Author: Shihan Zhang

Post departure Blog

Every single time of saying goodbye to a trip is heartbreaking. So is this time. Santiago is an amazing city, for the reason that it combines the peaceful life, passionate people and developing technology in all works. I will always remember the moment when I can hardly express my meaning in Spanish, I can only have eye contact and hand gestures with the waitress who is trying her best to understanding me. However, they never show impatience, they are so nice that they tried their best to help me and understand me. I feel so impressed by their willingness to help me, and I will always remember hospitable people in Santiago.

Another thing I noticed that is that they prefer playing with sharp edge of roof structure, which highly dealing with solid and void of various angled structure. Such as the roof in Benedictine monastery las condes. It is amazing how the shadow and light could be engaged with the architecture form by this method of special roof.

The most amazing part of this trip is no doubt the people who I travel with. I really enjoy every second spending time with lovely people. I love my attendant group members, especially there are not only architecture people, but also landscape architects like me, when we are analyzing for example Plaza de Arms, we can explore the plaza from different angles, such as the public spaces versus semi private spaces and how the plants are helping to create these spaces. It is a pleasure for me to get to know these people and become friends with them and share this memory of traveling Santiago with them. Last but not least, teachers and teaching assistants who help us a lot throughout the entire process of studying aboard. I really appreciate all the efforts teachers taking into for us to have a wonderful time in Chile.

Me, Ziyuan and Momo are trying to imitating the statue behind.

Similar Chile

This is the very last day in Santiago, Chile. In this morning, I have the same fruits as what I had in these days, I will probably miss the fresh fruits here, especially peaches and strawberries, they tasted so sweet! I will miss the fruits here. Then we take the subway to the vega market. I don’t remember whether I have mentioned that the metro system is very similar to the metros in my hometown, shanghai. But shanghai has about ten metro line ways, and the underground system is way complicated than what is happening in Santiago. Every metro station has at least three different exit and where various metro ways intersect each other, the exits system become more difficult. But one thing I noticed about the metro here is they have seats where facing vertically to the direction of the metro, like the situation on the bus, that’s interesting. When we get to the vega market, it’s very crowded. It’s also similar to the markets in China. I remember when I was little, I used to go to the market with my grandmother. The various kinds of fruits and vegetables always catch my attention. It’s a good place to learn about names of fruits and vegetables when I was little. However, maybe my height isn’t helping me to follow our group of people, I feel that I will get lost in the market. Fortunately, everyone follows up the group. A lot of things here in Santiago reminds me of my childhood in Shanghai, I kind of having homesick for seeing the similar hometown sceneries in Chile.

VEGA market

Some thoughts on landscape and architecture design

During these days visiting various architecture buildings, I notice that the combinations of how landscape is starting to correspond to architecture is creating amazing moments.
The first time I notice this is outside the Benedictine Monastery Las Condes. Because that’s the place where natural landscape context is corresponding to manual landscape design outside the church. And the church itself is painting pure white, it’s a high contrast with the green landscape and blue sky. As the saturation of context such as plants and sky are always very high, the white architecture could easily pop up to catch my first attention. Also, the shape of plants along the outside ramp of Benedictine Monastery Las Condes varies, from tall pine trees to square boxwood, it helps me to open my horizons to further natural landscape such as background of mountains.
White architecture buildings also occur normally in urban campus. Where the landscape design is more formal with ivy as ground cover. Helping the architecture itself to show off from the background.
Not only green plants are used to be landscape design, but also stone designs could be a special way to illustrate beauty. Such as the stone spheres in front of the innovation center in PUC. The stone spheres is emphasizing the shape of circle while the with contrast of formal rectangle shape of innovation center is creating the sense of recreation. So people can feel more entertained.

Sketch of natural landscape vs organized landscape

Natural landscape outside Benedictine monastery las Condes

Landscape design outside Benedictine monastery las

Stone spheres

Colorful Chile

Along the colorful walls heading to the Neruda’s house

Today, we went to the Neruda’s house. The Pablo Neruda’s two hours’ bus ride. In order to be the very first group visiting the house, we headed to the home use from early morning around eight. From taking the bus, I noticed the landscape changing along the highway. When it comes to the nearby context around Neruda’s house, the first thing interested me is the painted walls along the ramp heading to the top of the Valparasio. Because when the bus is going up to the hill, the street is too narrow for two cars to pass through, I nearly can see the people’s shoulders are rubbing the side of our bus, which scared me. However, the play of various colors along the wall is fascinating. The color and painting actually helping me to reduce the sense of distance or time. The reason why I say so is that the same situation also draws my attention while walking along the hill Cerro Concepcion, a two hour walking tour should be tired for me especially under the weather of 80 F. However, the surrounding environment of colorful paintings along all sides of the wall is filled with artistic creatures, is making the entire space a place where people could forget the time and location. I don’t feel tired at all, totally want to be embraced more by the colorful site while breathing the wind, which smells a little bit salty as the sea and looking at the sky, which corresponds to the blue of the further sea view as well.
Another place where there’s a lot usage of colors is the Pablo Neruda’s house. The location is at the high point, so I wonder whether there will be any relationship between outside environment and insider decoration. I find the colorful decoration inside this special building, not only the bright colors of walls inside all the rooms, but also those colored details on the glass or window. I bet every single day, when Pablo Neruda wake up by the bright orange and pink wall, sitting on the green coach and looking out of the colorful window, seeing the azure sea and sky, he will probably have a good mood.

Sketch of the living room of Neruda’s house.

 

Judgements on juice and ice cream

In these couple of days, I tried different types of fruity juice and ice cream. I’m pretty surprised by how different could a fruit turns into drinks. Because when I have breakfast at the hotel, the fruits such as melon and strawberry have really sweet taste, but juice has a bit of bitter, which reminds me of the super sweet dessert in the restaurant at parque bicentenario.
First of all, I tried some fruits that I have never had before, such as the custard apple from the same restaurant. The custard apple juice have the balance of sweet and sour, it surprised me how the sweetness could overweight sour taste, and it actually could stay in your mouth for a little while, which is very interesting.
Another juice I tried is the pomegranate juice. The pomegranate juice is much more bitter than what I expect for, probably is because they don’t peel it when getting the juice. I get it near the subway station of la moneda, there’s people extracting the juice from the entire pomegranate near the station. The process of witnessing the fruit being extracted into juice is amazing.
From the San cristobal hill in day one, I got the juice named mote con huesillos, it’s new to me with the sweetness both from the juice part and fruit part as it is probably peach. I love the various layers in this juice.
I tried different ice cream as well, from the frozen yogurt nearby the hotel, I can chose two types of fruit I would like to add into the ice cream, I choose strawberry and pińa, and I experienced the way they mix fresh fruits with yogurt and frozen it into ice cream. The machine of mixing and freezing it is incredible, and the taste is good. Compared to this, another ice cream store called emporio la rosa, the flavors I tried are lime and coco chocolate, the lime one is super sour, which could prove its 100% natural extracted from fresh fruits. And the coco chocolate one isn’t strong enough for me to taste out coconut. Probably the percentage of sugar is reduced from that to enlarge the flavor of natural fruits.

Custard Apple juice

pomegranate juice

mote con muesillos

frozen yogurt

emporio la rosa

Chile before Chile exhibition

Today, we went to the Museo Chileno De Arte Precolombino. When I firstly step into the museum, I was embraced by the sunshine, it’s surprised that the sunshine is shaped into the building by angled roof structure. Then different exhibitions located on three floors, the most interesting one I found is the underground floor exhibition about Chile before Chile. I felt really impressed by the cultural influences how these original resources could turn into human works of art. Because the original material is mud, people start to shape it then fire it to make it hard with utility. As this exhibition helped me to explore more about the clay art. And one interesting point is how they place all the pottery into glass cabinet that have reflection on four sides, it’s not as clear as you can see the reflection from the mirror, but the sense of vague pottery are arranged by plain glass is amazing. Also, the supporting glass structure providing three levels of laying out the objects are beautiful. The art works of various heights are arranged on different levels, usually the bowls with least height is on the lowest level. That enables me to try to have the visual experience from various height levels. Here’s one sketch from comparing one single object from the others.

Pre-departure ——Shihan

Just a few hours and I’m about to fly to Chile. So excited about every chanellage in Santiago, as I read a lot about Santiago from the book lonely planet of chile section, I really looking forward to visiting this diversified city. Another amazing thing I would like to claim is that this is a trip with my classmates! I usually travel with parents or a few friends, this is the very first time I travel with a large group of people, there’s a little bit concern of how can we be quite when in public space and be active when in some occasions where needs participation, showing good manners is one way to solve my concern. So wish everyone could have a good time in Chile! I’m interested in experiencing the underground metro system in Santiago. Because in my hometown, Shanghai, metro ways are really convenient, so I would like to explore more by comparing the metro systems. For the free day, the beach seems to be a good choice. The blue of the ocean and sky could always help me getting rid of brothering things in my life and encourage me to move on from more important things! Hope this trip will be one of my most precious experience!

 

Shihan’s Bio

shihan-zhang

Hi, everyone. My name is Shihan Zhang. I’m from Shanghai, China. This is my third year studying landscape architecture in osu and I’m pretty interested in what this major is taking me so far. I started to study in osu three years ago and it’s challenging to me as I need to start a brand new life in another country without my family members (I’m the only child in my family) or familiar friends beside my side. Shanghai is a fast past city and very different from the comfort life in Ohio. However, I love Columbus and I love my new life in Ohio. It’s also giving me a sense of home as my studio friends are always supporting me and it’s a nice place to study and live, especially the O-H-I-O spirit in the air is always my proud of being a buckeye. In my spare time, I like to play the ukulele. I learned how to play the ukulele by myself as I have the background of playing the piano and flute since I was little. Also, travelling around the world is my dream. I have been to Japan and Sri Lanka years ago. I love learning about different cultures. So I’m excited to learn more about Chile. I’m always looking forward to embrace the beauty and challenge of the world.