Six degrees of separation

Ming Striving for excellence

Dedication

Infinite patience

Raj Adjusted, adapted, thrived

Family above all

Jack Book and street smart

Eclectic volumes of knowledge

Annie Youthful and energetic

Motivated

Rosa Passionate and loyal

Sense of identity

Derek Observer and spectator over life

The long game

Wayne Mentor

Teaching through layers

Work/life balance

Day Zero

I arrived at SFO with a slight delay, but Ming was already there waiting for me. Ming was very helpful and made for a smooth transition, and gave me a ride to Mr. and Mrs. Wong’s place. Coming from Los Angeles and arriving at Daly City proved to be a very interesting change in scenery, which reflects the greatness of nature. The shift between the afternoon sun and palm trees versus the cool breeze and fog was indeed a much needed shift after the unbearable heatwave going around the world.

Day One

Ming and I drove over to SFO once again to pick up Sherry in the morning. After we picked her up from the terminal, we headed over to the BIG ROOM for a quick tour where we met Byron Compton, Nicole Price, and Christine Cortina. Seeing Ming taking the job above and beyond allowed me to readjust myself mentally for both this internship and my future.

The BIG ROOM exposed a beautiful part of architecture where school will never be able to provide one with. The collaboration, energy, and zest for performance given off by various architectural firms and collaborative members just goes to show that synergetic energy of the modern office will be the new norm of the office typology. The old competitive non-sharing model of business just isn’t as competent as the merging of knowledge within a breeding ground of ideas and innovation in the modern office.

Day Two

We visited the AIA office today and had a relaxed walk around the area we worked at.

Day Three

It was a quiet day at the office, spent drafting a letter for the request of firm visits and scheduling for the rest of the week. Sherry and I split after work, headed our separate ways to individual lectures we found interesting to us. I decided to head to the AIA office right down the block for the Frank Lloyd Wright lecture, introducing his legacy in the west coast. It proved to be incredibly entertaining and fruitful as the speaker, Mark Wilson had anecdotes for almost every west coast project of Wright’s along with a string of knowledge I would have otherwise had to go through hundreds of pages before finding out myself!

Day Four

We visited the Academy of Art today, going through three campus tours introducing various majors of study they offer. The student work was of high caliber and impressive, with a lot of students being our age! It inspired me to look beyond architecture for inspiration, the academy encouraged the cross disciplinary collaboration, with design being to ingrained in every aspect of our daily lives.

After the tours, we headed back to the office to participate in our very first Cornerstone meeting. It was also our very first time seeing Wayne in San Francisco, since he was in Washington settling the new office. Wayne structures these meetings with a unique twist, having everyone share a piece of good news in their recent events, both private and business. Then he proceeds to the equally important aspects of the meeting agenda. I believe this structure of a meeting is a very modern outlook on the traditional perspective of a “meeting”. We all grew up hating meetings and feeling like they were places of boring corporate talk and doze kind of situation. However, by asking everyone for a piece of good news in various aspects of one’s life, we bring people together and present for the meeting in the right mindset.

Wayne called us into his office for a short talk, highlighting the importance of traditional social etiquette and the general economic atmosphere in San Francisco with public infrastructure and development of new homes on the rise in the future.

Ming also brought us our first site visit in Richmond. We were quick on our feet and thinking on the go, figuring out the construction drawings and identifying the problem soon after our arrival.

Day Five

Rosa started off our day with explaining how Cornerstone works as a whole. It was incredibly useful for us, since it is an industry and field of work we weren’t familiar with. After the meeting however, I have a general overview on the proposal-writing, bidding, and sub/prime contractor relationship. This field is interesting for me, since it uncovered the other side of the industry that is otherwise unheard of when you’re in school.

Before going to San Francisco, I knew of Snohetta through many of their innovative designs spread across Scandinavia and European countries. One of their most recent designs was the SFMOMA extension and renovation from the previous master architect Mario Botta. We spent the entire day at the SFMOMA, aweing and gawking at Thiebaud and Gormley, walking up and down the incredible circulation path created by the team in Snohetta. I thoroughly enjoyed both the exhibitions and architecture of SFMOMA.

Week Two | Day One

We spent the day planning for the week and drafting emails and writing up our weekly reports. We also did a bit of research on the Cal-Trans Terminal project.

Week Two | Day Two

Having prepared the draft for firm visits for almost a week, we finalized all cover letters and began sending them out to various firms. The process of editing the draft letter was very back and forth with changes that dwindled down to changing the spacing of the letter. It reminded me of having to write multiple drafts and sending it in to the teacher every time until we were finally ready for the final draft submission.

Shortly after lunch, Wayne held another meeting in the regular fashion of sharing good news and getting everyone in the right mindset for the meeting. It was insightful and made more sense to me, after Rosa’s meeting that allowed us to gain a level of insight to the inner workings of the company.

Week two | Day Three

We visited Autodesk today, making it just in time for the gallery tour. It was an eye-opening experience for me, never having noticed that my daily go-to applications for architecture has so much realistic applications. The products by Autodesk make a real impact towards the world continually, through creativity and an inquisitive mind. This internship has already begun to change my view of the possibilities of my future career, and Autodesk only push my perspective further. Our tour guide, who hinted at his game developer background is now the arts director of Autodesk. The products rolling out are centrally targeting visualization, essentially, but the possibilities of fields of usage were almost endless ranging from: nano-tech to sensor filming. All of this exposure to cross-disciplinary exchange of careers in the future really excites me, since I believe architecture isn’t the only career I’m meant for.

After the insightful tour, we decided to take a walk to the Embarcadero and the pier since it was an uncharacteristically sunny day in San Francisco. After the pier, we decided to walk to city lights bookstore, brushing by Chinatown. Walking into the cramped little bookstore restored a sense of coziness that I realized I haven’t felt in a long while. I will definitely be back.

Week Two | Day Four

The Oakland tour today was guided by Rosa, and met up by the Christ Church of Light. The guided tour revealed much of the symbolism and meaning behind the form of the church. It was not only aesthetically pleasing for our architectural taste, but also an incredibly green building. After our tour, Rosa brought us to a roof garden nearby in the Kaiser building and bubble tea in Chinatown.

Having gotten back to the office quite late into the day, Ming mentioned that we needed to buy steel-toed boots for the Warm Springs Extension hard-hat tour tomorrow. Ming and I worked together to find deals online available for pick-up, and ended up staying quite late. After solving the issue, Ming invited me to go along with him to return the house keys to our host family, Mr. and Mrs. Wong. I happily tagged along and got to have a cozy traditional Chinese meal.

Week Two | Day Five

Our very first hard-hat tour couldn’t have happened if Ming didn’t bring us the steel-toed boots in the morning. We got to Fremont just in time to meet up with Jack, driving us to the Warm Springs Extensions. We were able to have lunch with Marty and Eddie Poon, along with a PGH Wong engineer Charice. It was a pleasant time, and everyone was very friendly.

After lunch, Eddie brought us to the actual site of the Warm Springs Extension. It was incredible being in the station with virtually no one around us. The experience felt a little unreal, since train stations are usually full of people walking around. Jack and Eddie familiarized us with some technical terms, how the

rails worked, where the energy comes from and etc. The tour was extremely insightful to us, and that concluded our week.

Week Three | Day One

Today Sherry and I decided to split up and find events for ourselves to go to. Sherry chose to attend a school tour, while I still haven’t been to the Golden Gate Bridge, I decided to use this opportunity to go for a visit. My first impression during the journey there, is that people who live in San Francisco would probably never stop by for this tourist attraction, since it’s so far out there! By the time I got there, it was already quite late into the afternoon and the fog was settling in. I took a couple of photos, but was overall quite underwhelmed! Though the bridge was beautiful and iconic, after having travelled to many places before, I seem to have lost the excitement of many other tourists. I enjoyed going through the little local spots and finding holes-in-the-wall much more than simply getting a picture by the bridge. I think the strong wind also played a huge factor into my decision to leave quickly as well!

Week Three | Day Two

Our very first firm visit was at HOK today. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, and taking what Raj mentioned about how each firm functions differently, I decided to change my attitude from a nervous spectator to a curious investigator. After all, Wayne’s motto is “attitude is everything”. Going through the office, HOK splits the office into studio-like spaces for each project, which promotes a collaborative environment between the experts, draftsmen, and designers. The feeling I got was that there wasn’t a classism kind of thing happening in the projects when the office environment promotes collaboration.

Week Three | Day Three

Raj accompanied us to the SOM office today, and it was a stark difference from the HOK office from yesterday. The SOM office definitely felt more restrictive and corporate-like. Remembering how every firm works differently, I silently acknowledged how huge firms are established and decided I probably wouldn’t like to work here as a fresh graduate. However, it would be a great position to take if later on down the road, I can make a switch to these bigger firms and take on a high position. Working day and night for a huge firm wouldn’t be as effective as working smart in a smaller but closer firm. Your work gets acknowledged, you get more exposed to the project, and there just seems to be more opportunities for an individual to shine through in small firms. However, as you get older and have more things on the plate, it would be wise to make a switch to the bigger firms to take on a bigger role, since you’ve already proved yourself in the midst of a smaller firm.

Week Three | Day Four

We finally had to the time to visit the De Young museum, a project by Herzog and De Meuron. The experience was pretty cool, but definitely not the coolest museum, especially compared to museums in Europe! However, the huge redeeming factor was that there was a special Ed Ruscha exhibition! I remember running into some of Ed’s works earlier last year, browsing online, I had already felt a deep connection to his works. Finally, being able to see an extensive collection of his art was absolutely amazing. Coming back to the office, we also had an opportunity to meet a business partner of Wayne, Sandesk who is amazingly witty and a true Renaissance man. We also had a great evening and dinner

with Wayne, who treated us to Hakkasan! It was an Asian fusion restaurant nearby, and the hot and sour soup is to die for!

Week Three | Day Five

It was an early start to the day, travelling to Oakland to visit Pyatok Architects. It is the smallest firm we have been to of all the visits we planned. The intimate environment and incredibly friendly partners made me realize just how much I love working in the smaller environment. I always thought I would do really well in the large corporate setting, which I still don’t doubt, but I realized I felt really at home and motivated in a small firm. After this visit I really set my mind towards what kind of firm I want to work for when I graduate next year. I wish to find a smaller firm, nothing corporate, so I could take on as much responsibility as possible for my year out. I believe the intimate setting and workload will motivate me towards growing more mature and responsible. The growth I hope to achieve in myself will also shine through more prominently in the kind of office setting, which will hopefully allow me to secure a position sometime in the future.

Week Four | Day One

Having grown up with Apple products around us all our lives, witnessing the rise in popularity of the iPod and the domination of the iPhone, the humongous corporation never really showed just how large of a force it is. Derek brought us to what I’d like to call, Apple Nation (Cupertino) today and that was when I truly realized the magnitude of Apple’s reach and power. The very products we use daily are all owned by large companies that we rarely register as the dominant players of the world. The Apple visit was, in reality, a tour from the infinity loop to the canteen of Apple, since there was so much that we weren’t authorized to see. However, this simple visit provided food for thought that fueled me on through the day and night, slowly digesting the economic world we live in and how entrenched we are within this forest. It is so easy to become ignorant in this world, and just live on without having a clue as to the real workings behind society.

Week Four | Day Two

We visited the Warm Springs Extension BART project earlier, and got familiarized with the partnership BART and VTA has in this project that will bridge the trains all the way to San Jose. Today, we got to see the other end of the railway with Jenkin. Ming and Jenkin walked us through the different ways railways can be constructed, depending on the situation of the context. Obviously, with on-grade railway tracks being the most preferred since it is the most cost effective. It is exciting to see the construction of the infrastructure, as you can almost begin to imagine the almost barren nature of the context will soon be overflowed with retail, housing, and commercial developments brought on by the BART extension. I really enjoyed the cross-disciplinary knowledge one can permeate and absorb from a simple visit as the SVBX. The urban, architectural, economic, property, and wellbeing of people all interrelate with each other, and oftentimes we are led to believe our studies are a “silo”. The reality is, everything is so dependent on each other, that it is impossible to separate one field from another!

Week Four | Day Three

I have been a fan of Gensler’s works ever since I visited the Shanghai Tower in real life. It wasn’t over-designed, too attention seeking, or ridiculous-looking but it didn’t possess a lot of the dull and forgettable profiles of a typical high rise. It was seductive and efficient, just the way I hope my projects could achieve. The firm felt like a perfect fit for me of all the others I have visited. Joey, a project architect, had a lengthy chat with me after the tour and shared her history, thoughts, and advice for me. All of which almost exactly corresponded to what I had written in the journal last week on day five. She believed I should start with a small firm and work my reputation up, so I could make a switch to larger firms like Gensler at the right position so I could take on more responsibility as opposed to starting off at large firms as a fresh graduate.

Week Four | Day Four

It was an amazing opportunity today, being able to chat with Bill Frink and visit PGH Wong. We were given more than we had asked for when Bill hooked us up to visit Robin Chiang Architects and gave us a perspective on the Transbay Development from the construction side of things. We also had the chance to visit PGH Wong, where we met and chat with Kenji who had ample amounts of experience as a practicing architect. After our visit for the day, Annie and I drove over to the Milpitas shooting range where I had the chance to shoot a gun for the first time. It was an incredible experience and Annie took me to have awesome Cajun food in Oakland after our session. Definitely checked something off my bucket list today.

Week Four | Day Five

We visited Robin Chiang Architects in the early afternoon, where we met David. This was the first small firm we have visited and it was so different from the feeling of a large firm. Although it seems like it would be a great opportunity to work at a small firm, I feel like I would fit better in a larger environment. It was further confirmed with our later visit to AECOM, where I felt so much more at home. The large workforce seemed to encourage collaboration and learning from different disciplines, which I appreciate so much.