[Video Essay] Management City

  Title: Management city — The blood vessel of Beijing Site: Sidewalks(Beijing, China) Facing a problematic COVID situation, Beijing is taking strict COVID control. Several spaces are locked down. People lost access to buildings and sites they used to. However, the demand for entertainment, communication, living even medical treatment remains. Hence, a place always ignored, sidewalks become a vital role for the city management under COVID. Research background and Analysis   Being the capital of China, Beijing has become one of the largest metropolises worldwide. With a population of more than 20,000,000, proper use of sidewalks is a must in

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[Field-Homework 3] Housing Estate: Our Collective Home

Video Essay Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99HTXXm3enY Title: Housing Estate: Our Collective Home ‘The unique privilege of architecture is not that it is guaranteeing a convenient void but that it is constructing an interior world.’ – Rudolf Arnheim Initial Theme The housing estate is a single form that brings together homes. It is meant to connect houses with magnificent stories and experiences. However, since the housing estate is born out of a human need for survivability it is treated as rigid, robotic and geometric. Making it an amalgamation of opposites which culminates into a complex ‘Hybrid city’. The main theme of this video

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[Video Essay] Construction City

Construction city – rooftops in Mudanjiang Directed & Produced by Liu Xiaoyi Before covid, the border city Mudanjiang relied on its convenient geographical location, to vigorously develop border trade with Russia, and became an important port for China’s imports and exports to Russia. During the most prosperous period, businessmen from Russia could often be seen visiting Mudanjiang for purchasing and trading. In Suifenhe, a town under the jurisdiction of Mudanjiang, signs written in Russian words can be found everywhere, and even direct transactions in rubles are accepted here. Because of the flourishing trade and foreign exchange, Russian elements can be

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[Video Essay] Hybrid City

https://youtu.be/59YaP758nEE A hybrid city—corridor Walking along the corridor, what do people feel? This video performs a suppressing atmosphere with various transitions between corridors. Corridors, open spaces located between different exits and joints of surrounding environments, usually long and narrow. Unlike a room, corridors are merely an access for walking through and reaching destinations. It is worth noting that a long and narrow space triggers people thinking, rendering a sense of orientation both on their thoughts and walking. Regarding the story plot, this video is not a documentary, which introduces the function of the corridors and the heritage culture exclusively. Instead,

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[Video Essay] Disappearing City

Description When I encounter the theme of MTR passages, my thought immediately drifts to the concept of the liminal space, the space in between, in transition. These are the places people pass by so often that their sole purpose is to be passed through. Nobody pays attention to a waiting room, a staircase, a corridor, or a metro platform. But the liminal space concept is precisely studying the rational part of these architectural spaces, now without any existence of lifeforms, and attempting to bring out the irrational feelings of melancholy, claustrophobia, or nostalgia these spaces give us. I found this

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[Video Essay] Disappearing City

Title: Disappearing City Site: Changsha Hisense Mall Synopsis The shopping mall is a representative scene of daily life, from which we can see people’s lifestyles and the characteristics of a city. I choose a special shopping mall, Changsha Hisense Mall, as the site for my fieldwork. The mall can be separated into two parts, one part is the ordinary modern shopping mall, and the other part is Changsha Wenheyou. Changsha Wenheyou has 7 floors, covering an area of 20,000 square meters. The decoration here is all designed in accordance with the style of the 1980s and 1990s. And it restores

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[Video Essay] Information City

link:https://youtu.be/q4lZ5PykKos This video and essay focused on specific cite lobby, in Yichang, Hubei province, to reflect that the city Yichang is full of information and its own beauty. Me, Zhekai Zhang, as the director, wants to thank my friends who gave me the chance to research these different lobbies in the communities at this specific pandemic period, and some of them even joined in the filming process. At the start of the video there is a list including this part. In every city, there are many communities that people live in, and most of the communities have a lobby, where

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[Video Essay] Hybrid City, Shenyang Imperial Palace

 Hybrid City; Directed by Lu Liyu, 2022. Shenyang Imperial Palace, Dadong District, Shenyang Link: https://youtu.be/jP-R1HQMSME Because of the epidemic, most of spring is spent at home. I went out in search of green once the community was unblocked, hoping to catch the last end of spring. On my trip to the Imperial Palace, I came across a different sort of green by chance. This unique colour from the Imperial Palace’s roof reminded me of spring. Then, I want to interpret my topic – “rooftop” with the most historical and architectural building in my city. Shenyang Imperial Palace, also known as Shengjing

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Slow City – Mall

https://youtu.be/Cc-IL_Bc1iI Directed by:LIU Haitian 3035844314 Script: Tianjin, a city with a long history and rich culture, the way of life here is gradually slowing down. During the pandemic, there are no more people in the bustling city center. There are rows and rows of tall buildings and some new fashion elements. Shopping malls, once crowded and noisy, are now soothing and reassuring. A variety of fine jewelry stores, cosmetics stores, goods in full view. And instead of fighting, people walked at their own pace, a throwback to decades ago. Malls, once crowded and noisy, are now reassuring. A variety of

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[Field-Homework 3] Human City

The Video: Directed by Hung Chi Hang Cast: Markus Wong as Human We, as human beings, experience the city in a very unique way. With modernisation architecture, we utilise space through urbanising the natural environment, resulting in serious impact on the ecosystem. The theme of “Human City” is to reveal the brutality of humans on nature and other species that live together with us. From mass industrialisation to animal violence, even though humans are the most intelligent and cognitive beings on Earth, the ultimate goal of civilisation should be living with nature instead of replacing it with our own territories.

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