Month: January 2022

the architecture of making do (5): surfaces

like commercial architectures in urban taiwan, domestic architecture in taipei depends a great deal on surfacing

older brick and timber structures, now a relative rarity in taipei, are often surfaced with plaster, concrete, and the ubiquitous metal siding. and of course, metal siding appears in countless add-ons: as roofing, enclosures, rooftop additions, and supplemental covering over leaking concrete roofs

and how could we talk about domestic architecture in urban taiwan without mentioning tile?

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how i learned to 混

各位朋友各位同仁好

我是音樂學所的施永德，您可以叫我阿德

今天要討論的是

how i learned to 混

It turns out that I only began seriously to do hybrid learning because of a situation out of my control: in february 2020, with the pandemic raging in the united states, the berklee college of music, where I was teaching previously, went completely remote. suddenly, I had to think about students living in several different time zones

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the architecture of making do (4): window cages

superficial viewers of taipei’s urban architectures often express curiosity about the prevalence of window cages

why, these visitors ask, are there bars around windows on the seventh floor? are taipei people that afraid of theft?

(in these moments i must remind myself not to roll my eyes or to say, clearly you’ve never made any friends here)

for those who wonder about the window cages, let’s take a closer look

window cages create extra space, particularly for those who lack a porch or balcony
window cages create extra space, particularly for those who lack a porch or balcony

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