All posts tagged: Human

Who Decides Our Spaces?

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In the past week, there were two news items that came to my attention regarding public space. One is in Hong Kong, where the Town Planning Board is reviewing a plan to extend the Avenue of Stars on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. The other is in New York, where the mayor is openly considering the removal of the pedestrian plazas in Time Square. Though the motives and incentives are different, both instances are controversial : they seek to remedy areas that are actually immensely popular (though more for the tourists in the case of Time Square). This brings me to ask, who should be in charge of shaping the urban environments around us? It appears that both in Hong Kong and New York, they appear to employ top-down planning favoring expertise and technical knowledge. Yet, is that really a good approach, especially when most of the decision makers do not necessarily visit or have intimate knowledge of areas they are trying to change. On the other hand, a bottom up approach to planning could …

Curious Prometheus

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This is my first, ever blog site. Finally, after all these years, I decided to open my mind up to the wild world of the World Wide Web. To start off, I will be writing about the new movie, Prometheus. Warning: there will be some spoilers, so don’t read it if knowing will ruin your enjoyment of the movie. Prometheus, what a movie: incredible mythology, motifs, and imagery. However subtle, it has numerous philosophical views and references to other media cultures such as religious symbolism and self-sacrifice and human conceit. I would like to introduce another thread of thought. The movie is about the human inclination to be irresistibly drawn to the unknown – that unfettered curiosity that consumes all of us, at one point or another. Humans seem to instinctively thirst for knowledge. Prometheus is a movie about the dangers of unbridled curiosity and the power of knowledge, much like the story of its namesake. When the first scene opens, you are immediately  drawn to the clear references of Prometheus, the Greek god, self-sacrifice …