the Postmodernism. Through my experience of the walking in the gallery, the work in this connection is pretty dramatic and different from each other. For example, the Josef Albers’s work is trying to explore the idea of the perception through the color and proportion. It also leaves the room for the viewer to explore the ideas of how to understand the purpose of the work. They also have ideas of abstract expressionism, minimalism, contrast, and topology and so on.  Another type of this gallery is an assemblage, which the artist use their interest to combine painting, wood, canvas and another kind of the art media into a single piece of the art. In the connection in this room, the emphasis is also on the how to make an artwork. Some people use different holding to free their hand; some people use a different mix of the material; some of the people is using various media to express their art purpose.

Connection of Movement

From the previous part, the curator gives a glimpse of beginning of contemporary art, which is prosperous with no single style. Gradually, he moves to the time; the art started to involve into special style for a certain period.  The contemporary begun to form its connection of the movement.

The theme of connection with movement is based on abstract expressionism, pop art, conceptual art. Each category has their section of the display, which is very helpful for viewers to compare and contrast the artwork. It also made the understanding of the art easier.

Conclusion

 From my perspective, the installation of artwork reflecting the idea of connection inside of the work. The chronological order of the work is also helping people to understand the work. The two wings clearly reflect the link between the movement and ideas, which is a strong theme of the whole exhibition. However, the chronological order sometimes risks the mood of the exhibition or a certain section of space. In some parts, the gallery space and artwork should correspond to each other. For example, putting some intense artwork mixed with cool work together will disrupt the mood of the room, which is happening in the new installation. At the end of the gallery, the theme of conceptual art is reflecting this kind of problem. Another risk the curator may face works combination. In an artistic review by Catherine Wagley, she states the problem that may exist in the show is “the certain work does not fit together.”[4] However, the MOCA has many arts with different styles. It is hard for people to work together. Wagley also states that Hellen may misplace some new artwork in the exhibition, like the style of “greatest hits” in the first room. [5]

Bibliography

Molesworth, Helen. "The Art of Our Time." The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://www.moca.org/exhibition/the-art-of-our-time.

Poundstone, William. "“The Art of Our Time” at MOCA | Los Angeles County Museum on Fire / William Poundstone | BLOUIN ARTINFO Blogs." Los Angeles County Museum on Fire William Poundstone. September 21, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://blogs.artinfo.com/lacmonfire/2015/09/21/the-art-of-our-time-at-moca/.

  Wagley Catherine. "Helen Molesworth Upends the Permanent Hang at MOCA LA - Momus." Momus. October 26, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://momus.ca/helen-molesworth-upends-the-permanent-hang-at-moca-la/.

---

[1] Molesworth, Helen. "The Art of Our Time." The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://www.moca.org/exhibition/the-art-of-our-time.

[2] Poundstone, William. "“The Art of Our Time” at MOCA | Los Angeles County Museum on Fire / William Poundstone | BLOUIN ARTINFO Blogs." Los Angeles County Museum on Fire William Poundstone. September 21, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://blogs.artinfo.com/lacmonfire/2015/09/21/the-art-of-our-time-at-moca/.

[3] Molesworth, Helen. "The Art of Our Time." The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://www.moca.org/exhibition/the-art-of-our-time.

[4] Wagley Catherine. "Helen Molesworth Upends the Permanent Hang at MOCA LA - Momus." Momus. October 26, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2016. http://momus.ca/helen-molesworth-upends-the-permanent-hang-at-moca-la/.

[5] IBID

Money Book Post Three, The Interview with Wangari Muta Maathai

The interview with Wangari Muta Maathai is fascinating. I like the idea of green belt movement. It remembers me a quote from Chinese. Teaching other how to fish is better than giving them fish. The way Mr. Maathai is a testimony of this idea of teaching. What he did is very useful for people in Kenya rather than just giving them food and aid.

It is hard for me to understand how to connect the environmental problem with civil and world peace at first. From this interview, I actually learned lots from her. Protecting the environment for sustainable development is essential. Moreover, sustainability will change how people are living by providing them jobs and food. When people’s life are secured with food and job, the conflict will be minimalized, which means maybe the war will be over. There is several sense of war. One is a war for countries regard of national interest, which some natural interests are natural resources. One is the war for the right, which she leads woman work together and create a better world. Another one is a war for poverty, which is how their movement brings people economic benefit. The last one is a war against the environmental problem.

It is an idea of a triple bottom line: economy, society, and the environment. From my perspective, I think the ultimate result for the triple bottom line is harmony, which people with people, country with country, and human with natural and so on. The harmony can serve the fundamental force for civil rights, world peace. 

Money Book Post 2 Chapter 3

This chapter is talking about people and countries are willing to sacrifice of human and natural resources in order to generate money because they think money represent wealth. However, they did not recognize except money; there are something else can be made into wealth such as water. We need to increase our awareness of the injustice and corruption of current money system which has over-consumption and over-production. Not only money can improve our life quality but also growing food, making clothes, and educating children can make people wealth which most of the people ignore. Therefore, money is not the most important part of our life, and we should care more about the human and natural resources.

The money is a double side sword, which brings benefit to people and it also harms individuals in the other way. The edge of the sword depends on how people distribute and manage the money. The traditional economic system is using money as account for values and acts as a way of exchanging product and services. At first, the conventional system seems works. When we dig deeper into this system, we can found out in order to achieve the flow and position of money; people use greed way to achieve the values without concerns of society and environments. The system brings fortune to some people. In the same time, the majority of people are in debt or losing it because they control the way how the money flows and represents. The center of this system is debts and interests. The relationship between the lender and borrower seems to make the economy prosperous. Later on, the system seems lost its value since rich people are defining the economic life; and people started aware of the injustice of this system. In order to avoid corruption and injustice, people began to use fair trade and new economy system through complementary currency. Lastly, the most efficient way to solve the current economic system is that people need to know the capacity of money can do and what they can do to create social finance system towards the just economy. 

Money Book Review Chapter 3

This section mainly takes about the value of money. It is very hard for me to read. One of the reasons is the vocabulary very complicated; another reasons is the lack of knowledge of cohesive meaning throughout the writing. Fortunately, I understand it after lots of attempts. There are two values of the money. One is gold-backed currency, which uses gold to measure its value. Another is the “Greenback” money which is a fiat money without any measurement of its actual value. This the one we use today, the dollars. Back in the 1890s, there was a strong distrust towards bankers and government. This was the beginning of "greenbacks", a fiat currency issued to help pay for Civil War expenses and were blessed as legal tender.  At first, the government can issue fiat money without limits.  Therefore, the value of Greenback need people's consent on its values. For example, the US government issues dollar bill, which is trustworthy globally. 

People trust US government issues valuable currency, which can be used in the trade. People were assured that the bill that they got can be exchanged with an equivalent one with the same value. Then the author introduces us the idea of quantity and quality embedded in the value of the fiat currency. For the issuance and supply of currency, consumers tends to desire more quantity currency since this gives them more purchasing power, but when the currency devaluates, they will prefer qualitative currency where it supports rising value. In somehow, he also explains the metaphor “barrels” used in describing the value of money in someone’s writing. 

Response to Money Book Chapter 12

This section is so weird for me. They talk about artists. From my guess, this may have something about the value of art with a value of money. Or it may have something with the popularity of the money and issue of counterfeiting the currency. With an introduction of Roy Lichtenstein, the author introduces us the idea of the pop art movement in the America. The core idea of the pop art movement is pop, which can refer to the thing people like. For example, people like the money; people are using dollar bill frequently. The using of money as an art help people experience more in their daily activities, which is movement from the making invisible become visible to pop art.

Later, the authors introduced us Andy Warhol, who is also leading artist in a pop art movement. What he did are replication and re-organized position. There is also an image of artwork done by Mr. Warhol, which is a replication of dollar bills. It is made from print-making to form some kind of the idea of freedom. The freedom of making the money and the organizing it. In this part, the authors give us some knowledge of free capitalism by Milton Friedman. It emphasizes the idea of the free market which as I know is raised by Adam Smith. Let us go back to 1960s, the WW2 just ended, President Roosevelt have lots of action on governmental controls since the idea of free market fails. However, due the recovery of the economy, people still seek the idea of freedom. Therefore, the pop art may also reflect the notion of the free from government control. At the end of this section, it is about the relationship between free economy and pop art. He talks about the power of money as well as the power of art to spread an idea.