BETTY NG
THE SPEAKER
-A Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Cornell and Harvard Universities respectively were followed by stints at Studio Fuksas and Herzog & de Meuron.
-2006, she joined Rem Koolhaas’ OMA.
-Over the years, she worked in their New York, Hong Kong and Rotterdam offices.
-In 2014, she left her post as Design Director of the Rotterdam office to set up COLLECTIVE, a Hong Kong-based architectural firm made up of architects and academics. The firm has come to specialise in exhibition design, with their latest creation, “Digging a Hole in China”, on display at OCAT Shenzhen (OCT Contemporary Art Terminal) until 26 June 2016.
Through out several public talks , we did learning something from it and apply them into our current design project. However, we have joined the last pamtalk for the entire semester and try to appreciate the time when we listen to the talk and learn from it.
For the speaker today , Betty has a impressive background. After her short introduction for herself , she started to show her project with photo and diagram. A short presentation from her was impressed because of her project. In her career, we know that she would like to challenge new things that have never done before.
Based on this spirit , she has done several kind of architectural works , including exterior form , interior function and program. A building that can expressed her spirit is CCTV – Headquarters. This is her first time designed the entire interior design and function.
CCTV- HEADQUARTERS
The CCTV headquarters aims at an alternative to the exhausted typology of the skyscraper. Instead of competing in the race for ultimate height and style within a traditional two-dimensional tower 'soaring' skyward, CCTV's loop poses a truly three-dimensional experience, culminating in a 75-metre cantilever. The building is visible from most of Beijing; it sometimes comes across as big and sometimes small, from some angles strong and from others soft.
During the project of this building , Betty has not design for its façade or form , she focus on the interior program and function. This project did expressed the courage and the spirit of Betty in her architecture career.
During her talk, she did walk us through her design process. She tend to unlearn the learned, to assert our identity through relinquishment. This is the way They(Betty and her colleague-Collective Studio) impose design and negate desires to be different in all instances because every instance is unique. They do not apply a formula in their design process; they tackle each case differently.
MATERIAL
They At COLLECTIVE, they have a habit of appropriating materials in an unfamiliar way. For their Open Platform design at Art Basel for Asia Art Archive this year, they specifically created a mixture of high-density foam that serves both as the acoustic interior lining of the pavilion as well as the seating cubes for the pavilion’s participants.
From a distance, the foam seems to resemble the terrazzo and marble surfaces already used in the site context of the convention centre. [When you get closer] the tactility of the foam is a surprising relief for the users, offering softness as a refuge from the commotions of the surrounding art fair. They did a few trials with the hues for the recycled and reconstituted foam, which is normally used for the inside of mattresses and other products, and is invisible to the user. In their design, they overlap the industrially produced with the sensitivity of the craftsmen.
During her presentation , I did find out COLLECTIVE’s portfolio contains a mixture of permanent and ephemeral projects. Instead of asking question during the talks ,The research works will do.
The life span of a building is on average shorter than the life span of a human being. In this case, permanence is relative.
Architects cannot stop at solely practising the permanent spatial agenda; we should place importance on the abstraction of architecture, to expand architectural thinking critically from spatial experiences to context, programme, organisation, politics, culture, economics, psychologies, technologies etc.
COLLECTIVE is interested in expanding the practice of architecture design to the continual changes that occur in how we live, work, learn and enjoy.
At the end of the lecture , she did teach us how to create a good design with an fantastic inspiration. The answer was easy and simple - HANG OUT WITH TRUE PEOPLE. Architect should work together and share idea to each other, discuss with a true person will bring your inspiration come true.