China Showcases High Tech During Spring Festival Gala

Chinese New Year also known as Lunar New Year is celebrated in most parts of the world by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and overseas Chinese. Nowhere else on earth is this festival celebrated in a big way than China itself. Traditionally during Chinese New Year Eve, major television stations across China will host events to countdown for the arrival of the new year. This year, state-of-the-art technology is incorporated to show off to the world what China is capable of in putting up a world class performance on stage. They invited renowned celebrities such as Andy Lau, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen and Jacky Wu to perform in this spectacular annual event.

Penang In Fantasy World

Super talented Malaysian artist Chong Fei Giap transformed the UNESCO Worl Heritage City of George Town into a fantasy anime world. The city is located on Penang island, the tourism and manufacturing powerhouse of Malaysia.

Chong incorporated Japanese anime elements into his depiction of the urban setting of George Town. His artwork makes one relook at this popular city in a refreshed perspective. Truly creative!

Source: Chong Fei Giap Facebook

马来西亚艺术家Chong Fei Giap将世界遗产城乔治市（George Town）改造成幻想动漫世界。该城市位于马来西亚的旅游和制造业重镇槟城岛上。

Chong将日本动漫元素融入到他对乔治市（George Town）城市环境的描绘中。他的作品以崭新的视角重新审视了这座历史悠久的城市。十分有创意啊！

You Don't Need Expensive Materials To Build Good Architecture

The Gallery House is designed as a garage on the ground floor with a multi-purpose space on the upper level intended to be used by people living in the area. It is a gesture from both the architect and client to give back to their community. In order to maximize the public usage of this facility, the building is extended into the street both visually and physically.

The architecture is inspired by Bengal's terracotta temples. Exposed brick masonry walls inlaid with ceramic blocks makes the building stands out from its surrounding. Collaborating with a ceramic artist, rejected ceramic blocks from factory were collected and re-used as building material for this project. Terracotta bricks were procured from a river-side brick field located nearby. These two were combined to create a unique structure out of them. The careful selection of recycled materials like the ceramic and terra-cotta tiles, the architect managed to create a high quality architecture by using inexpensive materials. This is a very good project to debunk most clients’ belief that only luxurious materials can make good building.

During the process of construction, the client decided to give up his initial intent of a garage and embraced the re-purposing of the ground floor as a community hall while the upper floor houses a multipurpose-room, a sitting area and a pantry. The multipurpose-room was to be used primarily for providing tuition classes and yoga sessions to the local community. At night, this space is used as a dormitory for resident staff. The client is proud to see the space put to good use and he is the key player in this good cause project.

This area holds a festive procession along the narrow, winding neighborhood lanes annually, a kind of local cultural celebration. To further make this building function more efficiently in the local context, the architect steps down the structure towards the street forming a gallery for public to sit while others gather at street-side during this event. Through judicious planning and play of voids in volume, the integral space of the building was shared with the neighborhood people as a humane gesture of giving back to the local community, without disrupting the privacy and security of inner functions.

This building clearly demonstrates to us that good architecture actually only needs two things – creative use of available materials and a programme that can relate to the community. How simple and wise it is.

该建筑的灵感来自于印度庙宇。利用砖砌成的墙面镶有陶瓷砖，使这建筑在它周围环境中脱颖而出。与陶瓷艺术家合作，收集了工厂不要的陶瓷块，并将其重新用作该项目的建筑材料。砖是从附近的河边砖场获得的。将这两个结合在一起，创建一个独特的建筑。在仔细选择可回收材料（例如陶瓷砖和赤陶砖）后，建筑师使用廉价的材料创建出高质量的建筑。

在施工过程中，发展商决定放弃最初的车库意图，而是将一楼用作社区礼堂，而上层则设有一间多功能空间，一个休息区和一个餐具室。多功能室主要用于为当地社区提供补习班和瑜伽课程。在晚上，此空间用作常驻员工的宿舍。发展商很高兴看到这个空间能够被大众充分的使用，感到自豪是这项目的关键参人物。

好的建筑实际上只需具备两个因素 - 有创意的材料使用以及对社会有贡献的效果。这是那么的简单和明智啊！

Chinese New Year Travel A Risk To Covid-19 Outbreaks

Train stations were swamped by people rushing back to their villages to celebrate Chinese New Year before Covid-19 times.

Before the pandemic hits, the biggest annual human migration happened in China every year during the Chinese New Year period when billions of Chinese citizens returning to their home villages from the major cities. This year due to signs of outbreaks from Hebei to Heilongjiang in the north, provincial authorities are trying to control the spread by curtailing travel in the festive season.

The plan by provincial cadres, who are urging migrant workers to “remain in cities, stay in work,” is aimed at reducing transmissions of the virus while boosting the economy at the same time.

Authorities are still fighting hard to flatten the spikes in infections, more than two weeks after China was hit by Covid-19 outbreak since early this year.

The spread of the coronavirus in rural areas of two provinces of Hebei and Heilongjiang had been under the watch of authorities for weeks until the pathogen crept into cities and provincial capitals. This week the outbreaks have pushed China’s nationwide tally of daily new cases to above 100, the highest in the past nine months after Beijing lifted the lockdown on Wuhan.

The National Health Commission (NHC) reported 103 fresh cases across the country in the past 24 hours to Friday morning.

Most of these cases were identified in repeated rounds of aggressive testing in Hebei, Heilongjiang and Jilin. The case identification system of China is different from other countries in that they do not count asymptomatic carriers as confirmed cases, a practice that has left the NHC open to criticism as the West continues to accuse China of manipulating the official figures released to the public.

The NHC’s nationwide map tracking infections on Friday red-flagged Beijing’s Daxing district, home to the capital’s sprawling new airport, and two districts in Hebei’s provincial capital of Shijiazhuang as Covid high-risk areas where the strictest lockdowns and entry and exit bans apply.

Three other smaller cities across Hebei, Heilongjiang and Jilin are also classified as hot spots of the virus. Provinces and municipalities are directed to share information and coordinate measures to curtail long-distance trips by migrant workers and others to avoid a nationwide travel rush in the run-up to the Chinese New Year celebration in February.

Chinese migrant workers who are planning to go home to the countryside have to first obtain negative test results before their trips or they risk being fined or detained.

The new rules stipulate that, after getting back to their rural homes, they will also have to undergo 14 days of “soft quarantine” with no interactions with anyone outside their families or households.

Police will be mobilized and dispatched to villages and towns to enforce monitoring and to catch anyone breaking the rules.

These measures are necessary to stem the virus from spreading into China’s vast rural areas which are poorly-funded to manage disease control. 

Hospitals and clinics in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major cities in southern Guangdong province have been swamped by migrant workers for testing since Thursday.

They need their negative test results to book train tickets home. The growing hoards have sparked fears of infections and local police are forced to implement crowd control measures.

More than 30 million workers from other parts of China are employed by factories in Guangdong and many are eager to go home in the Lunar New Year. That amount of people is more than the entire population of Australia!

In a desperate move to discourage people from travelling, railway operators and airlines like China Southern and Shenzhen Airlines are asked to slash departures from Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Both carriers have cancelled most flights to Beijing and Shijiazhuang. China Railway Corp’s Guangzhou branch has also rescheduled departures to make fewer seats available.

Governments and employers in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other coastal provinces are also doling out aid and incentives to lure workers to stay, with a whole range of giveaways, coupons and even cash handouts of up to thousands of yuan on offer. 

Other incentives to encourage people to stay put in the major cities are free rides on public transport, free admission to local tourist attractions as well as a lucky draw with prizes which includes luxury sedans and iPhones etc. 

The latest “remain in city, stay in work” campaign is expected to generate more growth for the Chinese economy, with machinery humming and giveaway coupons encouraging increase of consumption.

China’s GDP is projected to grow as much as 7% in January and February 2021. In the final quarter of 2020, China’s economy expanded by 6.5%, highest in the pandemic hit world!  

Building That Looks Like Termite Mounds

The building with a strange name "50%Cloud", incorporates red brick architectural features designed by Luo Xu. This unusual structure is built on red soil completely composed of local red bricks without a single steel bar or nail. The clear benefit of using locally available materials is that the building blends into nature effortlessly. The building looks like a huge art installation with its strange roof design undulates in the sky. It looks almost like a giant termite mound from a distance. Some of its unique architectural features include curved contours and variety of spatial volumes set at staggering heights. 

The interior space extends the natural curves of the exteriors, characterized by large-span arches and lofty ceilings. Round openings are carved out on roofs to let natural daylight into the interior of the building. The interplay of daylight and cloud shadows throughout the day produces a surreal ambience inside this building and thus creates diversified spatial experiences. Almost every corners of this building are Instagram worthy.

Interior landscape further enlivens the dining atmosphere of the restaurant inside. Natural light casts onto rough bricks, softened by interior lighting and tasteful selection of furnishings, all these elements together producing an environment that encourages guests to interact with the space. The overall interior design is a multi-sensory spatial experience.

这座建筑有个很奇怪的名字叫“ 50％Cloud”，全红砖建筑给它增添了特色。这类不寻常的红砖结构毫无需要一根钢筋或钉子。利用本地材料明显的好处是，该建筑很容易的融入周围大自然。该建筑的特征在于该屋顶的独特设计在天空中起伏。从远处看起来几乎就像是一座巨大的白蚁丘。它的一些独特建筑特色包括弯曲的墙和各种不同高度设置的空间。 

内部空间延伸了外部的自然曲线，其特点是大跨度的拱形和高耸的天花板。屋顶上刻有圆形天窗，可让自然光进入建筑物里面。阳光和云影之间的互动使建筑物室内产生了超现实的气氛，从而创造了多样化的空间体验。这座建筑几乎每个角落都充满美丽的拍照空间。

室内景观提升了内部餐厅的用餐气氛。自然光投射在粗糙的砖块上，并通过室内灯光和雅致的家具布置的柔和反应，所有这些元素共同营造出一种鼓励客人与空间互动的环境。整体室内设计给出了丰富的多感官空间体验。

KL - Singapore High-Speed Rail Cancelled

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong once described the proposed KL-Singapore High-speed Rail project as a 'game changer' to the region. Sadly, the much hyped project is now cancelled following the joint-statement from both countries on the 1st of January 2021. What a terrible news to start the new year!

The stumbling block to seal the deal was mainly due to both sides were unable to reach a consensus on a number of issues. The project was initially estimated to cost about US$14.9 billion to $19.8 billion. Malaysian government seemingly wished to reduce the cost following the devastation to its economy in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The main drawcard of 350km long project is the substantial reduction in travel time to just 90 minutes compared to 4 hours by car. Official estimates show that the project could contribute about $5 billion dollars to the GDP of both Malaysia and Singapore and create more than 100,000 jobs by 2060.

The major disagreement is Malaysian government's proposed to appoint local contractors and consultants instead of having a jointly conducted open tenders process previously agreed. Singapore also cannot accept the Malaysian government's proposal to remove the third party asset company that would supply the train system and operate the railway network. As both countries have no previous experience of operating a high-speed rail network, Singapore cannot agree to the removal of the asset company.

Historically, rail projects have proved to be successful in spurring developments along the path of the networks. This project will not only benefit Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, but will serve as a powerful locomotive to bring up and stimulate developments around the various Malaysian towns along the way.

Some analysts believed that the project's termination will further erode investors' confidence towards the Malaysian government. Malaysian politics has been in an unstable situation since the Sheraton Movement Coup in February 2020.

新加坡总理李显龙曾经预测吉隆坡-新加坡高铁项目将为东南亚带来巨大好处。令人遗憾的是，在2021年1月1日两国最终宣布这个项目已被取消。新的一年却由一个坏消息开始！

双方政府无法在一些问题上达成共识。该项目最初估计耗资约149亿美元至198亿美元。由于新冠肺炎大流行，马来西亚政府似乎希望在2020年经济遭受重创后降低建筑成本。长达350公里的高铁主要吸引力在于，它将行程大幅减少至90分钟，而目前驾车则需要4小时多。官方估计显示，到2060年，该项目可为马来西亚和新加坡的GDP贡献约50亿美元，并创造10万多个就业机会。

历史告诉我们，铁路项目已成功地促进了沿网络道路的发展。该项目不仅会使吉隆坡和新加坡受益，还将会带动并刺激沿途的所有在马来西亚的各个城镇的发展。

一些分析人士就因这次事件认为，该项目的终止将进一步削弱投资者对马来西亚政府的信心。自2020年2月喜来登政变以来，马来西亚政治一直处于不稳定局面。

This Is What Thinking Outside The Box Means

Junya Ishigami + Associates considered two main characteristics while working on the outdoor plaza to the KAIT workshop of Kanagawa Institute of Technology. The architect was interested to see how the ideas of Versatility and the Semi-outdoor could be represented within this project development.

With the Versatility aspect of the plaza, the architect intended to look at it from an experiential point of view instead of a practical one. Like all other educational institutions, the existing campus is composed of several multifunctional spaces. The architect saw a gap in the programme, there was a lack of relaxation area for the students. Therefore, instead of going with a specific function in mind like a normal project would, the architect instead concentrated on what they called the ‘versatile experience’ of the space, users were free to explore different ways to spend time there. They themselves have to come up with how to pass time in this space.

The idea of a Semi-outdoor space arose to break away from conventional perception of what a school would look like. The existing campus lacked a natural diversity with ‘boring’ box buildings dotting across the site. Essentially, the architect intended to re-introduce nature back into this new space by marrying nature with architecture.

Landscape can be experienced differently by people, whether physically or mentally. The environment of the plaza was thought to be a space for people to daydream and reconnect themselves with the world beyond. The created landscape will provide an opportunity for users to enjoy the scenery and spend prolonged time looking into the expanding planes of ground where the sky would meet with the curved wall and from there the view is further extended towards the boundless world on the other side of the horizon.

There is a height difference of 2 meter between the campus ground level and this provided an opportunity to create a new ground space which will be integrated with the natural ground. The main structure was conceived as a floating expansive plane supported only by four walls, there will be no other interior support. The ground was also made concave to echo the ceiling’s bend. Both planes bend and stretch, meeting at the end and creating the horizon inside the building.

The 59 openings on the ceiling allows natural light to filter through into the space mimicking the way the rhythm of the sun shines through the clouds. Consequently, the space internally will be different depending on the time and weather. Rainy days offer an impressive scenery as the rain-flow comes in through the unglazed openings forming water pillars and adding an element of sound to the experience.

The expansive planes spans at a maximum of 90 meters, this required a lot of specific considerations in terms of structural engineering in order to make it work. Due to thermal expansion and contraction of the iron plate, the ceiling height can change up to 30cm! That is a huge deflection that the engineer has to consider in order not to break the structure under stress. There are also 83 piles and 54 ground anchors that were set on the huge concrete foundation beam, with the ground sloping at a height difference of 5m. The ceiling height is kept in the range of 2.2 - 2.8m in order to maintain the human scale within the space, while the iron plate of the roof is 12mm thick, same thickness of most furniture surfaces. Ribs are installed as compression rings within 3 meters of the roof iron plate’s outer circumference in order to reduce the burden of tension exerted on the walls. The only standard construction element of the building are the 250mm thick walls.

The ground is covered with water permeable asphalt, which is treated with high pressure cleaning to completely remove the oil before painting. This is to allow rainwater to be absorbed and flows through the plaza building, keeping the room dry so that users can still sit on it comfortably.

Sitting on the floor is encouraged so that one could better appreciate their connection to the architecturally developed environment. The architect wishes to establish a strong bond between people and nature through this building. The sloping ground is like a huge bed, allowing the body and environment to become merged into one space. This space is designed to be experienced it all together, the slope, light, raindrop sounds and the built horizon. It is an architecture that harmonize with its surrounding. This structure is to be the icon of the campus. By thinking outside the box, the architect managed to bring in so many good experiences back into the box!

建筑师 对这项目持有两个主要构思：多功能性和半户外的想法。

在多功能性方面，建筑师要从经验的角度而不是实际的角度去设计。建筑师发现这间学院缺乏一个可以让学生们放松的地方。这座新的建筑物必须能让用户自由的用各自方式来打发时间。

另一方面，半室外空间的想法是为了摆脱外界对学校外观的传统认识。现有的校园缺乏大自然因素，学校由毫无设计特点的建筑物所组成。建筑师打算通过这项目把大自然重新引入这个新空间。

人们无论在身体或精神上对周围的体验都有所不同。这广场的环境能使人们发白日梦并更亲切地接触周围世界。

校园地面之间的高度相差2米，这为创建新的地面空间提供了独特的设计方案，该地面空间将与自然地面融为一体。主要结构仅由四个墙支撑着，里面没有其他内部支撑。

天花板上的59个洞使阳光可以穿透到空间中，模仿太阳的节奏透过云层照耀的方式。因此，内部空间将根据时间和天气而有不断的在改变。下雨时，雨水会从没有玻璃的洞进入，形成水柱，其声音也增添了非凡的新体验。

学生们被鼓励坐在地板上，以便可以更好地欣赏建筑与周围的密切关系。建筑师希望通过这座建筑在人与大自然之间建立牢固的联系。那倾斜的地面就像一张巨大的床，可以将身体和环境融合在同一个空间。这建筑是一种能与周围环境协调的架构。该结构将成为校园的标志。通过有创意的思考，建筑师成功地将许多有趣的因素带进了建筑里面！