Author: Kevin Hong

One Last Time

It has been exactly a week since we left London. I feel like I had a connection to the city and it felt like home when I got there. It did not take long for my body and mind to adapt to local London time, but it took almost a week for me to get back on to Columbus time.
There were so many things that I really like about our trip, but one thing that stood out most is how we were able to walk anywhere or use public transportation system to get anywhere within a short amount of time. This stood out to me because I do not like to even walk across campus at home, but it is quite enjoyable in London. I walked a minimum of 8.5 miles daily during our stay in London. The option to utilize public transporation or walk from place to place has a very good impact our daily lives, and I think that we should start moving toward that lifestyle at home.
My favorite part of the trip was our long walk day across London. This was one of my favorite day because, I love walking around London and see how the scene, landscape, architecture as we move across the city. This was also a memorable day because my feet was in so much pain toward the end of the day because I have never walk that much in a single day, but the pain was totally worth it. I end up walking barefoot around the Princess Diana memorial to numb my feet so I can keep up with the rest of the group. Now looking back, I think I made the right decisions by walking in the cold water in order to see walk much more later that evening.

Prior to the trip, I was hoping to take the EuroStar to Paris for a day to visit some extended family and some old friends. Someone asked about this topic in class before I got to it and we were not allow to leave the country. It was a little dissapointing at first, but I got over it fast. Now that the trip is over, I am so glad that we were not allow to leave England. There are so much to explore within London alone, a trip to France is pushing for too much. I end up visiting Brighton for a few hours to see the Royal Pavillion and the coast of Britain. Then returned to London and contiuning to explore the amazing city. I felt very safe and like I was at home during my time in England, and it was a good feeling to have while abroad.
Overall, I think this trip was very successful for many reasons. First of all, the weather was very nice during our time in London. Secondly, we were able to adapt and quickly learn how to use the tube and other forms of transportation to explore the city. Lastly, and most importantly, everyone in our group was AWESOME! Hope everyone had as much fun as I did, and hope to go on at least one or two more trips with everyone!

 

Saying goodbye to London 10 hours before departure…

Capturing some art work before dinner on the last night

Pavilion on the coast

I thought my free day trip to Brighton was interesting. Firstly, it wasn’t plan ahead because I changed my mind on going down there mid-week. Then I woke up on Saturday and changed my mind again and went to Waterloo and purchased my tickets and left. It took quite a bit of effort to jump from platform to platform catching three different trains to get to Brighton. The first thing I went to see in Brighton was the Royal Pavillion. I thought it was a unique building when I learned about it in Jackie’s class last year and this would be a good opportunity to examine the architecture of the building. The pavilion did not look too impressive from the outside because of the newer buildings being a bit taller hiding it’s breaking the hierarchical of me h pavilion. However, the inside made me felt so small. The dome was so grand that I felt dwarf within the space. Besides the oavulkion, I went I the pier, walked around and embraced the cold weather by the ocean.

Tower of London Experience

I visited the Tower of London with Nic and Keith on Friday and thought it was very interesting. One thing that caught my attention was the snort that are on display in the White Tower. Prior to my visit to the tower, I thought the white tower would be an an exhibit that shows the living quarter of the king when it was the royal household. It was completely different from what I thought in my head, but I was impressed by the amount of armors they were able to preserve for hundreds of years. Prior to going into the tower, I thought the tower was very ssmll, but when I actually went inside, it was a lot larger. I thought it was cool to be able to walk inside a really old castle and to be able to see some hidden doors along the way. One important thing I learn after visiting the tower is, there’s more than one crown jewel! Before that, I thought it was just one that gets pass down from one ruler to another.

London Olympic Site visit

A site that I was very glad to see was the Olympic Park and Zaha Hadid’s aquatic center. The aquatic center has been part of my precedent research for a few architecture projects, so to see it in person is a dream come true! I am very intrigued with curve or bending structures and the aquatic center consist all of it. To think that the roof structure is only supported on three points blows my mind because I learned that supports are very important to a successful building from structures. Another thing that was very intriguing to me was the roof structures bends in two directions. The longitudinal bend was design to bend own toward the pool to separate between the competition pool and the diving well. The side bend was design as a away to connect that allow the structure to add an additional 17,000 seats during the Olympic and the seating addition was reduce to its current form after the Olympic ended. Thinking of how 30,000 panels were imported from Brazil and was precisely put together to create the ceiling curve ceiling makes me want to experiment with wood bending for my future projects! I have learned so much about this building from research and I have learned so much more after seeing it in person! I hope you guys learned as much as I did or even more!

The ceiling dip down to divide up the two pools

The 30,000 wood panels that make up the ceiling

The Princess Diana Memorial Visit Experience!

Everyone thinks that my favorite place we have visit so far is the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Zaha Hadid, but surprisingly its not! My favorite place we have visit so far is the Princess Diana Memorial. It is my favorite place so far because it uses water as a representation of the different stages of her life.

The water from where I was standing started out very smooth and relaxing. This stage of the water is suppose to be a representation of her life when everything was calm and peaceful and show the happiest time of her life. As I move around the shape of the monument gets more narrow and the water got rough. This shows the rougher times in her life. For example, when she was struggling to maintain her marriage to Prince Charles. Next, water got very intense showing and it was meant to represent the time she got divorced and leading to her death. It actually hurts when you put your hands or feet near the faucet. Lastly, the water got soft, smooth and slow again and I believe it is meant to show people that she is now resting in peace now and will always be love by the people.

Princess Diana Memorial

The Rough Part of the Memorial

The slower, smoother part of her life.

Icing of the feet

London 2018 – Thoughts

This week has been very rough with midterms, studio mid-review and the cold weather. I was very concern and worry to whether I will be able to finish everything and pin up prior to departure. Being fairly new to GIS, I struggled quite a bit to understand the program in order to produce my work. I managed to finish my work ahead of schedule and now the stress is out and the excitements are in! It Even though it has been a rough, tough, stressful week, but knowing that I will end the week in another country makes it totally worth it!

I am looking forward to being in a plane and traveling again. I am looking forward to the trip and being able to experience a week of learning, studying and enjoying my time in London. I am looking forward to visiting Stourhead, St Paul’s and many important site in United Kingdom. This will be my first time traveling abroad with my classmates and friends, so I am excited for this experience! I am looking forward to getting to know everyone on the trip and learn a bit about every single person on the trip. My final thought is whether I should stay up all night and get use to London time, or sleep a little and get some rest. Anyways, I am very excited to final be abroad and the sleeping will happen at some point! Looking forward to traveling from Columbus to London with everyone!

Kevin’s Bio

My name is Kevin and I am a junior at Ohio State pursuing a bachelor degree in architecture. I am of Chinese and Korean descent on my dad’s side and Cambodian and French from my mom’s side. I was born in Vietnam when my parents worked abroad. Growing up in a culturally diverse family gave me many opportunities to travel as a kid.

Growing up, I was the kid that had a lot of energy one minute and out of it the next. I was hit a by a car and had a severe traumatic brain injury. It caused my body to function on a different schedule than everyone else, but it did not stop me from doing the things I want in life. I learned to play the violin to calm myself down and relax my body and end up playing in the school’s Concert, Symphonic, and Chamber Orchestra. I joined the swim team and tennis team to improve my health, and I learned French so I can understand my family when they gossip or if they want to hide something.

My journey began in Vietnam and it took me across half of the continent of Asia before returning home to the United States. Living abroad and traveling a lot growing up allowed me to walk through temples and shrines that has been around for thousands of years and see the historical surrounding city transition into a modern high-rise metropolis. My top three favorite destinations in Asia are: Ho Chi Min City, Seoul and Tokyo. I am excited to go to London because it will be my first time abroad in ten years and it will give me the opportunity to improve on my sketching skills. I look forward to learning about the architecture, history, monarchs and much more in London and most importantly, with a fantastic group of people! There are many great architecture I look forward to see in person, but I am most excited to see Zaha Hadid’s London Aquatic Center and possibly visiting her firm and the AA School campus. My goal is to travel to at least 20 different countries before turning 30 and England will be number 11 on my list.

Photos I took in HCMC back in 2007