Making Scenes With Yu

Thanksgiving 2008 [27 nov]

2008-12-01T02:43:00.000-08:00

Some photos of Thanksgiving 2008 in Los Angeles.

Thanksgiving lunch at Yuan's family house, Pasadena. Superb cooking by his mum, Indonesian style.

Potluck dinner at Sylvia's & Dongmin's house in Downtown LA.

Church V-ball hangout [23nov]

2008-12-01T02:37:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have been going out to play volleyball with the Alhambra Christian Fellowship youths after church on Sunday. We played soccer the first few times before switching to volleyball. It is indeed a nice, relaxing and fun way to spend the Sunday afternoon. Here're some pics.

Los Angeles Soccer League Friendlies

2008-12-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

After my recent trip back from Singapore, my housemate, Calvin, suggested organizing soccer matches between architecture offices. I thought it was brilliant. Not only can it get us to exercise, get us off the computer, it can also build up bonds among the co-workers and know more about the design community. And for once, we can talk and do things other than architecture. haha...

Hence, I volunteered to be the team manager for the firm I am working in, 5+Design. And right away, we started off with a few practices and had 3 friendly matches (versus Graft, Gensler & Gehry) since beginning of October till now. My office's players are also practicing together almost every Wednesday. And we are hoping to kick off an official league consisting of a 5-7 offices by Feb 2009.

Soccer Friendly> 5+design 1-2 Graft 16th Sept -match report by me

Soccer Friendly> 5+design 1-1 Gensler 9th Oct

Soccer Friendly> 5+design 3-1 Gehry 15th Nov

We have an upcoming match with St. Annes Soccer Academy this Wednesday. This is a special match as the opposing team is not an architecture office. Rather, the coach approached us during a game and wanted us to play his team. We found out that the St. Annes soccer academy is part of the Santa Monica City program to help teens off the streets and to channel their energy to more positive avenues, and soccer is one of them. We are really glad we can help in this wonderful social cause.

And our last friendly match for this year is a re-match friendly with Graft, possibly in mid-dec before the Christmas holidays.

Some of my friends in Netherlands have told me there is a architecture soccer league there as well. So maybe at some point, we can organize a trans-national league!!!

More photos and updates on the Los Angeles Architecture Soccer League can be found here:

http://larchsoccer.blogspot.com/

Car Repair [22nd Nov 2008]

2008-12-01T01:52:00.000-08:00

For about one month since end Oct, I have been driving around with a faulty window. The back left door window of my car somehow could not be wind up. Since my car uses automatic controls for almost everything, including all the windows, trunk and even the adjustments of the car seats, I was worried that the repairs for just that one window will be costly. Hence, I persevered and used folded pieces of paper to jam the window, whilst taking the risk that passer-bys will not notice it and break into my car when I park my car on the streets every night. Fortunately, my car alarm system is pretty sensitive and sounds everytime the window slides down on it own. Every few days, I have to re-jam the window with a fresh set of folded papers.

And to my rescue, is a colleague, Robert Chang, who's also an avid car racer. Sacrificing his Saturday afternoon, we met up at the office parking lot where he brought his tools to attempt fixing the window.

We found out in the end that a plastic part, that is linked to the motor belt and hooks onto the window, has been chipped off. I would have to get a new part and replace it. Which means $$$$. Argh! Anyways, we decided for the meantime, we taped layers of corrugated boards and jammed it into the bottom of the window to hold it up, till I find time to replace the broken part.

In any case, it was an experience to see how easy parts of the car can be taken apart.

Singapore Trip 2008 [July-August 2008]

2008-11-30T23:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I have uploaded any entries in this blog. Well, to make up for it, I'll do a few at one go. This entry shows photos of my recent trip back to Singapore. Most of the time was spent helping out coordinate the Singapore Pavilion curatorial logistics and setup where I shuffled between several places (DesignSingapore, FARM office, NUS, Chinatown). It was intense but fun and very rewarding as I got to meet so many more young creatives firms that are willing to share and interact. Indeed, the design scene of Singapore looks very promising and exciting. Please enjoy the photos!

REALLY AR? Design Sharing

An architecture design public sharing event organized by ReallyArchitecture [re:act]. I was one of the speakers in the event. Met a lot of interesting and inspiring people.

Supergarden Team Celebration Dinner

A dinner celebration gathering of the Venice Biennale Singapore Pavilion Supergarden team. A job well done! I really enjoyed working with and learning from everyone.

Me actively gesturing while chatting. Actually I was trying to talk more so I can eat less. Diet lah... haha.

HDB HQ TRIP

My dad brought me to visit his office, HDB, to see an exhibition that showcase the recent works of HDB and its architectural branch, Surbana. Pretty impressive I must say. I remember it was these visits to my dad's office when I was young that inspired me to take up architecture.

A public housing design scheme by WOHA.

A public housing design scheme by SCDA.

JAKARTA TRIP

In the middle of my stay in Singapore, I took a short 2 day trip to Jakarta, Indonesia. A good friend, Mingxiao, whose entire family is in the business of architecture, kindly took me in and took care of me. Very interesting trip. I also met up with a secondary school classmate Philip Hamdani, now a director of a big business enterprise. Shucks, and I have only just started working my way into the industry. Nevertheless, he treated me to pempek! Below are some photos I took in the trip.

All shopping malls have security police inspecting all cars with bomb detectors.

Cool shopping mall interiors.

SINGAPORE NATIONAL DAY PARADE

One of the highlights in my trip back to Singapore is the much anticipated National Day Parade. My family has been to at least 5-7 of these parades since my sisters and I were young. I remember we used to queue overnight outside the stadium ir order to get tickets for us, as well as for our cousins. Very interesting experience, as we get to mix around with people from different backgrounds and races. There were even midnight soccer matches in the parking lots among the kids. This year, a friend of mine, Joshua, who helped out in the preparation of the event, managed to get me some rehearsal tickets. So, I went with my mum, my aunt, cousins and their relatives from Wenzhou. It was an unique experience. Instead of the stadium, this year's parade is held at the Marina Bay, on a floating platform. Enjoyable time we had.

Tight security measures taken after the recent terrorist escape. However, the army personnel were very efficient and manage to maintain a smooth flow for all.

The public audience getting warmed up as the celebrity hosts emcees play some games and coordinating moves with the props everyone is given in their goodie bags.

Not only the army personnel were called in to help with the ushering and crowd control. Secondary schools also provided volunteer students to be cheerleaders!

The floating platform. The Singapore Flyer can be seen in the background on the far left.

The opening performance! The Singapore Lions para-troopers!

The famous Kallang Wave! It is fun seeing old and young, all races, just jumping up and waving around wildly when it's their turn to stand and be part of the Singapore wave.

The fly-past of the Singapore National Flag. This part of the event never fails to raise goosebumps for me. With everyone around me standing, with their right fist on their left chest, we sang the National anthem and proclaim the pledge, with the majestic fly-past view of the flag by the squadron consisting of a chinook and apaches. Simply amazing. Definitely something that can only be experienced live at the event.

Okay, that's all for my Singapore trip updates.

Santa Barbara Winery Escapade

2008-07-04T00:14:00.000-07:00

Just went on a rare trip to Santa Barbara this past weekend. It was a long-awaited one planned in early April this year. Everyone was skeptical to its manifestation but eventually it did happen! And it was fun! Enjoy the pics! Photos are courtesy of our lovely Sylvia!

Our entering poses to the first winery I am visiting in my life.

One-legged hopping in the vineyard.

Scenic vineyard.

Yan dao or not? hahaha...

Cool barrels. This winery belongs to the Firestone family. Their youngest son was one of the guys featured in the Bachelor reality show.

Taking a shady break after some wine tasting.

Santa Barbara downtown here we come! very nice place! I definitely will wanna come to visit again!

Sylvia and Rachel couldn't resist such a charming guy sitting along State Street on the streetside bench.

Super nice pier! Shall go fishing next time. Great relaxing outing!

SCI-Arc Alumni Summer Open House

2008-06-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here are the photos of the SCI-Arc Alumni Summer Open House event held last Sunday. The house was at Venice, Los Angeles. The house owner Robert Thibodeau kindly showed us around the house which he designed. Really sleek and cool house. Lots of timber and big swinging glass doors. About 20-30 people turned up. Chatted with a few, the people that came include alumni from the 70's till now and also current students. Some parents and friends came along too. Overall, it was a really nice experience to mingle around. Santino, the current Alumni president contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me to get a few recent graduates to present our academic works at the open house, with the objective of updating the alumni members with the current situation of SCI-Arc.

Josh Sprinkling, Kris Conner and I turned up and presented our work. Josh presented a group project about bringing back the Raiders' Stadium to LA, next to the Dodger's Stadium. The animation video, ala MTV-style, blew everyone over.

Kris presented his thesis work, Case Study House 22.1. And I presented my thesis, Advent of the Pirates, and the Dragonfly Office building (a group project with Greg). For a moment, we felt like we were transported back in time to presented our work in front of a critic jury. As usual, I began perspiring like crazy. haha...

Overall, it was a very casual affair, light-hearted chats and Santino commented afterwards that it was a great success, asking for more recent grads to come forward to share their works.

Great house, generous host, friendly, interactive alumni, good food and drinks, and more opportunities to show off one's works to gather more feedback! Enjoy the pics!

Magok competition design team

2008-06-22T02:30:00.001-07:00

Here a picture of the whole Magok team. In March this year, 6 of us gathered to collaborate on the International Magok Waterfront Design competition. The site is in Korea. We just finished the submission and having our Korean BBQ dinner tomorrow to celebrate a job well-done. What's interesting about this collaboration is its diversity ...
>>>
6 persons,
4 different offices,
3 different countries (Korea, Singapore, Taiwan),
3 different design disciplines (architecture, urban & landscape)!
Wonderful!

Left to right (at Sang's private office in Glendale, Los Angeles):
Cheng-I(Gensler)_Hwuidong(Edaw)_Sang Dae(Gensler)_Helen(Edaw)_Sernhong(5+Design)_Changsuk(RTKL)

What else.. but the ever appropriate Korean BBQ as a celebration dinner gathering.

Authentic charcoal bbq... yum yum. We smell like a bunch of dead marinated cows after.

Ever joking and cheerful duo, Sang and Cheng-I.

Team Photo. Cheers everyone! A wonderful collaboration.

Chilling @ roof of LA

2008-06-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

Just got back from friend's birthday party at her roof top in downtown LA. It's summer now and the heat wave is just starting to sweat us out. Fortunately, we had the tall buildings around us to have the shade. Below are some photos:

View across from the rooftop. Spring Street, near the 6th street intersection.

(Top) we had our mini-bbq at the steel pavilion, next to the vents; (Bottom) Pet exercise area on the roof!

Left to right: Gurmukh, Julia(birthday gal), Julia's friend. Notice the tv antennae around us. It was actually quite nice hanging out at the roof.

Chilling out the rooftop. Mix of people streaming in and out... There were people from our M.Arch sciarc batch, Julia's friends, students from sciarc...etc.

Finally, the cake... rum cake with huge strawberries!

Yum, yum!

Then, suddenly, someone mentioned that the adjacent abandoned building is actually right smack next to the building we are at. So Gurmukh and Jo went crazy and did a ala mission impossible sequence, jumping across and exploring the buildings...CRAZY!

Posing for their survival shot before entering the old building.

Jo peeping out from one of the windows. Think they found some wine bar inside too.

Gurmukh, on top of the world!

Yeh, so that kinda sums up my Saturday summer afternoon. Hafta get some work done later in the evening though. More updates soon!

Inevitable or: a fathom too many --- studio film by Jesse Madrid

2008-05-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

A fantastic film by my friend Jesse Madrid. He's really into film effects and geared towards a new way of design communication for architecture offices. He is the one that helped produced and edited my thesis video. Cool stuff!

Soliloquy --- studio film by Prabhu Sugumar

2008-05-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

This is a video done by my friend, Prabhu, in his recent studio with Juan Azulay. Amazing stuff. Makes me remember the fun I had making videos while appreciating the intricacy and depth of architecture ideals.

SOLILOQUY-Short Film from Prabhu Sugumar on Vimeo.

Welcome to LA

2008-05-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

This is a 7min film documentary that tries to depict the lives of the homeless community in a place well-known as the centre of the movie-world - Hollywood. The phenomenon of the homeless community is a sad, avoided yet true part of LA. Yet, as much as people try to ignore and avoid them, there are groups of people that work beyond their duties to provide and care for the homeless. The nomadic roaming with trolleys, smells and streetscape the homeless creates do provide an interesting architecture setting for the city.

Produced and directed by myself and Ana Paula in 2006 for a film documentary class in SCI-Arc, we set off to discover along the lines of simulacra and hyperreality.

Finally... uploaded my Architecture thesis video

2008-05-10T15:04:00.001-07:00

I am working on developing and refining the thesis for publication at this moment. I welcome all comments and reviews. Thank you!

Digital Minds, Reality Fantasies

2008-04-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

Finally, I got down to finishing up a proposal to exhibit the works of my masters program graduating batch. I am excited after the compilation. Hopefully, the curator will be as well. The gallery I am contacting is located at Alhambra, called Nucleus Gallery. It normally exhibits works from artists, professionals and students who are mostly from Art Center Pasadena. It will be great if we can get SCI-Arc works' published. All the stuff we have been doing for the past 3 years is worthed getting a wider audience to look at. The compilation is hard work, but it's fun after everything came together. Worthed spending 4hrs of a sunny Sunday afternoon. haha... Well, if any of you know any other galleries who would be interested in our works, please do let me know!

Tajuu Kage Bushin No Jutsu!

2008-04-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

Just watched the latest episode of Naruto Shippuuden (no. 55). As some of you may know, I started watching this ninja anime a year ago and totally hooked to it. Today's episode got me excited! The kid ninja has to learn an ultimate skill that needs to be learnt urgently to save a friend. So his master told him to use his shadow cloning skill to create as many clones AS THE NUMBER OF LEAVES ON A TREE!! Since all clones' experiences and knowledge will transfer to the original, what takes someone 100 days to learn something, will take him only 1 day if he had 100 of himself. Woohoo! if only I can do that as well! Tajuu Kage Bushin No Jutsu! (meaning ultra mass shadow cloning technique) sigh.... if only!

Graduation[S]

2008-04-13T20:34:00.000-07:00

While most, or rather almost ALL, of my friends around my age or older have graduated and moved well into their career life, here's the geeky me that just graduated and gotten my Masters of Architecture. Very coincidentally, recently, I came across an invite to a primary school class gathering and I received a pleasant surprise of seeing a photo of my primary 6 (12yrs-old) graduation! Wow! 2 graduations from extreme ends coming together! Should I look for something else to graduate from? haha...

Primary 6B class in 1991. I'm the plump boy in specs at the last row, 4th person from the left, standing on the bench.

Most of my classmates in the M.Arch 2GAX studio program, SCI-Arc.

16th Sept 2007_SCI-Ar Thesis Final Presentation and Graduation Ceremony (in a cool tent at the parking lot!!!)

Magok Competition team discussion

2008-04-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

Since about 1 month ago, I have been going for a competition team discussion every Sunday afternoon. The group is made up of 6 people currently, coming from 4 different offices and from 3 different disciplines; 4 Koreans, 1 Taiwanese and 1 Singaporean (me!).

The competition is to design a new vision for this place called Magok in Korea. It is near the Han River. Pretty intense discussions. I appreciate a lot the open exchanges of ideas even though most of us do not know each other till only a few weeks ago. Hopefully, it will be a truly collaborative effort. Been most interesting to see how architects, landscape designers, urban designers get together, outside of their own office work and schedule to do interesting stuff out of pure passion and interest.

Here are some photos of our previous discussion session.

We gathered at the office of Sang, who's the team leader. He owns a private 1-man office called UN Architects which he passionately operates whenever outside of the official hours of his main job. Which means, he goes to the UN Architects office at nights and weekends!

Some random photos I took during my drive to the competition discussion meeting>>

A peek of life in LA ... SHY boy

2008-04-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

My Disastrous Hair Cut (now it turns out to be pretty ok)

Finally, a personal blog. I would not have started this if not for the requests for the photos of my recently disastrous hair-cut and my life here in LA. Rather than sending photos in batches of emails, I decided to do it with a blog, making it easier for everyone. I have a few other blogs but all of them are group blogs and organizations blogs.

Just a quick summary of what I've been up to: Name's Sern Hong. (for those who happened to chance upon this blog and wonder who this person is). Last name is Yu. Since I came to Los Angeles in 2005, people have started calling me You (yu), Sern, Hong, Hongie, S.H.Y boy. I did my BA (Arch) at the National University of Singapore (2000-2003), worked for 2 years in an architecture firm in Singapore. In 2005, I mustered the courage to go overseas for further studies despite the unknowns and risks involving financial and career matters. With the grace and mercy of the Lord, all turned out well and with many pleasant surprises.

My Home in LA >>

The apartment where I stay with 2 other housemates. The living room is where I have been in for the past 2.5years. I think I have grown to like the living room so much, I don't think I can get used to my own room in the future. Natural alarm clock every morning when my housemates go to work. haha...

I graduated from SCI-Arc in 2007 Sept, and currently working at 5+Design Inc, based in Hollywood, working mainly on large-scale projects based mainly in the Asian regions. I stay in Koreatown, about 10mins drive from Downtown Los Angeles. Besides working, I am involved in ReallyArchitecture, re:act, a group I co-founded that does special projects, workshops and research-based endeavors based in Singapore. I am currently doing an architecture competition outside of office. The group is a unique one as it is made up of 6 people from 4 different offices and 3 different disciplines, all with the same passion for design. Passionate enough to make time to meet up every Sunday afternoon. I will elaborate more as I go along. Here goes the galore of photos.... Enjoy!

My comfy couch which I got it free from a friend. Now 'populated' with my clothes and crap.
++ I gotta elaborate on my haircut. I just wanted a normal trim. But in my spirit of stinginess, I decided to go to a nearby hair salon that charges just 7 bucks. Just 30 secs into the salon, I have already regretted my decision. Run by 2 hispanic ladies, they do not speak English and I do not speak Spanish. Hence the major miscommunication and my resulting haircut. haha...

My thesis boards are placed against the windows to stop people at the common corridor from peeking at me having my beauty sleep. Notice my tiny fish tank? The gurgling from the filter provides a nice, soothing effect to put me to sleep.

My housemate, Tien (top) and my former housemate's bro (Samuel) playing Pro Evolution Soccer! We have championship nights every once a while. Tien, from Vietnam, is the reigning champion. Calvin, my other housemate from Singapore, and I just can't figure out how to beat him! We think he rigged the settings!

My new fish tank. 29 gallons!

New Fish. 2 African Chiclids. Quite aggressive ones.

The apartment is #2. Here's the entrance door. Wala! see my laundry basket greeting first at the door.

There are about 8 2-3room apartments. Our landlady is this hispanic lady who is super difficult to contact. Our neighbour at #3 are Kenyans. Very friendly. The ones on the 2nd floor... they are our natural alarm clocks in the morning. They seem to have a wrestling match running around and making noises as early as 6am almost every day!

Views of the neighbourhood

Usual scenes from my car on my way home from work. Jam Jam Jam!

5+Design Inc, the office where I work currently. This is the studio where I sit. There are about 90 people in the firm. I sit on the right front table. The plants are real by the way.

Hard at work with 2 cups of coffee and a snack.

One of the few nights where my team gotta work late. Due to the rush for time, we got mac for dinner. I tried to make it healthy by gorging on a box of strawberries. And a bottle of sparkling water to counter the 3 cups of coffee (2 of which were refilled a few times already).

Yeps, the photo galore stops for now. Will put up more posts. Hope you enjoyed it.