cornerstone san francisco - hong kong scholarship …€¦ · building history as far as 1891. we...
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CORNERSTONE SAN FRANCISCO - HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIP EXCHANGE PROGRAM
ARIEL’S 1ST WEEKLY REPORT
Special events of 1st week:
Day 1 5/30 MON Arrived San Francisco International Airport +
Lunch at Mr. Perry’s House
Day 2 5/31 TUE Brief orientation at Office + Office Meeting
Day 3 6/1 WED City Impact Tour
Day 4 6/2 THUR Visit Chinese Hospital + Visit Lux Delux +
Meeting with Mr. Perry + Night Club
Day 5 6/3 FRI Highland Hospital Groundbreaking Ceremony +
WAX Museum + Fishermen’s Wharf
Day 6 6/4 SAT Noe Valley +
Crosspoint Church of Silicon Valley
Day 7 6/5 SUN Rising Steel City Walk
High scrapes in San Francisco
1
Day 1 5/30 MON Arrived San Francisco International Airport
+ Lunch at Mr. Perry’s House
Feel excited for experiencing the industry and
culture in United State which makes me nearly
can’t sleep. Arrived San Francisco in the morn-
ing, It was cloudy and rainy in San Francisco
and the weather was really cold. Introduced by
Ming about San Francisco International Airport
and the road system in San Francisco, I realized
transportation is a great issue in United States
as most of people owns their car or rent a car.
Before reaching the downtown area, the dis-
tance is very long and the roads are large com-
pared to most Asian cities, there’s nearly noth-
ing you can do on your way of driving. However,
I enjoyed the natural landscape of united States,
even the retaining wall, it looks very natural and
matches with the beautiful landscapes.
Mr. Perry welcomed us with a American style
BBQ lunch in his house. In Hong Kong, we have
to serve other selves in the BBQ party, every-
one is sitting around the fire and chats when
waiting for the food to be done. I think It’s time
to adapt to those cultural difference, I believe it
would become useful to our future. Besides, It’s
also a good chance for us to see how a typical
American house looks like.
Day 2 5/31 TUEBrief orientation at Office + Office Meeting
Our office is on the 33rd and 35th floor of 44
Montgomery located in the heart of Financial
District in San Francisco. It was built in 1960s
with continuous vertical fins on the exterior wall
and comparatively higher than the other build-
ing so this makes the view of the office is really
great.
We attended the office meeting in the afternoon,
I guess it would held on every weeks. Mr. Perry
started the meeting by asking the good news
from everyone in the team, and have discussion
on solutions to different issues. Although there
are many unfamiliar phase I encountered in the
meeting, but I think this is a good chance for us
to have a brief understanding on the vision of
the business and the general operation of US
industries. At last, the meeting was ended by
everyone reporting on what they are going to
do in the week.
Day 3 6/1 WEDCity Impact Tour
In the morning, we have the staff and volunteer
of City Impact introduced us the different divi-
sions of the organization, services and events
by Reuse Mission and the Worship Center. I
am impressed by how City Impact is gaining
every possibilities in helping the community in
the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. This
THE FIRST WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCOText and Photos by Ariel Mok
Left: Photo in front of Mr. Perry’s House Middle: Mr. Perry roasting meat and sausages Right: Our office is at 44 Montgomery
2
let us know more about the residents’ condi-
tion including homeless, low-income residents,
and also the education of those children within
this neighborhood. The dedication and efforts
in teaching, renovating the building for those
essential use, organizing events, outreach...etc.
of those volunteers are most appreciated. I was
amazed by the power of the religion belief that
drives one to dedicate themselves. Noticed
that there are many unemployed people in the
district, they also tried to find job for them as
much as they can. I think the establishment
of City Impact of the district is not just feed-
ing people, but also spreading the message of
hope.
Day 4 6/2 THUR Visit Chinese Hospital + Visit Lux Delux +
Meeting with Mr. Perry + Night Club
In the morning, we have Julia, the director of
Fund Development of Chinese Hospital intro-
ducing the history and the future development
of Chinese Hospital in China Town. With more
understanding about how the Chinese commu-
nity grouped together in San Francisco, why
there is small alley in China Town and where
is the community hub. The new extension of
Chinese Hospital triggered me to learn more
about the preservation of historical building in
San Francisco.
In the afternoon, we visit LuxDelux, a member
only lifestyle experience e-commerce site at the
start up phase. It is an enterprise starts up the
business in a very smart way and I learnt about
how they are standing out from the other com-
petitors by their eagarness to find new, unique
experience for their customers. LuuDelux also
have insight into the current trend, for exam-
ple using the facebook as the main advertising
media and utilize its advantage and function, a
powerful network thus created. With the tech-
nical support, the feedbacks of members from
different channels are being analyzed in a very
scientific way so that follow-up can be made. I
can relate so much about what Mr. Perry taught
in the lecture previously. We had a discussion
with Mr. Perry in the afternoon.
In the nightclub, not only having the chance to
experience the night life in San Francisco but I
was also happy to chat with Martin for differ-
ent perspectives on political, social and build-
ing issues from the point of view of a citizen in
United States. We exchanged how we live and
what the people do in Hong Kong and United
States.
Day 5 6/3 FRIHighland Hospital Groundbreaking Ceremo-
ny + WAX Museum + Fishermen’s Wharf
We attended the Groundbreaking Ceremony of
Highland Hospital Acute Tower Replacement
Project. We having opportunity to meeting so
many people and introducing our exchange
Left: Lobby of CITY IMPACT Top right: Photo in front of Chinese Hospital with Julia
Bottom right: Photo in Lux Delux office (L to R: Jason, Erika, Ricco, Mr. Andy Hsieh, me and Rachel)
3
programme to them. I wonder if there is a way
to recognize so many people just at one mo-
ment, not only their name and also their posi-
tion. We met Jesus who is a guarantee from
CFEA, he performed really well in the class. We
also met Mr. Aki Nakao , the director of General
Services Agency who is a very kind person who
supports CFEA.
The world is so small, when we are going to
meet Brandon, the student who will to go Hong
Kong for CFEA Exchange Programmme, we en-
countered the engineer for the renovation and
reinforcement work for earthquake of the West
Oakland Bart Station at the station. Through his
description, I learnt more about the construc-
tion in United States, for example, the use of
“drywall”, the carbon fibre for reinforcement
of concrete column, and also the construction
procedure for the reinforcement work for the
earthquake in the existing station.
Day 6 6/4 SATNoe Valley + Crosspoint Church of Silicon
Valley
I like to visit the neighborhood in foreign coun-
tries as I think it truly reflects how local people
live instead of just visiting those tourist spots.
The houses in Noe valley beautiful, although
they are aligned side by side but each one of
them have their own character. There is a street
concentrated with small shops and boutiques
selling fruit, flowers, toys, clothes and even
community shops e.g. handmade art studio are
just right on the street. Should not forget to
mention about the big market with car park in
front of it, I can nearly imagine I was driving a
car from my house and getting what I need in
the weekend. However, may be the weather is
not so good that not many people in the nice
big park next to the neighborhood.} better from
archi point of view instead of tourist
Ming took us to Crosspoint Church at Milpi-
tas to attend a concert by Tats Lau Yee-Tat,
a songwriter, musician and comedy actor in
Hong Kong. Mr. Lau and Mrs. Lau also shared
their experience for becoming a Christian, I was
touched by the love of Mrs. Lau to her husband
and also sad about what they had encountered.
I feel glad that they retained a positive attitude
to life by their religion belief. The concert gave
us a break though the packed schedule and I
gave me home feeling as this was conducted
in Cantonese. Besides, the Church was special
as it was convert from warehouse, there is high
standard of show equipment setting in the hall
Day 7 6/5 SUNRising Steel City Walk
Rising Steel, two centuries of San Francisco
Architecture, as an architectural student, the
guide provides informative description on how
the high scrapes evolved in the San Francisco
downtown neighborhood. We learnt about the
Top left: The Groundbreaking Ceremony Right: Photo at West Oakland Station (L to R: Jermaine, me, Ricco and Brandon)
Bottom left: Nice neighbourhood Noe Valley Bottom middle: Mr. Tats Lau Yee-Tat and Mrs. Lau
4
building history as far as 1891. We saw many
examples of Chicago style skyscrapers. Chi-
cago School style is widely used to describe
buildings during the 1880s and 1890s. Chicago
School skyscrapers have distinguishing feature
of three parts of a classical column. The first
floor functions as the base, the middle stories,
usually with little ornamental detail, act as the
shaft of the column, and the last floor or so rep-
resent the capital, with more ornamental detail
and capped with a cornice. The case of adap-
tive re-use of the White House (255 Sutter) is
special for its unexpected use. The neo-classi-
cal historical building was turned into a garage.
This is indeed made sense in term of commer-
cial view, as the demand of car park is very high
in the downtown. However, the feasibility to turn
a building into a car park may need compre-
hensive structural analysis including testing on
the steel beams. Besides, about the renovation
of old buildings, often only the first two floors
was renewed by new materials due to limited
budget. Thus if people are not looking up, they
would just think this was a brand new building.
At last, the tour was ended in front of several
refrigerator box buildings as described by the
guide, questioned about whether this kind of
style created by Mies Van der Rohe stated with
extreme clarity and simplicity should be carried
on and whether it makes the city more joyful.
General observation and thoughts: San Francisco is an unique place with diver-
sity of people and culture, the experience of
the chemical reaction made between different
culture is interesting. For example, in some Chi-
nese/Vietnam restaurants, the western people
and American use chopstick even better than
me. There are also different critical issue hap-
pening in the cities, for example people with
mentally illness and unemployment.
For the building in San Francisco, Renovation
work are everywhere. How the planning depart-
ment influence on the architectural appear-
ance, the question about in what extent people
should preserve something and how can inno-
vative design happens. And hope the weather
would become better in the coming days.
Top left: The guide of city walk introducing decorative facade of ONE ELEVEN SUTTER Right: Chicago School style building
Bottom left: The first glass curtain wall used Bottom middle: The “White House” converted to a multi-stoeries car park building
5
CORNERSTONE SAN FRANCISCO - HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIP EXCHANGE PROGRAM
ARIEL’S 2ND WEEKLY REPORT
Special events of 2nd week:
Day 8 6/6 MON 1st week Report + Office Meeting
Day 9 7/6 TUE CFEA Orientation + SFMTA Visit
Day 10 8/6 WED CBS Outdoor Visit +
Public Housing Projects in Richmond
Day 11 9/6 THUR UC Berkeley Tour
Day 12 10/6 FRI CFEA Interview +
Visit KBLX radio station
Day 13 11/6 SAT Waterfront Embarcadero City Walk
Day 14 12/6 SUN City Impact Sunday Celebration Service
Famous Victorian Houses in San Francisco
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Day 8 6/6 MON1st week Report + Office Meeting
There are fewer highlights today as the sched-
uled meeting in the morning was postponed.
Thus we continued to finish the weekly report
of our first week in San Francisco in the morn-
ing.
We attended the business development and co-
ordination meeting of Cornerstone after lunch.
Most of us have a nice weekend in joining dif-
ferent events, e.g. festivals, contest, clubbing,
etc. comparatively people in US enjoyed them-
selves so much in their spare time. I think orga-
nizing events in the weekend help to release the
stress of work and lead to a more balanced life.
Asian people are somehow having less variety
of gathering or organized events during spare
time.
I also made use of the time to prepare for
the coming visits and read some background
of CFEA (Cornerstone Foundation for Educa-
tional Advancement). CFEA divides into basic
and advanced programme. The lectures and
workshops in the Basic Programme would al-
low students to have foundation training about
City Planning, Real Estate Development, Archi-
tecture, Engineering and Construction. The Ad-
vanced Programme allows students to have job
training of document control, clerk or techni-
cian in the design and construction industry.
Day 9 6/7 TUECFEA Orientation + SFMTA Visit
The orientation of CFEA gives me more sense
about the programme in Camp Sweeney. The
model and the presentation boards of the pre-
vious years are full of the students’ efforts;
they get the opportunity to draft or design.
Students had to be hardworking and dedicated
in the programme in order to learn and gain
something for their future. They are eager to
ask question about if they can get job or not
as they are approaching 18. I think It would be
a special and different to teach them as they
are unskilled, but the joy of teaching somebody
with own knowledge should always be there.
SFMTA conducted a presentation on the Clip-
per card and also the marketing perspectives
for us in the afternoon. The Clipper card sys-
tem is in a way very similar to the Octopus
Card invented and used in Hong Kong, includ-
ing the usage, the payment system, the charg-
ing method, etc. As the Octopus have been
used in Hong Kong for more than 10 years, it
is already used in a very advanced way, many
places had implemented with the use of Octo-
pus. They are trying to imitate the Octopus in
Hong Kong as they think it is very successful.
However, the marketing strategy on the imple-
mentation of Clipper Card seems like gentler
THE SECOND WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCOText and Photos by Ariel Mok
Top left: Photo at SFMTA office (L to R: Ricco, Deanna, Neil, Karen, me and Ming) Right: Neil showing the operation of a vending machine
Bottom left & Bottom middle: Automatic Fare Collection laboratory with vending machine and faregate for testing
7
compared to the case in Hong Kong because
of worries about the acceptance level of people
in San Francisco. As I remembered, HK MTR
(Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway) soon aban-
doned the old magnetic tickets with different
values after the introduction of Octopus Card.
Moreover, I was inspired by the different effec-
tive example of calls to action and the messag-
ing. It was a great chance to visit the Automatic
Fare Collection laboratory. The demonstration
the vending machine and the faregate for test-
ing let us see immediately how the machine
were controlled and maintained, and also know
more about the practical requirements, e.g. the
position/dimension of different parts of vend-
ing machines/faregates, fire exit of the station
according to ADA (American Disability Act).
Day 10 6/8 WEDCBS Outdoor Visit + Public Housing Proj-
ects in Richmond
We visited CBS Outdoor, an advertising unit
specific for outdoor advertisement under CBS.
It’s nice to see the big 14’ x 48’ LED bulletin
billboard on the freeway closely. As most of
people drive in US, the billboard advertisement
is an efficient mean for promotion in regard
of its visibility to drivers. We learnt about how
they control the LED billboard and maintenance
issue, as it is dusty on the freeway so regu-
larly cleaning of filter is needed to prevent the
damage of electronic board. Undoubtedly LED
billboard will be the new trend for outdoor ad-
vertisement because the advantages, for exam-
ple, advertisement is easier to be replaced and
more than one advertisement can be shown at
the same location. Mr Robertson, the creative
director presented examples of creative adver-
tisement. Particularly, I like those creative ad-
vertisements cleverly incorporated with the real
environment, messages are presented clearly
but also surprised the audiences. We had a dis-
cussion with Mr Robertson on the possibility
for the outdoor advertisement to grow, noted
that there is also a similar question in architec-
ture for seeking creativity. Although it was a
pity that we don’t have time to see the dem-
onstration of installing billboard and the recy-
cling process, after all, we concluded the visita-
tion and discussion in several points. Using the
successful example of Apple Store, by DEDI-
CATION, PASSION and MONEY, they make all
the efforts to provide best experience thought
out the whole process, from product interface,
product design, packaging to retailing. Com-
bined with important aspects of creativity, all of
those benefit our life by those creative use and
street life. What else is the question of how the
next generation would take the experience in
the field and develop creatively?
The Housing Authority with Easter Hill develop-
ment was the first housing project we visited in
the afternoon. The Providing private and pub-
Top left:: Photo in Sean Robertson’s office (L to R: Ricco, me and Sean) Right: Photo in front of LED Bulletin board
Bottom left: Photo of Richmond Public Housing Bottom middle: Public Housing to be renovated
8
lic housing for rent and there’s subsidy from
the government (nearly 2/3 of the rent). The
developer worked with consultants to make
sure giving a better environment and get rid of
the unfavourable low-class atmosphere which
inducing crime. There is also requirement to
provide community facilities, e.g. computer for
children’s homework, pantry, fitness room, chil-
dren’s playground, activities lounge. The house
with appearance of a single house, some of
them are duplex, and already had been equipped
the heater and closets for the residents. It was
good to know the CCTV is actually connected
to the police, it can detect the gun or breaking
glass and auto tracing the location.
The Labour law of Richmond require high per-
centage of employing local people for the proj-
ects as the economic in Richmond is not very
favourable. We can see roads are not in good
condition. The building inhabitants in the second
public housing we visited complained about the
hygiene problem, worn walls and worn ceilings.
As It is too expensive to rebuild the a new one,
renovation and reinforcement for earthquake is
going to be done to the building.
Ming also brought us to the COSTCO which tar-
gets a the group of people with middle income,
the fare price do attract many people, the pack-
age a in a way much convenient for buying what
is necessary, the products also vary according
to the seasons, e.g. camping.
During the trip to Richmond, we have chance
to look at Public Art in the Civic Center in Rich-
mond. Realizing that there is requirement for
most projects in United States to have 2 per-
cent of project cost for art, it really make the
city more beautiful and a better place to live.
Day 11 6/9 THURUC Berkeley Tour
Today we visited the University of California,
Berkeley. The campus has long history and in
particularly famous for football team and his-
torical building and gateways. We visited sev-
eral masterpiece of architecture including Doe
Memorial Library and Hearst Memorial Mining
Building. Doe Memorial Library is located at the
heart of the campus, the reading room with high
ceiling provides a comfortable environment for
the student to study.
Learning about the conservation and the work-
shop of Life Science department for finding
species reminds us the need of taking care of
natural environment in cooperate with architec-
ture and urban planning.
We also have visited the Architecture Depart-
ment and see some of the displayed work of the
students. The awareness on the appearance/
exterior of the building is stronger than in Hong
Kong. Those axonometric exterior and façade
design show the aesthetic logic in designing the
exterior of the building. I think there’s a need to
rethink about how to increase the aesthetic of
Left: Hearst Memorial Mining Building Top middle: Reading room in Doe Memorial Library Top right: Installation made of wood plank in front of the building of environment design
Bottom right: UC Berkeley Art Museum
9
the exterior rather than boring boxes.
I love the UC Berkeley Art Museum, for both
artworks and architecture. It is a museum de-
signed with a clear statement of exciting interior
space but quiet appearance. The interior space
is not only meant to be exciting visually, but the
space is indeed well organized with the spatial
experience suitable to the display of artworks.
There is a series of white box galleries with part
of the walls removed and replaced with a high
balcony area. The platforms at different levels
are connected by wide ramps or staircases.
Day 12 6/10 FRICFEA Interview + Visit KBLX radio station
We go to Camp Sweeney for the Interview of
CFEA in the morning. Based on the evaluation
guideline questions, we have to interact with the
interviewees in order to judge if they are sincere
and legible to the basic learning programme of
CFEA. I am glad that some of the students have
passion about architecture, construction or real
estate development. The time commitment and
participation in the class is particularly impor-
tant for the class, we should try to stimulate
the learning interest and the motivation of the
students. As Raj has mentioned about her stu-
dent who started to do well after several weeks
of classes and workshops.
KBLX – The Quiet Storm, is a small radio sta-
tion with about 25 staffs, aiming at providing
unique music experience for the audience. Be-
sides broadcasting hit songs like Lady GaGa or
Beyonce, they would like to support good mu-
sic and help to promote new music experience
to the audience by also organizing concert and
update the news of music stars. Although the
competition in the market is really high as there
is about sixty radio station in San Francisco Bay
Area, it can still made about 20million revenue
per year. The staffs in the radio station are
very busy listening new released songs, turning
songs into the right format in production stu-
dios, calling for advertisement and sponsors,
and also the producing commercial goods.
Day 13 6/11 SATWaterfront Embarcadero City Walk
We have a visit to Frank Lylod Wright’s V.C.
Morris Gift Shop, nearly everything is the origi-
nal design of Frank Loyd Wright. As It was de-
signed five years later than his Guggenheim
Museum, the spiral ramp is believed to be in-
spired from his previous work.
We went to the City Walk of with our colleague
Tony in the afternoon. The guide introduced
the history of San Francisco port regarding the
Gold Rush pioneers, the period stimulated the
inversion and development of Levis, the import
and trade of Chocolate and the inversion of
electronic television. The guide told us an inter-
esting urban legend of how the merchants find
100 sailors within one day, is to invite people
Left: Photo at KBLX studio (L to R: Ming, me, Aaron and Ricco) Top right::Pretending to be a DJ
Bottom right: Interior of V.C. Morris Gift Shop
10
to his boat to have free Whisky and food. We
realized the China Town was the center of San
Francisco port and there was full of entertain-
ment shops for the sailors once upon a time.
It’s also interesting to know there was a freeway
in front of the Ferry Terminal building, it was re-
moved after it damaged by 1989 earthquake,
Embarcadero soon developed into a pedestrian
friendly area. After the establishment of Bay
Bridge, it eased the usage of the terminal, thus
Embarcadero turned from an industrial area to
a pedestrian friendly area. The surrounding wa-
terfront area also developed to be more pedes-
trian friendly housing area after WWII.
DAY 14 6/12 SUNCity Impact Sunday Celebration Service
We joined the Sunday Morning Celebration
Service of CITY IMPACT today. I enjoyed the
vibrant music, Alex sang and led us the song. I
agree some points of the preaching although I
don’t have any religion reliefs.
I am surprised by the several mini-movies from
“onetimeblind” for worship service is in the form
of comedy. The black humour not only makes
me laugh but also inspiring in questioning about
how much is people trust God, who is the one
making the decisions, rethink before you want
to blame God or others.
We experienced the holiday in San Francisco at
Haight in the afternoon. This was a Haight Street
Fair on the second Sunday of June, locals and
tourists packed the Upper Haight for featuring
local bands, food stalls from neighborhood res-
taurants and plenty of shopping. We also went
to the Golden Gate Park afterwards. This is a
day with music of different varieties, rock, pop,
jazz and even musical.
General observation and thoughts:It’s windy and sunny this week. Heard from lo-
cal residents, people become more alert than
past ten years concerning their safety issue.
Although it may not be necessarily linked, the
recent high unemployment rate and homeless
rate due to the decline of US economy had cer-
tain impact on this atmosphere. Less force is
put on monitoring the citizens for minor crime
like shoplifting, I question about to which degree
should the people be monitored and is there
any contradiction to human rights. In China or
some Asian countries, there seems like more
restriction and control comparatively.
The environmental awareness of the building
is very high in US as more and more building
project have to go with LEED, people/compa-
ny have experience with green certificate have
advantage and more competitive. Noticed that
there is also signage on the manhole covers en-
couraging the protection of the marine life by
avoiding contamination into the sea. Neverthe-
less, the energy consumption by vehicles and
food is indeed quite high in US as observed.
Top left:: A Historical building was on the waterfront during Gold Rush, ships were moved to land and convert into a shop Middle left: Old photos of the removed freeway
Bottom left: Lyrics was displayed on the screen and controlled manually Right: The crowd street fair in Upper Haight
11
CORNERSTONE SAN FRANCISCO - HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIP EXCHANGE PROGRAM
ARIEL’S 3RD WEEKLY REPORT
Special events of 3rd week:
Day 15 6/13 MON City Scrapes and Public Places City Walk
+ Office Work
Day 16 6/14 TUE Cornerstone Top Sales Meeting +
Meet Mayor Lee
Day 17 6/15 WED St. Mary’s Church + Autodesk Gallery +
CFEA lesson
Day 18 6/16 THUR Office Work + CFEA lesson +
Chinese Team Event of America’s Cup
Day 19 6/17 FRI Crosspoint Church + NASA Center +
Tesla Showroom + UPS tour
Day 20 6/18 SAT Golden Gate Bridge Bay Cruise +
Alcatraz
Day 21 6/19 SUN Southbay Chinese Baptist Church +
State and Santa Clara University
San Francisco in mist
12
Day 15 6/13 MONCity Scrapes and Public Places City Walk +
Office Work
The tour guide of city walk “City Scrapes and
Public Places” led us to discover the hidden
parks, rooftop gardens in the downtown fi-
nancial district. We learnt an important phrase
“POPOS” – Privately Owned Public Open Space,
which referring the spaces open to public with
restriction provided in city group buildings. We
would hardly realize those spaces as a tourist,
for example roof garden at the 15th floor of a
commercial building. Besides, POPOS are just
open from Monday to Friday in business hour.
There was also some introduction on the com-
prehensive downtown ordinance that influenced
the provision of public open space in SOMA.
The ordinance also suggested the building with
smaller lot can be taller but need to provide
amenity and the building with stepped top in-
stead of box building. And She also talked about
the white city exhibition in 1893 triggered print-
ing buildings in white as a sign of modernity in
San Francisco. Moreover, the stories behind the
Wells Fargo bank and 111 Shutter restorations
showed more about the historical preservation
done by the US banks.
Day 16 6/14 TUECornerstone Top Sales Meeting + Meet
Mayor Lee
We joined the Cornerstone 2011 Top Sales
Meeting today, that’s how they make revenue
each year. The lecture by Mr Perry was further
consolidated in this meeting. They are not just
doing the basic client’s requirement, but they
can specifically make better suggestions and
improvement. Just like when we are designing
we can suggesting what make the design or
investment with better reward by making sug-
gestions but not just do what the clients think.
That’s also the cultural difference between
Asian and Western countries, most of the time,
we have reservation on giving own opinions,
both to the client or boss, It seems like it is
harder to speak out in Asian environment,
We met Mayor Edwin Lee in his office at City
Hall. Mr Perry explained the programme offer-
ing us to see the US industry. We talked about
our background and how we like the city. That
was not a deep conservation, but I am already
satisfied and feel honour to meet the Mayor
who is really a nice person and being supported
by the citizens. Mayor Lee also suggested us
to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commis-
sion that is under construction and has got the
LEED platinum using grey water system.
We had another good conversation with Mr.
Perry. We summarized the top things we learnt
and discuss what else can be done for the pro-
THE THIRD WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCOText and Photos by Ariel Mok
The POPOS on the 15th floor The great view viewing from POPOS
13
gramme. He also reminded us taking initiative
to ask question of what we don’t know, that
is a way to become successful. I realized that
those advantages of small stadium in urban
centre over the large one in rural area close
to airport, I haven’t really thought about that.
With building a small stadium with high quality
of customer experience, it can indeed attract
more city business people by taking metro and
would also tackle the problem of the short-
age of land. Moreover, the small stadium can
be more exciting in viewing the matches as the
seats are often fully occupied. This all about
the strategies made in both design and invest-
ment perspectives, the more valuale, the higher
chance to win among the high competition of
entertainment nowadays.
Day 17 6/15 WEDSt. Mary’s Church + Autodesk Gallery +
CFEA lesson
The visit to the Autodesk gallery located at One
Market was really an eye opening experience.
They displayed the advanced technology used
by their customer, The guide introduced the
advantage by using the software of Autodesk,
for example saving the cost to manufacture a
motorbike before mass production, they can
use software to generate different parts of
motorbike by 3D printer. For some products
which need high accuracy e.g. watches, the
production time can be reduced from 4 years
into three months. For architecture, housing in
china can be built in 3 days because Autodesk
has test the design in the software and by get-
ting the local materials, the high efficiency of
housing construction was achieved. Moreover,
the artists are not necessary to do the artwork
himself/herself. They can just generate their
design by the computer, and even just need to
click the button and print a mock model of the
sculpture and then send to other unit to pro-
duce the sculpture by the material they want.
Quote from Jean, the creative director of CBS
Outdoor advertisement, there was used to be
artist printing large outdoor advertisement, the
product can be actually an artwork, he indeed
missed those days to see those artists working.
With the development of advanced technology,
would the ability of man craft going to be lost?
The first lesson of basic programme of CFEA
introduced a brief of the coming 12 weeks.
Although the course is very demanding, but
I think this is important to find something or
some aspects that they enjoy, people would
perform well on something they have passion
on it. We also explained the difference between
different parties in the construction field to the
students, including urban planners, architects,
interior designers, landscape designers, engi-
neers, contractors and real estate developer.
Raj also explained tropical countries in Asia ac-
tually use reinforced concrete more than wood
Photo at Mayor’s office (L to R: Mr Perry, me, Mayor Lee and Ricco) A device in Autodesk Gallery simulate the walking in a house interactively
14
and students asked about the difference be-
tween wood and steel. Besides, they are more
interested to know what a real estate developer
is doing as it was believed to make most money.
The course would focus on the teaching of ar-
chitectural tools so that students can get more
sense about the practice in the field.
.
Day 18 6/16 THUROffice Work + CFEA lesson + Chinese Team
Event of America’s Cup
This is the first lesson for the students in Camp
Sweeney for have real practice on learning ar-
chitecture. We taught the students how to use
the basic drafting tools, including T-square, tri-
angles, tracing paper and draft tape. Raj first
explained the difference between sketch and
drafting. One is free hand and one needs rul-
ers and measurement. We emphasized the im-
portance to use the tools correctly as some of
the students would use in their own way after
the first drafting lesson. However, students felt
bored for just keep drawing horizontal, vertical
and diagonal lines. I am glad that they are quite
cooperate and willing to do when we instructed
them how to draw the geometries. I hope that
they had learnt the techniques of how to using
the tools because this is very important for the
course.
Mr David Perry invited us to the American’s cup
Chinese Team event in the evening. Mr David
Parry is an expert in strategic communication,
marketing, public and media relation and he is
a board member of China San Francisco. That
was a event of Chinese Team for 34th Ameri-
ca’s Cup and was held in a historical building of
Chinese Historical Society of America. As Mr
David Perry was busy and left early, we didn’t
have chance to talk to him, but this was a good
opportunity for me to know more about the Chi-
nese Society in San Francisco, started by the
Gold Rush period, many Chinese people went
to San Francisco to work including agriculture,
railway construction and manufacture, and also
the distribution of Chinese in US. People were
chatting and having some refreshment after
guest’s speech, we met different people in the
event, including the executive director of Chi-
nese Historical Society of America, CEO of Chi-
naEquity (the speaker for the event), Cindy Lau
whose company is doing global resource and
consultancy service, a wine supplier and Denis
Henmi who asked us to have interview at his
firm after our graduation.
Day 19 6/17 FRICrosspoint Church + NASA Center + Tesla
Showroom + UPS tour
The visit to Crosspoint church gave us a bet-
ter understanding on the process of adaptive
reuse in US. The church was required to obtain
conditional use permit as that was an industri-
al land use zone. In order to get the support
Top left: Student demonstrate how to use architectural tools for his classmates Top middle: Photo with Mr Denis Henmi
Bottom left: Photo with Ms Sue Lee, the executive director of Chinese Historical Society of America Right:: Exhibition in Chinese Historical Society of America
15
from the neighbourhood so the church staffs
and members gave every effort to visit their
neighbourhood and explained what they do.
The planning commissioners’ have the power
to approve or decline the application of condi-
tional use permit., and the neighbourhood have
the right to object the establishment in the City
Hall. This is another example for the social net-
work is indeed essential in every aspect for hu-
man beings as we are not alone. Pastor Chiu
believed that was a miracle for them to get the
permit and raised the funding successfully as
god’s response to them.
The flattened image on the wide screen input
from the computer was a feature in the de-
sign of audio equipment of the worship cen-
ter. Although the worship centre served as the
heart of the architecture, it was not built to be
as large as possible. they concern about the
provision of community facilities, that would be
a waste of space if the worship centre is only
used once or twice per week, thus they also
provide plenty of space for multi-function of
the community. Besides, the seats are required
to be fixed in the worship centre so that maxi-
mum occupancy can be guaranteed.
The visit to NASA Exploration Center was inter-
esting as there is seldom exhibition or museum
in Hong Kong on this topic. I would say the es-
tablishment of a space station had challenged
the traditional architectural concept. The floor
area is not counted by square feet, but in cubic
feet. I think this would be interesting to investi-
gate and develop new concept..
The visit to Tesla let us look into the future trend
of electric cars, the cars undoubtedly solved
the oil crisis and I believe It would become
even more user-friendly regarding the charging
method and the charging hour of the battery.
As the vehicle is really an essential transport
tool in US, the invention and development of
electric cars benefits people in the world.
We have a great chance to go onto the UPS
plane and see the cabin and how the containers
are going to be fit into the compartment. UPS
ranked first over the world for its high efficien-
cy, the goods arrived the buyers’ home on the
second day of online purchase from Amazon,
Zappos .etc. We learnt how they calculate and
generate the order for the containers to be put
onto the plane to prevent slider effect.
Day 20 6/18 SATGolden Gate Bridge Bay Cruise + Alcatraz
The Golden Gate Bridge bay cruise let us see
the skyline of San Francisco, the audio tour in-
troduced some of the history of San Francisco
port, the financial district, the oldest building
Art Palace and the history of Chinese people on
Angel Island. The cruise was unstable when we
are just under the Golden Gate Bridge, I can see
how challenging is the construction.
As this is weekend, Alcatraz was crowded, a
Top left: Phase 2 renovation work, they are removing the float ceiling to maximize the ceiling height for multi purpose Top right: The international space station
Bottom left: Photo in Tesla Showroom (L to R: Ming, Mike, me and Ricco) Bottom right: Photo in Oakland airport (L to R: Ming, Susna, Eduardo, me and Ricco)
16
large group of about 50 people joined the walk-
ing tour about the back-story of a prisoner who
attempted an escape but was finally shot by an
officer. Part of the reasons for Alcatraz attract-
ing so many people from all over the world per
years is undoubtedly by movie effect, but the
Alcatraz itself is already very appealing. The Al-
catraz was one of the high security prisons in
America, we can see how the cell house was de-
signed to prevent the escape of prisoners. The
change in the life of prisoners from only eats,
sleep and work to they can listen to radio, do
paintings and having their personal belongings
is critical in history of American prison.
DAY 21 6/19 SUNSouthbay Chinese Baptist Church + State
and Santa Clara University
Happy Father’s Day! We were invited to Ming’s
Church at San Jose today. Before arriving the
church, I learnt that a Church was newly built. We
can compare the old church with the new one
just beside. The audio equipments are becom-
ing more professional and essential in holding
the celebration service for the churches. And
the provision of parking spaces is particularly
critical for churches in US because there is a
minimum requirement for car parking provision
based on the people capacity of churches.
I seldom go to church in Hong Kong because of
busy student life, this is a good opportunity for
me to learn about the religion. I like the reflex-
ive 10:00 Sunday lesson. Especially when Ming
talked about the challenges of the missionary
work at different countries around the world.
The preaching topic was God’s Will and Decision
Making. There are 4 levels of decision making,
first is from maturity to freedom. One has to be
mature enough to make a decision, so wrong
things would no longer be a choice and peo-
ple have freedom at that point. From freedom,
there is calling, and surrendered. Some of the
points links back to the preaching in City Im-
pact about making decision and also Mr Perry’s
lessons about the god given ability.
General observation and thoughts:San Francisco weather is extremely variable
throughout 24-hour time-span, and also de-
pends on the location. It was really cool in the
peninsular but very hot in Bay Fair.
San Francisco is very interesting in term of its
diversity, just walked pass a short distance, the
atmosphere can be greatly changed, from Ital-
ian small neighbourhood to Chinese communi-
ty. There is Cantonese announcement on Muni
bus on the line often ridden by Chinese.
Both Mr Perry and Raj like teaching. Everyone
has their unique ability and their unique reason
to exist on the earth. I think it is meaningful
to teach students in Camp Sweeney, there is
somehow a calling for contributing what you
have to the society.
Top left: Me inside the cell viewing from the visitation room Top right: The view of San Francisco from Alcatraz, the officers were used to relax at this backyard
Bottom left: Photo in front of Southbay Chinese Baptist Church (The new building) Bottom middle: Pastor Wong and Ming Bottom right: Photo in Martin King Lurther Library
17
CORNERSTONE SAN FRANCISCO - HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIP EXCHANGE PROGRAM
ARIEL’S 4TH WEEKLY REPORT
Special events of 4th week:
Day 22 6/20 MON Contemporary Jewish Museum +
CFEA lesson
Day 23 6/21 TUE Office work + CFEA lesson
Day 24 6/22 WED Laguna Honda Hospital + CFEA lesson
Day 25 6/23 THUR PayPal + Microsoft + CFEA lesson
Day 26 6/24 FRI Fremont BART Extension +
Christ the light+ Oakland Museum
Day 27 6/25 SAT Asian Art Museum +
Museum of Modern Art
Day 28 6/26 SUN Voice of Pentecost + Italian Dinner +
Gay Pride
San Francisco Pride event at Civic Center
18
Day 22 6/20 MONContemporary Jewish Museum + CFEA les-
son
We went to Contemporary Jewish Museum
designed by Daniel Liberskind in SOMA. The
contemporary Jewish Museum is special com-
pared to most of the conserved building with
the conservation methodology of just changing
the interior while retaining the exterior, he posi-
tioned the strategy to create the conversation
between old and new, juxtaposing the historic
features of the Jessie Street Power Substation
with the new structure. The old structure was
treated carefully and new steel columns and
beam are added for structural purpose.
Other than those Jewish Symbolism and mean-
ings, I think the visitors would be most im-
pressed by the cube space which is a reactive
sound environment. The design is a combina-
tion between sound and light. Under the light
shower, you would hear different voice from
everywhere, closer and further, asking some in-
spiring questions, like why are there 24 hours
a day, what am I doing here? Visitors can also
enter their question into the machine.
Compared to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the
museum is a celebration of Jewish, of American
as quoted from Daniel Liberskind, we seen a lot
of works of Jewish in America. I enjoyed looking
at Charlotte’s painting, like she was telling her
story, each drawing is full of her emotion, It is a
very good way to look into one’s life.
We focused on teaching scale in CFEA today.
The in class exercise help them learn how to
count for the measurement. Some of the stu-
dents are willing to learn, but some of them
just keeping chatting and wondering. They are
soon drafting the shape with measurement and
scale, to make it easier to understand, we just
let them familiar with the difference between
full inches, ½ inches and ¼ inches. Some of the
students still not using the drafting tool cor-
rectly, but I feel happy for some of them want
to have prefect drawing and satisfied with what
they did.
Day 23 6/21 TUEOffice work + CFEA lesson
Discussed the coming schedule in the morning,
we continued to work as an instructor in Camp
Sweeney today. Observed their performance
from the last few days, we tried to arrange the
new seating plan for them to make students
become more concentrated. However, we come
late because of other needs in Camp Sweeney
every lesson, indeed made the class lag behind
from the original schedule.
Raj told us about the cut of budget for this pro-
gramme from the county, so the programme
just delayed week by week. There was also more
THE FOURTH WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCOText and Photos by Ariel Mok
Top left: The lobby showing the interestion of old and new in Contemporary Jewish Museum Top right: The reactive sound environment
Bottom left: Teaching on how to use scale ruler Bottom right: Students working on their drawings
19
students and instructors last year. In the last
year, students were already in their final presen-
tation stage in June. And one of the instructors,
Danny was used responsible to the discipline of
students. I feel it is challenging to teach them in
the starting phase, on one hand they are young
and love to play, on the other hand, they don’t
have any foundation for architectural studies.
I appreciated a lot Raj’s patience and enthusi-
asm in teaching. We always think about what is
the best way to help the students and let them
become more interested in it, as the course is
really something good for them.
Day 24 6/22 WEDLaguna Honda Hospital + CFEA lesson
We went to Laguna Hospital, one of the cor-
nerstone projects in the morning. The project
manager, Jeremy introduced the remodelling of
the old hospital. We learnt different types of
procedure for the remodelling, including hand
patch concrete, replacing the whole bar with re-
inforcing steel, replacing a smaller portion with
metal mesh and pouring proxy into crash floor.
OSPHD - The Office of Statewide Health Plan-
ning and Development is the department re-
sponsible to inspect the hospital projects, all
the projects in California are required to be per-
mited by OSPHD before they can proceed the
construction. This project started at 2006, be-
cause of the back and forth process when they
discovered new defects of the structure, new
design had to be made and resubmitted to OS-
PHD, plus there is indeed many field condition.
Thus the good relationship and communication
between architects, contractor, owner and OS-
PHD is very crucial in this kind of project.
The Hospital and Rehabitation Center of Lagu-
na Hospital is a good example of contemporary
hospital concept. “Living” in hospital is no lon-
ger essentially sad and boring. Although living
in a hospital can be just temporarily, but they
still provide the patience’s with a home feeling
instead of a barrack.
The combination of public art with the hospital
indeed serve as way finding for the inhabitants
especially who have memory issues. Contrast
to the old hospital layout, the new hospital pro-
vide patients more privacy in the layout setting
as well as a neighborhood feeling by providing
common space on each floor. The encourag-
ing environment let the patients become more
outgoing. I was also surprised to know that
although the hospital provided the high value
service, but their inhabitants are not necessar-
ily high-class people.
We introduced the standard of bathroom and
kitchen furniture for students of CFEA while
they were working on the house plan. They
would always like to ask the next step, and de-
pending so much on the instructions from us,
rather than that, I would like them to think how
to draw in order to finish the drawing.
Top left: Photo at the remodelling site of Laguna Honda Hospital (L to R: Ming, Jeremy, me and Ricco) Top right: Photo at new Laguna Honda Hospital (L to R: Tony, me, Ron and Ricco)
Bottom left: Me pointing at Cornerstone in the lobby of new Laguna Honda Hospital Bottom right: CFEA Students’ work of a houseplan
20
Day 25 6/23 THURPayPal + Microsoft + CFEA lesson
We visited ebay/PayPal and Microsoft in the
morning. Seems like that those technology firms
are centralized around those area like San Jose
and Mountain View. Veronica, she is the CSA
Head of Retail Marketing, Strategy & Alliances
which is considered to be a new position. Al-
though she was just a new staff of PayPal, she
kindly brought us into ebay campus and intro-
duced us the background of PayPal and ebay,
the technology side of the retailer development
and competition. She also told us about the
working environment in Technology Company
that is really flexible and they provide the best
welfare for the employee. The most revealing is
that they would train the employees in different
aspects once they entered. However, in order
to get the job, she went through the interview
competed with 30 people for one position, she
had to be very smart and outstanding, by mak-
ing relevance to her experience, to show that
she is suitable for the position.
Tom guided us around in the sub office of Mi-
crosoft, for SIDEKICK and DANGER and he also
brought us to the café in the main Microsoft
campus. He introduced us the different depart-
ments in the office. Most of the people are not
there in the office as most of them are working
at home, he told us he worked with some of his
colleagues for many months but didn’t ever see
the person. This makes me to think about how
would it be if everyone just works at home, the
company would just need a serve eventually.
He thinks the advantage working in Microsoft
is that he always gets the latest technology as
he can know and connected to the people in
the related field.
The learning atmosphere turned out to be very
good in Camp Sweeney today. They were told
to sketch five objects in the room free hand af-
ter they finished with the kitchen drawing. And
they also go out of the classroom and have
measurement on the open space. They are se-
rious on their work and discussed with their
teammate and instructors. Although the three
groups have different measurements on most
of the questions, but this is a good exercise for
them to learn about how the measurements are
done and be aware of the accuracy. We spent
a happy day with them. We also discussed the
students’ performance, based on this, students
are divided into groups with each group have a
more strong candidate.
Day 26 6/24 FRIFremont BART Extension + Christ the light
+ Oakland Museum
We had a wonderful visit to Fremont Warm
Springs BART Extension which will add 5.4 miles
of new tracks from the existing Fremont Sta-
tion south to a new station in the Warm Springs
District of the City of Fremont. Jermaine who is
Left: Photo with Veronica in front of ebay campus Top right: Photo with Tom in front of Microsoft Headquarter
Bottom right: CFEA Students discussing on measurement exercise
21
the engineering inspector of the project walked
us through the construction site of the subway.
Learnt previously that it spent 10 times budget
on building a subway under Fremont Central
Park as residents won’t want an aerial structure
come over the bridge. And as It was my first
time to visit such a grand scale construction
project, so I feel really excited.
The segments typically about 50 feet are re-
peated throughout the tunnel. The segments
are now being constructed in different stag-
es, from the excavation, waterproofing (turbo
seal), reinforcing bar to filling of the concrete
slab and railway track of the floor and the wall
with top of the tunnel. They use machine more
as the labour wage is high in US, comparatively,
there are more labour in Hong Kong construc-
tion site to build the wall directly rather than tie
on the floor and then erect it.
We learnt about the different concerns in con-
structing the underground subway. About
twelve environmental impact reporters on site,
they are observing their construction work and
notice if there is ducks or birds and even pro-
tected species coming into the site and coop-
erating with contractors. Once a turtle fell into
the constructing subway, the consideration of
wildlife in the area is quite crucial. The water
pumped out from the lake would be treated
in the sentiment pond and restored back to
the lake on the neutral ph value. As there is a
high water table in Central Park, jet grouting
was used to prevent water from seeping into
the subway, otherwise the machinery would be
damaged.
Other than the construction works, I was also
impressed by the high transparency of the proj-
ect. The community relation of BART let people
know what is going on in their neighbourhood,
there was even a tour of field visit available.
Natural light is the central feature of Cathedral
Christ the Light, built to replace its earthquake-
damaged predecessor. By testing varying ef-
fects of light on the interior in 3D model, SOM
(Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) chose design de-
tails to enhance the interaction of space and
light. Details include a perforated metal wall that
depicts an image of Jesus and a lattice of warm
wood for the interior shell. Besides, the outer-
most glass skin of the cathedral is supported
by a latticework of Douglas fir. The wood’s in-
herent flexibility makes the structure as earth-
quake resistant as steel, at less cost.
Day 27 6/25 SATAsian Art Museum + Museum of Modern
Art
We went to Asian Art Museum today, which is
a renovated building. Displays of artworks from
Asian countries including India, Iran, Indonesia,
China, Korean and Japan show the belief, art
and craft of the Asian. By the way, there was a
fire alarm when we just finished looking at the
Top left: We climbed down to the tunnel Right: Cathedral of Christ the Light
Bottom left: Photo in front of the construction site (L to R: Ming, me, Ricco and Jermaine)
22
exhibition, luckily no one get hurts, but we still
left the book on the history of museum at the
counter. There is SF Pride function similar to
street fair at Civic Centre, and Asian Art Mu-
seum is a partner with this today.
We also went to San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art displayed theories on modern art
like abstraction, gird, and the definition of art.
The interior space features with a central stair-
case linking up different exhibitions.
DAY 28 6/26 SUNVoice of Pentecost + Italian Dinner + Gay
Pride
On the way to Voice of Pentecost, we saw the
SF Pride Parade along Market Street at the
Civic Center. People were driving bikes along
the street and dressing in colourful rainbow
costume, crowds of people accumulated on the
two sides, all of them were enjoying themselves
and celebrating SF Pride!
As we didn’t ever take the Muni Metro to the
west, I find interesting that the Muni Metro
changed the system into a Muni bus when it
comes up to the ground level. The stops are
more frequent and people get on the Muni from
the other side. The Voice of Pentecost is just in
front of the Muni stop at Ocean Avenue.
The church was converted from a theatre and
now used for the worship service. Everyone was
very hyper and jumping when singing the song.
As one of the pastors passed away about two
weeks ago, the worship service takes longer in
giving each one a message from god, spirit-
ing up everyone, and tell the young generation
that they are not alone as there is father and
mother.
Mary, who we met in the church, is a new grad-
uate of Finance and accounting, she came from
Africa and studied in San Francisco. In the Ital-
ian restaurant we went after the service, Mary
and Mrs. Perry talked some interesting topics
about dream and culture. We enjoyed the time
with Mr. Perry’s family and Mary.
General observation and thoughts:Being here nearly four weeks, I feel like get
used to the life in San Francisco. Sometimes
the Muni or Bart is quite slow and delayed, this
is something we are not very used to compar-
ing with the high efficiency metro system in
Hong Kong although there are more failure of
HKMTR recently.
The teaching in Camp Sweeney become more
interesting, as students are more motivated,
and we know each other better, however, we
are leaving next Sunday. I wish I could see them
graduated from the programme.
Needless to say, the two construction projects
we visited this week was really exciting, and in-
formative. We need to thanks for Ming’s hospi-
tality in driving us around and his effort in mak-
ing our schedule richer.
Left: The space generating the recorded sound of building and people inside MOMA Top middle: Ceiling of the venovated theatre in Voice of Pentecost Top right: SF Pride in Civic Center
Bottom right: Photo at restaurant (L to R: Mr Perry, Mary, Ricco, me, Adam hiding and Mrs Perry)
23
CORNERSTONE SAN FRANCISCO - HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIP EXCHANGE PROGRAM
ARIEL’S 5TH WEEKLY REPORT
Special events of 5th week:
Day 29 6/27 MON Academy of Science + CFEA lesson
Day 30 6/28 TUE PG&E class + Highland Hospital BIM
demonstration + CFEA lesson
Day 31 6/29 WED HP Pavilion + Stanford tour +
CFEA lesson
Day 32 6/30 THUR Central Subway Design Office +
CFEA site visit +
BART system Wide Equipment Retrofit
Day 33 7/1 FRI Chinese Chamber of Commerce broad
lunch + Graduation Ceremony
Night View of San Francisco from hill
24
Day 29 6/27 MONAcademy of Science + CFEA lesson
We went to Academy of Science designed by
Renzo Piano in Golden Gate Park. I found the
green roof very impressive long before the visit.
Architect Renzo Piano designed the seven roof-
top gills to reflect San Francisco’s hilly terrain
and making this as one of the most complex
living roofs. The two largest hills with skylights
and air vents for Academy HVAC systems help
ventilate hot air from the building. The con-
cept of the living roof is lifting up a piece of
the Golden Gate Park and sliding the museum
underneath. Although this is a great concept, I
was a bit disappointed when I found out people
can indeed only access a very small portion of
the roof surrounding the lift core.
In afternoon CFEA class, lecture about site plan
was conducted at the beginning of the lesson.
Raj introduced what is a site plan and what
should be included in a document of a site plan.
After that, students were asked to draft the site
plan of Camp Sweeney by their memory and
then they were required to explain their draw-
ings. This is a good opportunity for them to
understand what meant by site plan, although
their drawing may not follow the required stan-
dard of site plan.
Day 30 6/28 TUEPG&E class + Highland Hospital BIM dem-
onstration + CFEA lesson
We went to PG&E energy centre for a lesson on
“Renovating to Passive House Standards: Prin-
ciples for wood-framed buildings” in the early
morning. The three instructors have been work-
ing on passive house projects with background
in global energy research, essential habitat and
architecture. Started by the description in the
climate change, analysis were done in scientif-
ic way to show how energy is spilled out in an
unpredictable way, and followed by the intro-
duction on the history of Passive House which
is developed by European scientists in 1990
based on super-insulated, passive solar and
“low-energy” buildings. Projects obtain the right
to carry the logo show the design excellence
and Passive House energy performance crite-
ria. We learned about how does Passive House
work basically by design of ventilation system
together with mechanical system.
We also went to the Actate Tower Replaement
office of Highland Hospital for the BIM (Build-
ing Information Management) demonstration
before the CFEA class. I was surprised to learn
from James, the field engineer of the construc-
tion management company has architectural
background same as us. He suggested us to
self-learn the Autodesk Revit software, as this
would be an advantage for us in the real work-
THE FIFTH WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCOText and Photos by Ariel Mok
Left: The skylight penetrates into the RainForest in Academy of Science Top right: Class at PG&E Energy Center Bottom right: Photo with James
25
ing environment. It would be definitely the trend
in the future for saving cost and time in con-
struction. He introduced the different uses of
BIM in construction management, coordination,
design presentation and even the time and cost
can be combined into the model to make 4D
and 5D model. That was eye opening for us on
how detail and complex the programme can
deal with.
Day 31 6/29 WEDHP Pavilion + Stanford tour + CFEA lesson
The visit to HP Pavilion (previously San Jose
Arena) was interesting as we climbed up to the
top level of the arena where was added after
completion, and also to the backstage where
the stage installations were put. Although the
building was the oldest modern building in the
city, however, it still looks appealing due to the
good maintenance. As described by Kathy and
Ted, the systematic management and good
maintenance of the arena makes it competitive
among the nearby newer sports arena. That
was impressive to know how the city design the
arena by developing together with the nearby
area where now providing dining and parking
for the people coming to watch the show. How-
ever, owned by the City of San Jose, the revenue
still do not cover the operation cost, but seems
like they don’t have specific action to due with
the problem. The tour gave us an insight on the
status of sports in US and also the operation of
the arena for ice hockey or other events.
We stayed in Stanford for a one-hour golf car
tour. A first year student of Stanford guided the
tour, she gave us much information on the life
in Stanford, including the self discipline learn-
ing, the advantage of being taught by Stanford
professor to get well connection, the variety of
students unions, the diversity of people, the big
family of students hostel and the connection of
students to downtown San Francisco. I believed
most of the people would be attracted by the
nice historical environment and the recreation
provided in the campus. I was particularly im-
pressed by nearly all students are living inside
the campus which make them getting a full
sense of belonging to the school.
The Zoning Ordinance was introduced by Raj
which let us also has a chance to learn US Stan-
dard. The setback regulation in US building and
the stepping up on the top of buildings are
different to Hong Kong. After that, we taught
students what is plan(always looking from the
top to the bottom) and elevation(always have 4
sides for an object), the 2-D projection to the
students. To make it easier to understand, we
discussed and clarified the best definition of
the terms to avoid making students confused.
The exercise on the orthographic projection
objects consolidated students’ understanding.
One of the students asked me for a contact. I
would be so happy if receive the letter.
Left: Photo at hp pavilion (L to R: Me, Ted, Kathy, Ricco and Ming) Top right: Introducing the Zoning Ordinance
Bottom right: Conducting a lecture about Plant Materials for the students
26
Day 32 6/30 THURCentral Subway Design Office + CFEA site
visit + BART system Wide Equipment Ret-
rofit
This is our last working day for the programme.
We visited the Central Subway design office
which gathering people from different parties
who work on the project to facilities the effi-
ciency. Teddy explained the boring tunnel with
dowel or bolt joint and the use of tunnel boring
machine. Richard introduced us the document
control for the Central Subway project, and he
also explained how important is it for the dead-
line of submission, the systematic records of
the comments and actions. Mona who is work-
ing on the design of China Town Station intro-
duced the current design of the three stations
to us. We discussed the question whether there
should be retail inside the station, though most
of us agreed as this make the station safer and
better environment, but there are still worries
about the people don’t accept the change. Be-
sides, she also explained how the neighbours
contributed and influenced the design, it is im-
portant to get the support from the neighbours
to get the approval of design.
Students went to their site for site measure-
ment and analysis today. Although days in
Camp Sweeney were short, I felt sad the teach-
ing come to the end, I hope to see what the stu-
dents can achieve in their graduation. Students
asked me for contact, I would be really happy
if receiving letters or emails. We gave feedback
about the students to Raj so that she can make
reference in dividing them into groups and say
goodbye and leave contacts to her.
We attended the presentation for the System
Wide Equipment Retrofit Project at BART office
near 19st Bart Station. Bill Frink, the Resident
Engineer gave us an insight on the Earthquake
Safety Program of BART system. They learnt
from the earthquake happened each time thus
the code and regulation also changed accord-
ingly. As an architect, It is important to learn
how the market change in order to fit into the
field, better you know how the management
and what’s their difficulties, better you would
become successful in the field. Albert, Harold,
Marion and Ming, each one of them shared
their experience. From their experience, we got
to know how people should be ready and pre-
pared for challenge for not losing chance.
Day 33 7/1 FRIChinese Chamber of Commerce broad
lunch + Graduation Ceremony
We attended the Chinese Chamber of Com-
merce board lunch with the Board of Directors
Installation Ceremony and Supervisory Board
Installation Ceremony at Four Seas Restaurant.
At the end of the lunch we greeted Mayor Lee
and Shih Wei. We talked about the question of
how to met new people and keep in contact.
Top left:: Photo in Central Subway Design Office (L to R: Ming, Teddy, me, Ricco and Richard) Top right: Photo in Central Subway Design Office (L to R: Ming, Ricco, me and Mona)
Bottom left: Photo with Raj Bottom right: Photo in BART Earthquake Safety Program Office (L to R: Ming, Albert, Marion, April, Harold, me, Bill and Ricco)
27
Patty and Ming shared their own method.
We back to office to attend our last office meet-
ing and the Graduation Ceremony for the HK-SF
Cornerstone Programme. We concluded what
we have learnt in this month and answered dif-
ferent questions about our programme. What I
think about this programme is that this is really
a valuable and unforgettable experience. We
are offered an insight different from an ordi-
nary tourist, but we visited a lot of place that I
never imagined I would be there.
After leaving the office, Ming drove us to the Art
Palace, Golden Gate Bridge and Legend of Hor-
ror. All of then are very beautiful places in San
Francisco! We enjoyed a nice dinner with cheers
in a Macau restaurant with Ming’s family. The
night view of San Francisco seen from the peak
was so fascinating and amazing, market street,
Bay Bridge and City Hall are easily located as
they are lighten up at night. As the building in
San Francisco are generally with height limit, it
looks like there are stars spread through the
cityscape. Time to say goodbye, but I believe
there would still be a bond between all of us. I
was so happy to meet everyone we met here1
General thoughts and Conclusion:Although, the energy consumption level seems
like very high in US, but the environmental
sense of US people has gone far beyond Hong
Kong. For example, most of the café provides
recycle or combustible containers. We can
found disposable containers made of plant ma-
terial in many places. In PG&E Center, there are
many promotions on green living to individual
household as well as commercial. The materials
used in the center are indeed all combustible.
Households are encouraged to install energy
saving meters to monitor the energy consump-
tion. Besides, they are also encouraged to use
heavy energy consumption device like washing
machine in the non-peak hours.
As there are many immigrants in US, many of
the younger generation are born and adapted
to the culture of US. When meeting people from
the origin country, although with the same race,
they behave differently, to know how individu-
als identify themselves is one of my wonder.
Besides, seems like the Chinese and American
government still consider them to be their citi-
zen no matter they have no bonding with the
country in terms of language or culture.
I am sure this would be an unforgettable expe-
rience in my life. We are better equipped with
concept of 6-degree of separation and initiative
to accept challenges. The one-month program
was extremely rich to offer us exploring in dif-
ferent aspects, I have so many thoughts that I
even couldn’t consolidate at the moment. Really
thank you very much for giving such an oppor-
tunity for not only experiencing life in San Fran-
cisco but also forming bond with people we met
here, and also for the hospitality offered to us.
Photo in Cornerstone Office (front row: Ming, Mr. Perry and Beth, back row: me, Martin, Derek, Patty and Ricco)
28