feng shui

The Switch


The factory and the office buildings had more or less been placed on the site. Then, one of the owners decided that he should have a friend of his, who is a Feng Shui expert, take a look at the site to give us the perspective of Asian cultural history.
We drove to the site to meet this man. He stepped out of the car, holding a Feng Shui compass and imediatly began to give his assessment on the where the most ideal place to put the buildings is.
He was dressed in traditional garb, and was the only person I have seen here that had the long, pointed, graying beard.
While he only spoke Korean, thus I did not hear this from the horses mouth, but rather from a rough, and I'm sure generalized translation. But basically, he says the office must face either east or south ( he assumes all buildings have a single directionality). The Factory should be on the other side of the site. There should be two entrances on the north side, one for the factory, one for the office.
Later when I asked why this was, I got a half hearted, and very generic answer basically say that there are certain rules in feng shui that have been followed for thousands of years, and that it has to do with aligning with the positive energy of the earth, and turning from the bad.
Initially, skepticism was full on. Im not down with designing around arbitrary superstition and rules that have the pseudo-scientfic feel of astroglogy. The owners of course where completely down with designing around such.
But, trying to be culturally considerate, I calmed down a bit and realized that most of my decisions up till that point had fallen in line with those rules, except the buildings needed to be mirrored. While mirroring everything is obviously a big deal, it was not nearly as drastic as I anticipated. While doing this would thrown off some things with the layout, it actually solved some of the problems I was having. So, only a partitial step back.
Also, I have decided that I am down with aligning with the earths energy, weather you call in fung shui or not. and being culturally conscience is also a good thing I suppose. ( even though pretty much none of the contemporary buildings here are.)


The Switch

the beginning of buildings

The site is located is a small, but growing industrial
complex on the northern edge of Gwangju.




The initial conceptual mock-ups. Undoubtedly many
changes in ensue, but the basic idea is present.




move below, ascend up into the belly of the beast.

Many different bowls of fermented
or sauce soaked vegetables and lit-
tle fishes. Large bowls of noodles
with chucks of beef still attched to
the bone.





The roof garden that tops of our of-
fice building. There are a suprising
amount of roof gardens on the buil-
ings here, and the city seems to be
farely conscious of maintaining gre-
en space in the midths of what see-
ms to be on going rapid infill. The
city of Gwangju is apparently mar-
keting itself as a cultural hub and
in thus attempting to build a " Cultural Economy"
as well as be a sort of Asian Silicon
Valley.

35.12 degrees N, 126.8 degrees E

Somehow, Casey is now in Gwangju. Working on the top floor of a 14th story office building in S. Korea. Here with an interdisciplinary group of 10 of my fellow students ( some have graduated), we are working for a start-up electronics company called Invicx. We have more than doubled their staff upon landing, and have more or less taken over their office.
The first 9 are working on various projects, ranging from the housing for an stereo amp with surprisingly progressive technology to a electronic language teaching device. The 10th, myself, is designing 3 buildings for a 11 acre blank slate site located in a generic industrial complex. One office building, one temporary factory and one permanent factory.