Beijing: Olympics or Bust?…

With all of the hoopla surrounding the coming Summer Olympics in Beijing (Aug 8-24) one would expect a heavy dose of tourists , infrastructure developments, and fanfare. I would venture to say that the majority of this has come true and is taking place, however, one industry very close to home, is experiencing an underwhelming outcome from the event. Hotels are apparently “slashing” rates simply due to lack of demand.

According to CNN.com, the original estimate of 500,000 projected visitors has been scaled back significantly and the bulk of the problem is due to security issues; this includes China tightening their Visa controls and the effects of China publicly breaking up “terrorist plots” against the games. The current average room prices in three-star hotels are down to $60 per night from $100 in previous months, according to the China Daily newspaper (July 15) and four-star hotels have dropped to about $117 a night, from $220.

Eric Wong, co-head of Asian Real Estate Research with investment bank UBS in Hong Kong, said the drop in rates resulted from a combination of overambitious pricing and the new security measures, which took many hotels by surprise. Hotels have had to slash prices right before the start of previous Olympics Games elsewhere, he said.

“We all hear how stringent searches and visa requirements and rejections based on the slightest whim of political activism is diminishing the desire to visit China,” Wong said. “Beyond the Olympics, things should turn normal.”

Most Olympic hotels that have been approved by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee are four- or five- star, Wu said, and their rooms have already been booked. Those hotels cater to Olympic officials, sponsors and national Olympic delegations. Their prices were set last year, by negotiation, rather than by market demand, he said.

These reports are fairly surprising considering all recent Summer Olympic games have garnered huge number of visitors, but also booms in local tourism infrastructure including hotels of all service levels. It makes me wonder about the real reason behind the slowdown. Could it be that the world is simply not ready for a Chinese Olympics? or that we, as tourists, really do fear terrorism?… or simply that the Olympics have lost their luster due to doping scandals and the rise of professional sports?

Despite this apparent slowdown, the fact remains that Beijing (and China in general) is a fascinating destination for a vacation to see beautiful nature or the stunning architectural achievements that the country is becoming known for (like the image above of Herzog and Meuron´s Birds Nest Stadium). Even if tourists are not keen on attending the Olympics or their related events, due to these lowered hotel prices China would serve as an ideal vacation spot for Americans traveling on the weak dollar, or Europeans taking advantage of the thriving Euro; snagging a great hotel room at one of the new hotels like The Emperor Beijing should be appealing. The Emperor is a new member to Design Hotels that was designed by the renowned design firm Graft Lab and is located in the heart of Beijing.

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HOME DELIVERY

HOME DELIVERY: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling is a story of the prefab. The exhibition on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York encapsulates over 100 architectural projects spanning almost two centuries of international research and development in the field. The story rewinds us back to 1833 – the days of the first prefabricated construction system known as the “balloon frame” method. The system emerged in response to housing shortage in Chicago and implied a greater efficiency and lesser dependency on the special construction skills that were in short supply in the States. The new method allowed house construction to be completed in a matter of days.

In theoretical terms, the story of the prefab parallels that of the automobile. It’s Henry Ford who was among the pioneers to practically address the housing problem. His solution to the problem – as well as, perhaps, to all conceivable problems – was the assembly line and mass production. Now everyone could have a house, as long as it was Ford. If the assembly of a prefab house is based on the same concept as that of a car, why, one wonders, manufactured houses often get an unfavorable rep? Indeed, very few persons entertain the notion of an on-site custom-built piece of transportation.

The reasons against a residential prefab may in part be informed by a negative campaign in the media as it is for example manifested in the 1920 short silent slapstick comedy One Week, scripted by and starring Buster Keatton. The title refers to the amount of time assumed sufficient for a few laymen to assemble a kit-house. In this movie – a spoof of the promotional films for kit-houses – it is accidentally built on the wrong spot and when the owners (two lovers) try to move it, their possession to which they attach so many dreams of happy life is reduced to a heap of wood chips by a passing train. Whatever the main reasons for not embracing the idea of prefab housing, the flick is a part of the exhibition.

HOME DELIVERY is an impressive narrative about both failures and successes of the concept. What is evident in the optics of the MoMA showcase is that prefabricated homes have evolved over the years and now come in astonishing variety and appeal to the most sophisticated expectations. With the idea of modern dwelling now driven by concerns for sustainability and global overpopulation, there is a chance for yet more energetic development of the concept. The remarkable growth of the prefab industry in the recent years substantiates this optimism.

CELLOPHANE HOUSE by Kieran Timberlake Associates is a sexy prefab skyscraper, a four-storeyed building out of the box. It is metallic on the outside and, well, cellophane on the inside – made of recyclable materials and equipped with photovoltaic cells. Ascending, you pause for breath a number of times (4) before reaching the rooftop… And that’s the main difference between you – the MOMA goers (our name is Legion on Sunday) – and a prospective owner who would take the off-grid elevator supplied with the kit. The house is adaptable to different environments and can be made of a variety of materials – depending on the client’s budget… In some cases it may very well spell: No elevator!

One, two, three, four… Could it be a five storeyed building? Sorry I failed to keep an accurate record of the floors. On the other hand, does size really matter in this particular case? Size is expandable. Cellophane House is high and can always be one inch higher.

What is it called? The ground or the first floor? I am yet to see the basement, if there is any.

Cellophane staircase. The MoMA brochure features a questionnaire. Q: “Who might want to live in this house?” A: Meeeee. Q: In what environment would it fit best? Beach, mountains?.. A: Beach. Or mountains.

MICRO COMPACT HOME by Horden Cherry Lee Architects / Haack + Hopfner Architects. A full-scale epitome of compactness, it is so cute and so micro compact, I catch myself thinking of shoplifting the thing. Are all these people thinking what I am thinking? If not, what’s wrong with all these people!

MICRO COMPACT HOME is a big friend of the environment. It makes perfect sense: The smaller the micro home, the larger the environment. Q: “What spaces do you think are necessary in a home?” A: Mmm.. The lavatory space is NOT necessary - if your home is a micro compact home. The cube goes retail for EUR 25,000 - 34,000.

Manufactured in Austria, MCH (or to be precise: m-ch) is inspired by aviation and automotive design. The 2.6m cube is suitable for sleeping, working, dining, cooking, and hygiene. Do you feel something important missing on the list of suitability? I know how to extend its scope of functions…

SYSTEM-3 by Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf. This austere house is actually just an elemental unit of it. It can be combined with other units to form immense constructions – grow vertically and horizontally to comfortably accommodate entire communities.

SYSTEM-3 is a 47 square meters house fully equipped with a kitchen, bath, lighting, and a staircase to access the roof or walk to another floor in the case of a vertical expansion of the units.

Now, this is HOME DELIVERY part ONE. Which means I am back from MoMA’s 54th street lot to the museum’s sixth-floor galleries that comprise the exhibition’s historical aspect. Part ONE traces the origins of prefabrication in the work of architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Jean Prouvé, Richard Rogers, Kisho Kurokawa, Konrad Wachsmann, and Marcel Breuer; and glimpses at the prefabricated future..

MAQUILADORA PROPOSAL by Teddy Cruz. This vibrant swirl is a part of the series of speculative collages aimed to change the way cities and suburbs are organized.

MIGRATING FORMATIONS by Contemporary Architecture Practice. The project is said to explore the potentials of 3-D printing techniques. I see thе pоtentiаls. I feel them - they аre tаngible.

VECTOR WALL by Reiser + Umemoto. This VECTOR WALL piece is a creative laser interpretation of a regular wall that cuts through your apartment to make you feel claustrophobic. A simple laser cutter perforates a flexible material and one gets these beautiful results. This simple.

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ENDOGENOUS ART FORMS

Some art forms do not require mechanisms of external guidance. They manage to do well without curators, critics, collectors and such. Neither these forms require a special accommodation. This self-reliant art involves itself with life on energies that derive from unrestrained enthusiasm of artists themselves. Involvement is the keyword. The term refers to the philosophy of authentic existence, where existence through involvement implies the opposite element of dichotomy – existence through institutional placement in conformity with certain conditions. One can argue that the extent to which external conditions determine what art is amounts to the degree of deprivation of art in terms of self-determination. The art forms I have in mind emerge and flourish in spite of their conditions. More so, they often exist in the conditions that are utterly inimical to their being. Consider the circumstances of art subjected to the municipal regulations concerning what’s called “image pollution” of public spaces. From the legal point of view, no art is possible within this bureaucratic framework. Yet, it is there. It is everywhere. I spent a few days exploring this phenomenon – self-perpetuating art. To find it in New York City you do not have to be Indiana Jones. If you are lazy, you just walk down the 12th street in the East Village to reach the Open Road Park – a popular site among skateboardists. The Open Road Park is fenced on all sides with high walls. It is these walls that make the park so attractive to street artists.

If you are less inert, you take a subway train across the East River to Long Island City, get off at the 45th Rd./Courthouse Square and ask someone for the direction to 5 POINTZ – it is around one of the corners. There with your eyeballs rolling you will witness how wild the endogenous art can grow. On the entire block that contains what once used to be an industrial complex, you will have hard time finding a spot to insert your tag without slashing a piece. Hard time as it was, I found one – a heaven spot. “Tag” is a stylized signature; to “slash” is to tag over another’s graffiti and to go over it is considered a deep insult; “piece” is a large and labor-intensive graffiti painting; “heaven spot” is a hard-to-reach place such as rooftop. I am getting there… And you wait for an update, if I manage to keep my bones together.

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TOO FAR TOO CLOSE BUT NEVER COMPLETELY OUT

Os Gemeos is a pseudonym shared by two twin brothers – Brazilian self-taught artists Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, who have been busy for decades emblazoning with art the streets of their native São Paulo and beyond. Their installation Too Far Too Close – currently on display at Deitch Projects Gallery in New York – transforms the space into an exuberant fantasy world populated by weird creatures and strange characters with ties to Brazilian folklore, universal dreams and episodes of altered consciousness. Some of the fantastic species are large enough to allow passage into their internal domain – the soul, as one may imagine. When inside, you figure prominently in it and it is virtually impossible to exclude yourself from the interior. A spectator, you end up being the focal object of the exploration.

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REMEMBERING 2007

It has been almost a year since DESIGNHOTELS held its NEW SHELTER Future Forum in Barcelona. Peter Lute, the owner of Lute Restaurant & Suites, one of the finest dining spots and most remarkable accommodations in Amsterdam was among the participants at the conference. Peter shared with us his ideas on how experience of food is much more complex than eating. I visited Peter later that year to have a better sense of what it is to be Lute’s guest – to be a guest in the 21 century. Here is a video I took while having my late breakfast coffee on Peter Lute’s upbeat campus.

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The video may take a few minutes to get going - depending on your connection. If it does not load into the space above, please be so kind to warn me in the comments. Thank you.

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