 Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Global Symposium organized by the MSAAD class of 2006. My name is Leslie Quo, Associate Director of Development and Alumni Relations. And I'm pleased to introduce the program and even more excited to introduce this cohort of practitioners to the broader GSAP community. As they present work that details how they engage with issues of social environmental and cultural importance through design. Based in 11 different countries and working with an even greater number of communities, we learn about local conditions that will inform the challenges and solutions unique to the communities in which they each work. We're now starting the first of three presentations today. Johnny Chu based in Taiwan will be moderating. Johnny Chu, the founder of JC Architecture and Out Scholarship, recognized for his fresh perspective and concept driven work. He is the first Taiwanese designer to win World Architecture Festival inside World Interior of the Year. His other accolades include Red Dot, Dazine Award, the International Architecture Award, New York Interior Design Best of the Year Award and many more. The firm is also being voted top 25 architectural firms in Taiwan in their 10th year and selected for 40 under 40 awards by Perspective Global. His provocative and unconventional design have made him a key figure in defining design in Taiwan and is often invited to jury panels of esteemed design competitions such as the US's International Interior Design Award. He also often guest lectures at many universities including this prestigious Royal College of Art in London. His latest adventure includes a train design for Taiwan Railway which also just received the Good Design Award from Japan and is currently pursuing an architecture PhD degree from RMIT. Thank you Johnny for being one of the core coordinators of this program today and I'll let you take it away. Thank you. Thanks for the kind introduction. I think it's a really unique opportunity that due to COVID that we are able to meet the students and the alumni and also hopefully the professors and then to demonstrate what we've been doing after 15 years of the school exactly 15 years. I know the commencement and the graduation is coming up soon. So this is a little celebration and then give a sense of hope. And also hopefully we can provide job opportunities to the graduation students. We really want to show with the 21, 22 speakers of different talents and advice, the vast diversity expertise that we have through maybe development or government works or private sector works. This just shows how GSAP allow us and cater us with these all these professional expertise that we are able to carry on forward for the past 15 years. And, but this is also opportunity for us to share each of our and understand what each of our own abilities are. So hopefully we can work internationally and cross national boundaries. And then how we'll be able to help each other I think that was will be also a key thing inside this symposium. And now we're just here to connect and reconnect and have a very good time. So I'd like to welcome our first speaker, a doula is the managing director of shape architecture practice. All of us graduated from MSAD 06. And shape architecture is a basin UAE, and it's founded in 2006 so I think after straight after Columbia, and it's dedicated to set example of excellence in design and Middle East. And it's very interesting for me to see how Middle East is thinking and how shape lies and shape the forms I know you have a lot of production technologies in the design process so I'm looking forward to seeing that. Thank you, and take it away. Thank you, Johnny. I'll just share my screen. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you, John for the introduction. After graduating from Columbia, I work briefly in New York, and then I decide to go back to the UAE and open my own practice, which is called shape architecture practice and research. In shape we also projects from residential, residential projects, interior, cultural hospitality, as well as transportation and urban design. I have also been selected as one of the 15 most influential people in architecture in the region for two years in a row. Some of our projects have been also highly commended and nominated for awards or shortlisted for awards. Today I would like to talk, I'll be speaking, talking about our presenting to projects. The first project is called the Rain Room. This is a project in collaboration with Space Continuing. The Rain Room is a pavilion that is hosting a single art, permanent art installation called basically Rain Room, Pennsylvania, by Random International. The simple volumetric representation of the building is in contrast with the very busy commercial center in Sharjah, as well as the architecturally busy area in Sharjah. So the idea was to have something that was simple straightforward and attracts the people by contrasting with the surrounding and play with the relationship between exterior by bringing elements of the surrounding urban context into the space as well as materiality into the building. So as you walk through the walkways or corridors that takes you from a very lit space to a darker ramp that takes you down to that dark room, which is where the installation happens, and then you end up into that dark room where the installation is. The Rain Room basically is where you get the immersive experience of rain where you walk through the rain with cameras and sensors, you won't get wet if you walk in the right speed. And basically that's how you experience rain. And it also has contracts, it has a little bit more meaning, newer years since rain is a bit scarce and so on. In terms of plan, the, of course, the main space of the installation space and everything around it is servicing that space. These are sections showing the different levels and organization of the space. We got second place for the best cultural project of the year. Three years ago, as well as this project has been published regionally and as well as internationally and the second project. What I would like to talk about is the Immersive Diplomatic Academy. The Immersive Diplomatic Academy basically is a university or a college that basically is teaching is basically where young diplomats graduate as well as existing diplomats that take continued education courses and so on into the, in that, let's say college or academy. And frequently it's been visited by ambassadors, ministers, as well as sometimes even prominent state figures from around the world to give lectures within the premises. One of the, of the academy is on the central agora, the agora from the third time, and the agoras have been divided throughout internal external ones and also on different levels, and so on. The building is basically wrapped with an aluminum skin that has been bent and perforated to reduce solar heat gain as well as reduce the glare or eliminate the glare from the building. At the same time, provide enough ambient lighting or enough lighting to eliminate the interior spaces. And the windows of the building as well as the night shop. This project is currently under final stages of construction, I will be showing some images of this project. The project is, the sustainability has been taken into consideration while designing the project. So, it's best rated to Pearl and UAE, which is something equivalent to lead silver in the US. We're talking about the new silver rating of the previous or the old ratings. Silver rating. So talking more about the facade. I talked about reducing the solar heat gain and glare and so on. We developed multiple equations to optimize the use of the materials as well as give the building is unique character with the falls and bends within the aluminum sheets. So we developed these equations and came up with four modules that that happens the facade without having any cut pieces or or with or wasted materials or and so on. Also the variation had been studied to avoid the glare at the same time, even a flight thing for the for the spaces inside the inside the building. These are more cups that we we did for the for the for the bent and perforated sheets. You can see at the right image how that the profession will look from the from the inside. And I think the success of the selection of this material is that to meet our design intent is that depending on the how the angle you you view the facade and the direction of sunlight at a certain time. It becomes very very very opaque or very transfer on very see through I mean or very transparent, depending on the angle, the angle of view, and that's I think the worst example achieving this is another review from the Let's see what the VIP what they call the VIP entrance where you have enough foliage to provide shade from the hot sun. This is the interior atrium. Again, the gathering areas, student gathering areas and so on happening throughout multiple levels. We introduced this staircase of the trap around the building encouraging a more healthier lifestyle and encouraging movement and so on in the building. These are renders of the classrooms with smart just screens as well as right to build walls. The finish has been selected so that multiple arrangement within the classes can be done depending on the discussion class or a lecture and so on. These are the other spaces within the building. This is the executive launch and the border. Now I'll go through some of the construction images that we took recently from the project. You can see from the different images that each facade is differently depending on the again the view and the angle of the sun. Here we're doing some testing for the for the facade lighting and controlling the aiming intensity of the light. This is a view of the atrium. In the construction you can see all these cranes working all at the same time. The deadline was was very near and they have to work all at the same time. This is the atrium during the day. This is what I call the the wooden the wooden direct direct wall. This behind this is the basically the multi-purpose wall. It has a protectable seating that has not been installed yet. The elevator lobbies, some just from the upper level in the atrium. The classroom almost done. Some final touches needs to be done to it. The view from the executive office. You can see clearly the perforation how it reads from the interior on the inside. That's basically what I would like to present today. The use of technology and so on. Basically I didn't have enough time to really go into details into that, but that's part of our work. All our projects are done through BIM and we use also scripting and programming to optimize the design and its processes and so on. Thank you for your time. If you'd like to see more of our work, we can visit our website. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Abdullah. Impressive and huge. Yeah, I was able to visit Dubai last before the COVID so that wouldn't get a chance to me would love to visit some of your buildings. So we'll leave all the Q&A to the back. If there are any questions welcome to put in the chat group and then we'll try and answer it. So third speaker is Carl. So Carl Wadia. Okay, Carl Wadia is a senior associates at architect Hafez contractor. He graduated from the Academy of architecture in Mumbai in 2003 and then both Columbia into 2006. He now heads a team of approximately 70 associates was popularly known as the cow group at AHC. And he has some distinguished projects such as the DB Osher Tower in Mumbai, the IC towers in Mumbai, the Manipul University in Jaipur. And yeah, we look forward to his work. Welcome Carl. Thank you. Sorry Carl to interrupt Abdullah I think you might have to stop your sharing in case Carl wants to share his screen as well. Thank you Johnny for the good introduction and Abdullah wonderful work, you know where you are and what you're doing. And, you know, just a word out to Priam, a good friend at the GSAP and we're going to miss her today, but I'm sure we can see her work some other time as well. I just hope she gets well soon. I'm going to pull up my presentation now. So is my screen visible Johnny. Good. Okay. Okay, wonderful. So, thank you everyone for logging in and spending some time to, you know, to see what we've all been doing for the last 15 years. Today I'm going to talk about four projects. Project number 123 have been designed in lockdown, and they're all designed competitions all these four have been projects we've won through the design competition route. Project number four is actually the first project or the second project that I was I had an opportunity to be a part of as soon as we graduated from from Columbia and came back to India. So pretty much the most recent work, whereas number four captures the oldest work that we did about 1015 years ago. So the first, the first thing is that all of these four projects are in different parts of the country, and like it is in any large country. You have different climatic conditions, different geopolitical and, you know, demographics in different parts of the country. So the first project which is the Indian Institute of Management is in the city of Calcutta, now known as Calcutta. It is the second most premier management institute in India, and a pretty hard fought competition that we did last June in COVID, and we want it. The second project is a very large urban redevelopment in the city of Mumbai, in what is known as E block in BKC. It's the financial hub of the city of Mumbai, or at least it's trying to be. The third one is design competition we won for the National Maritime Museum of India. Recently we won it and we're still designing or let's say redesigning this building. And the fourth project is the Bits Pilani Institute in Rajasthan, which is a hot and dry desert region of India, and also a project which is set in a historic campus. We are starting with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Calcutta is a city which has an extremely high groundwater table. So you often come across sites which have 25 to 30% of the site filled with water. And this water goes up and down by a couple of feet every year. And most of Calcutta and, you know, the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh, all of these areas are Bay areas. Every year, some amount of land is lost to the sea. And it's very hard to reclaim land over here. So we got this, we inherited this site, which had an island in the center, on which historically the Institute 40 years ago had built their academic buildings, and all around it was water. And there was also this intrinsic canal system that connected different portions of the site. But essentially, what we got when you're looking at a master plan is a site on which buildings had been placed with no real strong master plan intention. And what that sort of ended up being is we got these two little corner portions, the one building on the left, where we had to add an academic building for almost 2000 students. And on the top right of your screen, there was a water pond in a funny square shape. And we had to sort of redefine its shape. And with whatever land was available, we sort of had to string a building out of it, and, you know, make the best of the perimeter and the circumference that we created for ourselves. So what we did is we, we didn't, we could not challenge the master plan, let's put it that way, because some of these these water bodies are as deep as 30 meters deep. And fortunately, they're freshwater. So with the space that was available to us in a functioning campus, we had to design a building. So what you see on the top left of your screen is the, the adjacencies of all the buildings that existed on campus. You had all these white blocks, and that blue dotted line indicates the plot which was available for the new academic building. So basically what we did is we decided not to block the convocation port with its adjacency to the waterfront. So we, we didn't, we did a building which was elevated off the ground by about 10 meters. We kept the entire still open for circulation pedestrian movement, all of that. And we, we did a building from third, fourth, fourth, fifth and sixth floor onwards. So the whole ground plane stays open, and you have a building elevated above. This sat quite beautifully on the lake front. And one of the challenges was given the availability of the site. This was a dead east west facing building. And when you design buildings in India, you have to be a cognizant of which direction it faces. If you have any conscience in trying to do a sustainable building. So what we did is we kept all the classrooms on the inside or the or the teaching blocks on the inside. And we kept all the circulation on the outside. And because of budget constraints, we could not a condition circulation spaces. So we, we actually masked the facade in this GKD stainless steel mesh. In terms of the elevation of the building and the structural system and why it looks the way it does is we designed this building during pandemic. And we wanted to design a building which could be more or less prefabricated and brought to the site. And so the material we chose the steel steel is not a very widely accepted material in India but in the east of the country, especially Calcutta. There's a very good heritage of doing steel buildings. So this is the image you see of the elevated building all of the structure is what it is. There's no, you know, trying to hide the structure, you get intense rain in this part of the country. So you have to shield all your open spaces also in a way that all of the internal spaces don't get wet. And the idea of connecting the internal convocation for through the new building out to the water promenade was achieved by doing this. So if you walk from the old courtyard through our building to the promenade, you have this grand staircase that comes down and meets the ground plane, and students can directly enter the building the heart of the building from this staircase. Also, it works beautifully, because I don't have that view today, but you also get a screen where, you know, all sorts of things can be televised. The building looks at night. This is the GKD screen mesh, with all of the academic spaces recessed in the back. So we get adequate shading, beautiful lighting, and the whole ground plane is open. The next building we had to design on this campus was the student residences and like I explained, you can see on the bottom right of the screen. There was a, there was a squarish or an octagonal shaped pond. We just slightly changed the shape of that pond. And we essentially, you know, the way you wear a ring on your finger we put a building around that, and we use the perimeter to create an interesting build form. Now these kind of buildings get tricky because, again, you have to, you know, you have to make sure of how the acoustics works and how the whole internal space works, and you have a building which faces all directions not southeast west. So there is different treatment of windows and facades for each face of this building. But the, the image on the top right of the screen will give you an idea of how students actually enter the building so they just enter on foot, and they can move through the building and access any flaw that they essentially live on. This is the aerial image of that building. It's one building but it's divided in about five parts with pedestrian walkways and connections, right up and down the building so imagine about 1500 students with about 200 families in the left hand side all living but all having different egress and ingress paths to make this building activated so this is a one year program for MBA, which, you know, getting people together is important as part of the success of the program. All of the inaccessible terraces were used for solar panels of course. This is the internal space that grand space. So you have undergrads, undergraduates, post graduates, and the shared space in between all of them, as well as the ground level pedestrian promenades that sort of weave in and out of all the spaces in between. Some other interesting additions to this campus. The image on the top left sort of puts you in about a third floor, somewhere in between the building so you know at every floor there are these these breakout spaces. And then the image on the top right puts you in that middle balcony or the middle terrace that looks over both ends of the campus. Even that it rains for almost 250 years in Calcutta. We designed what is, you know what we call the smart Chata Chata is the Hindi word for umbrella. So it's an inverted umbrella that was five meters in height 12 meters by 12 meters in plan that collected rainwater we plug the solar panel on top of it. It would, it would also be the perfect mounting pole for all your wifi lighting camera security all of that for the campus. And the most important function is that it connected every part of the campus with cover walkways. So it became a sort of feature of the campus while also being highly functional. That's what the bottom two images show. Next project I'm going to talk about is a is completely different. It's an urban redesign or a redevelopment of an existing large, it's a 20 hectare site in Bandra Kula complex in Mumbai. It sits on the meaty river. And it's connected by by two metro lines. You can see the two different the red one and the blue one, which are both under construction. It's also connected by some very important highways. And the meaty river this this portion of the meaty river is is known for its the undergrowth of trees that it has the mangroves and the mangroves in India in the environmental sustainability. So India mangroves are a protected plant species. So it was very important to you know respect the mangroves but exactly opposite to our site. Just across the river. There is a nature park called Maharashtra Nature Park, in which there are a lot of seasonal birds and all that come to this campus to this to this park. So part of the design brief was to create this world class business destination, and also create a connection over to the Maharashtra Nature Park. So what we did is, we elevated the whole ground plane, the elevated ground plane got connected to both the metro lines, as you can see on the left. We created this large art plaza. And one of the things that the city of Mumbai suffers from is what we like to call boundary wall architecture every building is within a boundary wall fenced up, like many countries in the east. So we wanted to create this campus that had no boundaries and people could walk across all portions of the campus. So the design for the bridge across the Meethi River was done in such a way that we planted only two columns in the riverbed, therefore taking care of the mangroves. And we did this reverse suspension cable design, which automatically meant that the bridge in plan would become an S shaped bridge, which means people going from one end of the business district to the Maharashtra Nature Park, would enjoy the journey that's hence the statement journey is as important is less important is as important as the destination. So that was the whole ethos behind the connectivity. Given that this project would be developed over many many years by different private public partnerships, we had we went about setting up architectural controls for the whole campus. All the buildings, the bottom one thirds would be cut back to allow maximum light and cross ventilation across all of the pedestrian spaces. This meant that we have to bring in the diagram system of architecture into the facade design of the building. So this was all demonstrated and put as part of our design entry, which helped us towards the end. It meant a beautiful cross ventilation and clear line of sight at the, at what we like to call the edec level of ground floor. So these are just some images of what the whole master plan submission looks like. Eventually when these buildings will get developed, keeping the, the diagram system and the ground floor intact. All the parts of the buildings could be this or it could be something else as this was a master planning exercise that I suppose we took too seriously. Let's put it that way. So we even came up with a model building of how we could consume all the GFA space and how that would work at ground floor. These are some images of how it looks on as it abuts the street, all of the pedestrian spaces in between the image. This next image shows you the connection to the elevated city park station. And the last image is from the Maharashtra Nature Park. You could get a direct pedestrian connection from the park or the pedestrian bridge and directly to the elevated metro station, thereby kind of activating the site as well as activating the park. The next project is the National Maritime Heritage Museum in local Gujarat. This is a museum that covers India's maritime history from almost 4000 BC, where we had the Indus Valley civilization to the model to the modern, you know, to the modern Navy. So it's a museum that had to be designed at a location, which was just a kilometer away from an old archaeological site, which is which itself is about two and a half thousand BC. So I'm just thinking in mind that archaeological history. What's unique about this site is that this used to be a port town for the Indus Valley civilization, these two trade with the Mediterranean. But as the sea receded for almost 2000 years, this site got landlocked and put no longer function as a port town. So the previous image on the top left, you can see was the oldest and largest tidal dock that is created in BC. So keeping all this heritage in mind and also keeping the fact that this site gets flooded every year in Monsoon. We created this, this museum, which you see on the top right, which was connected to this massive urban interchange. And we use the flood waters that would enter the site every year and we channeled it into this very interesting mix of canals. And you could access all parts of the museum, as well as the South Southern end of the site which has hotels and eco resorts and all of that to help the museum flourish because this is a very, you know, far out space from the main city. You know, keeping the maritime theme, but also trying to respect the old Harappan and Indus Valley architectural style. So the entire museum is planned in rammed earth, which is a material that we are still studying. These are some of the images of the dock and the jetty ways and how you enter the museum. These are all the architectural inspirations to sort of take inspiration from the old step wells in India, Gujarat, which you see on the left, as well as create these wonderful aquatic and maritime experiences of going below water and above water etc. And also trying to use a material which is, you know, appropriate in terms of history and excavation and you know finding a way around things. What the spaces look like. There's a large IMAX room. These are some of the interiors of the galleries and the building is being thoroughly studied in terms of cross ventilation and comfort and all of the, you know, the factors that make a good project. And last but not least, the fourth project is a site is a building we did in Bitspilani Rajasthan. Now to put it in perspective, this is the hottest place in India. It hits around 50 degrees centigrade in summer, and it goes down to around minus one in winter. So it's a place of extremes. There is an existing old 75 to 80 year old campus that existed on this site is probably number three or number four engineering campus in all of India. So if you see on the bottom left of your screen that's the existing architectural style. And if you see on, you know, in any of the other images, all of the buildings around have that architectural style. Unfortunately, unfortunately, the only space available to create a building was smack in the center of all of this heritage. So either it was going to be create another heritage looking building that sort of matched the architectural style, or the approach that we went was with was to create a building that essentially had no architecture. The first way important is there's a the second image from the top top row. There's an old clock tower, which is about 80 years old, and exactly across it is a Saraswati temple. That's the goddess of prosperity. So it had a very strong visual axis. So the design solution that we went in with which you see on the bottom right of the screen. Now, this was the model that we submitted as part of our entry was to actually submerge the entire building below the ground. Simply lift up the ground plane by about two feet and have an entire campus of students down below while retaining all of the existing architectural heritage and character of the campus intact. Obviously this design changed. We have to reduce the cost and think more about natural light and ventilation. But that's what the final campus looks like. You can see the Saraswati temple at the far end, which is at road level that's the street level. And you can see this entire campus which is submerged below ground, but at the same time with a lot of light ventilation all of that. That's an aerial photograph from the top of the clock tower, looking down at the campus. So all you see are these four staircase like structures that come above ground, and the whole campus is down below. And this is an immediate night of what the whole campus looks like. So I'm just going to run a short two and a half minute video that'll give you a good feeling of what this place looks like. Yeah, so that's it from me, Johnny. And I'm going to stop the screen share now. So that's my kid. Say boy. The two now. The two, two, two ways. Oh, beautiful work. I'm very envious. Everyone has these huge, giant ideas that involve me changing beautiful buildings now when I show my work is going to be a comparison but beautiful work. Thank you very much. I hope to see you one day in India, and then we can hopefully we can exchange more. Absolutely. I just want to thank everyone for taking the time and joining in and just want to end a small note in saying that I think everyone said that but you know, all of the studios are doing well because of the collaborative nature. And that's so important in this whole and that's something we learned at Columbia so I just want to end on that. Thank you. Beautiful. I just interject at the end of Carl's presentation here that he works for have these contractor who is also a GSAP alumnus actually from the AUD program so that also partly explains the large scale of the projects and we had the pleasure of having have these speak to students about two years ago now. So this is really nice to get another look at the kind of work that's coming out of the studio. So thank you for presenting Carl. Thank you for the opportunity. Central show you ready. Hello. Good. I hope you guys are well in India. Yeah, it's getting a little chaotic but we're all taking up precautions. Like you mentioned earlier, you know, you should speedy recovery for free and water. And I think the bigger cities are the most affected. So hopefully another week or two weeks into subside down. Right. Stay safe. So Santosh friend Columbia. He's now a partner and show me gum associates. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, which is located in try Chi and Chennai. Correct. The firm has been operating since 1982. And it's been as a has a large influence over transition tonight. So we look forward to your work. Thank you. Yeah, great. Thanks, thanks Johnny and he said for all the efforts for doing it. I know you have taken a lot of coordination but thanks thanks for doing it. I'm going to share my screen now. Oh good. Yeah. Yes. Hey, let me see my screen. Yes, please. So good. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. So I thought I'll just start like a journey of what I did after the G set of which 2006 or 2006 to 2010 I was working in Miami. I always had this idea of coming back to India. So I wanted to choose a place where I still want to work in the US but want to come back with some kind of learning what was done then so it was Miami because it's as close to India. So I was working with the climate, the vegetation, landscape, because of the hurricane and the concrete nature of the buildings, the whole city. I could see I could relate to many things and whatever learning that's been done I thought it could be brought back here. That's one of the reasons I chose that I was lucky enough to get in there and I used to work on a release of projects there for four years, four and a half years. There are many scale projects, hospitality sector and residential, certain interiors, high rises, enterprises, they have a good exposure of all these different projects and many projects in the Middle East as well. So it kind of gave a lot of openings and ideas, you know, to realize interesting ideas to make it practical and make it, you know, all kind of still have a cutting edge but still be friendly and idea of how that was interesting part. So based on that and after 2010 I came back to India and for today I thought I just shared two of the projects that's been done the last 10 years since they've come. From 2010 I have come back and joined our firm like you know my father is an architect as well so we joined this firm and my wife and another partner so we have like a small team of four architects who handle all the projects. So the first project is a school that we have done in Rajskot. Rajskot is in Gujarat, it's in the northern part of India. It's a very dry part of the country and closer to the desert sometimes the temperatures can go really very harsh up to the 45 to 30 degrees Celsius. So the first time it means this was a competition also which we won initially and then we went on to do it. The first idea was to cheer in India we have all these schools back in traditional times where it's called Guru Kalam where teaching actually happened below a tree with a group kind of teaching you and the idea was also to learn from nature and kind of you know learn from nature as well on outdoors. So we thought it would be nice if we can bring back this idea somehow of having a garden or open space for a school for all classrooms. So this was a seed of thought which we started the idea and we started to see how that could be multiplied for a bigger classroom that happened in all classrooms. So we started to have gardens for every classroom that have shared spaces. These are the spaces you know after construction like how it starts to look like. Every space in the classroom kind of open to a big space either on one side or either on two sides. We thought that would be the best way to kind of be refreshed in a class rather than being enclosed and all these classes because of kindergarten and other levels it's kind of interconnected. So all the garden and courtyard could be easily monitored from the other staff of the other persons as well. So these are again little examples of how the gardens start to pan out. This was the design idea which we started because the site was quite big and we didn't have that much of limitations in terms of size. So we started to design what would be the ideal way a classroom can have. We designed a little idea of a garden, a smaller garden, a shag garden and try to multiply that into a cluster and then multiply it without losing the essence of the whole idea. And then we had these little perforated brick walls surrounding each classroom so that kind of releases the heat also sometimes there are sandstorms which kind of stops that. And also the little jolly kind of pools down the air that comes in and also security. Security is also a key part in schools in India. So like basically we have so many students that you don't want them to be laughtering around and you don't know where they are. Especially kindergarten and grade 10 schools they are very concerned about students being inside the campus and not roaming around. So there's a little more detailed idea of how the perforations is jolly in the classrooms and start to work. That's the entire site plan. As you can see this is where the red is marked as the schools. We designed like five phases and currently phase one is done and phase two we'll be probably doing it next year or something. The client already has like an engineering campus, colleges and other infrastructure. So this was the site that was dedicated for the school. So we tried to work within that and have some shared facilities which would happen around swimming pools with the university. In terms of form when we started we thought we'll have a very simple form that kids could relate it to and the idea was to bring in all the services and the local manpower available there. But kind of still have the ultimate building to look like a block or the Jenga blocks and have that idea replicated till the end where all the kids could relate to the form that we're trying to do. That was the initial idea. So that's how the building started to look. We could see the perforated walls. It's called Bela line stone. We did some research for locally available materials and it was a very upper level stone also because it was very cheap. So we kind of was that and that runs in the territory of the building and we kind of wanted to have a similar experience for the upper level as well because you know to have a green space from the windows. And also this also works like a screen kind of cutting down any dust that comes from the other. So we have like a green screen of the upper level and the bricks that happen on the lower level. This was doing execution was a new material. So we didn't know how to go about it. So we had a lot of things back and forth at site and then kind of came up a pattern with the local workers of how it could be done. There's a lot of build. So we have to consider a lot of lateral pressure and which is also an earthquake pro media. So we have to consider that kind of planning also happens. So these are the plans. These are certain corridors which will be connected in other phases. So, you know, we try to plan all the phases so that all these services and you know connected services are integrated when all the pieces are done. It looks unified as one building rather than disintegrated or different parts of the building. Move on quickly. That's how the building starts to look like. The major building is a ground plus one structure. The second floor is just for a seminar or another function that happened at some time. But operations ones are regularly the first level. And these are the spaces where kids kind of wait where the buses or the other waiters come to pick them up. Not clear in the picture when we painted some interesting space shuttles, you know, like astronauts and other things on the tables that kids are kind of related to when they walk towards the school. These are deep overhands which kind of brings shape to the lower walls and here they actually envision to have swings and other kinds of structures where students can do when they're waiting for a bus or between, you know, towards the end of the schools. Gujarat is very well known for step wells. You know, if you Google in and you can find a lot of step wells that's there in the ancient past and we wanted to have some reference to it but we're doing a project there but not directly getting too much into it. So this is like a space in the center which connects all the classrooms and you can also go to the upper levels and it also adds like a small open air theater and it works like a little green lung for the entire campus. You know, you come there and you see green in the middle of the desert and it gives you like a nice opening space. So they have all the morning little meetings as in days like a little fancy this competition, small graduations. So this is like a nice space and we did some shadows very strange so that there's no sun except from 12 to 2 most of the other times it's in shape. You know, it's very important as much as we bring in life but also shape because it's too hot and especially for kids it's a nice thing. This is some information of the library where it has like its own garden to rest in certain moments also we tried our best to, you know, since being a school to get it done with vegetation. So that's how the spaces start to look like. I'll move on to the next school. This school was done around 2018 sometime a year before the pandemic. So this is a CSR school for an automobile conglomerate. It was interesting because they have a budget in mind so they kind of came to us and said within a year you have to find a site, build a school and get to that operation in a year. So from site selection we had a lot of things part of it and the timeline was very critical because in schools in India generally opens around in April. So that is saying whenever you can start at any time but you have to hand it over in April. So we had like a year to find a site, do the thing and then again on the budget. To give you a thumb, we were getting $25 to $30 in convert to Indian rupees. That's the budget it was given for this building. So that's the site where we actually started, we identified and that's the site. Unlike the earlier project, this school, the site was limited and with this, you know, we had this little volume where the building could happen and all the other open spaces had to be given based on bylaws. Most of the schools here, we didn't have like a covered space. Most of the places where people have to work or have their lunch, either they have to be using the classroom or go outside in a tree in a shape. We identified a rural place here so that it's beneficial since it's being a corporate social responsibility who wanted to be actually done. So these kind of places doesn't have infrastructure in terms of shade to have multiple other activities that happens in the school. Sometimes they have karate classes, they have chess board and all these daily are done in happens are going between classrooms or in on other spaces. So we try to locate something like that which is shaded and then all these other activities which happens 24 very, you know, sorry, entire school to happen there. And again, these are different phases. Phase one is that phase two currently we're doing it, it's getting over in a month. Then we did some local analysis of microclimate and started breaking these volumes into real small volumes and then start bridging connections to satisfy fire norms and a closure for every classroom to reach an exit. And then this is even more breaking out the volume to, you know, the major wind direction is northeast and southwest and again in west also. Little things again, this also is part of the town where the temperatures can go most of the places in summer touches coffee. So we wanted to ensure to have shade and wind because that's the only way we can make an environment comfortable here. So we need indirect life, but we need direct wind. So we try to work with that idea and bring these volumes. Now the idea is to stop all the walls because we thought that we kind of bring it across ventilation for all the spaces and all the hot air could be dissipated. And we kind of worked with like a perforated roof. This was the shaded room that it was talking earlier. And this building also tried to work with not have any sharp edges. So the entire building has like curved edges, columns, and we got a little more friendly way of, you know, underneath school for students. And that's how the plants started to shape up. This is just a phase one, phase two. We did a little research of the neighboring village here. So there's a lot of temples, a lot of little hamlets here. So this temple on the left is around like 4000 years old. And they had these, it was constructed in different period of time. And so the architecture there kind of has these different layers where every dynasty or every kingdom kind of tried to finish it and left it. And you could see a similar line of lady happening in other buildings, residences which they left to open. It is major for structure like you have a heavy base and a lighter, you know, a substructure and then a roof is even more thinner. And it was nice that they left all these layers exposed because it's quite interesting in a walk down that we have seen. So it started to use this kind of a little lady idea into our buildings as well. So that's how the building started to work or look like. And again, this whole building was constructed in like eight months. We have to resolve all the ideas. So wherever in the western other parts, we had to give deep overheads to consider for heat generated the energy between these surfaces. And this is the western part. So we don't have windows and windows open on the other side. Again, here gardens, wherever there are, all the killer garden has their own little garden. So all that kind of opens up again to cut and add security ideas. So the building starts to look like. So this is the interior space. Right now, we have another phase two here, which is equally or bigger than this space and both connects and it's much nicer now. I can share it maybe in a month when the entire construction is done. So this is a per-operated roof. It creates students between classes on other side times. It's like a nice, you know, kind of learning light and architecture in the class, between classes. So it's much interesting that like a regular, so we thought that's one that we tried here for the roofing and the spaces inside. These are, again, kindergarten classes. Like I mentioned, all classes that interconnected, we try our best to less, you know, visually connect any chances for abuse and other all stops could be kind of monitored even if one is not there. Take care of minimum storage. So the Jali is where we have all the windows. We try to avoid metals and then kind of work with terracotta and have the same language. This again reduces heat coming in and also ties in the language of the building. We work for the local mold which we developed. That's how the space inside looks like now. And this is the stage again now, which we use that for all multi-purpose activity. All the activities that happen. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. I saw this project in art daily. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, this COVID that helps us because we were quite bad on social media publishing. So COVID kind of helped us in that time because we didn't have anything to do with the city. So we thought might as well start putting some of our work in. Right. It's beautiful. It shows a lot of culture and heritage and I think that's really important, especially in Asia where we're trying to have our own voice. Really great work. Okay, so the next speaker is me myself. I'm moderating myself. Hi, my name is Johnny. And there was green shirt soon. I think that's it. Oops. I just bought a new Mac. So it's time to change a little bit. Oh, no. Okay, give me a second. I'll jump back on very quick. While we wait for Johnny, I'd love to hear, I mean, your projects are so amazing, but so much of it is a reflection of the local conditions. And I'm just curious, like how has your training outside of your respective countries sort of helped inform or prepare you for, for what is very regional? Yeah. Thanks for that question. No, actually, the idea that we learned there was more on the whole idea to have an interesting idea and getting realized it without diluting over the period of because of necessary budget costing estimate. So because the firm where it was also was very attributed to a sustainable solution towards climate and the intent was always to realize it and not get lost in the process. So it kind of really helped us in, you know, to stick to your ideas till the end, whatever happens. So we took that as a base and then kind of try to do with the same over here with same sincerity and budget in local climate that you've been studying. So I thought to be quite climate sensitive over there also. So we kind of extending the same when we're doing a project in here or anywhere else. Thank you. I mean, the campus is absolutely gorgeous. I didn't realize Johnny was going to be back so quickly by Carl or Abdullah if you had anything to add to that. And then we can move on to Johnny. I just want to say that, you know, the one thing that at least I personally learned at the GSAP is that, you know, half the things that you think that you should not be thinking about. I think graduate school and good professors teach you that, you know, you can think about anything and keep testing it out till you yourself are convinced that it's a bad idea. And then you pick and choose between the good ones and the bad ones. So it was that that moment of, I don't know at which point you reached that moment. Maybe it takes sometimes it can take a decade to reach that moment of understanding not to feel scared to test out any idea. At least personally, that's what I learned at Columbia. Abdullah, did you have something to add? No, sorry. I was away for a few moments. I was just remarking how amazing your projects were, but they were so reliant on the local conditions for their success and how learning brought has been able to prepare you to work locally. And so far we've heard personal conviction and, you know, being able to test out and be experimental in your design. I think that the knowledge we got from GSAP and also we also worked on projects that are outside the U.S. and so on, even through the education. I think that that would give us good tools to to navigate projects in different context or different location and so on and try to understand sometimes very quickly because you have a competition with a type that line. You need to understand what's really happening in a very short time to be able to design and have something that's actually relevant to the place you're designing to. So I think it's, I think that's one aspect of it, that everything has become more global, more international. Everyone is, like even I'm in the UAE, when I'm competing in local competition for even sometimes small projects, there are people who are abroad also competing. So that's where everything is becoming more global international. You need to be able to think quickly to really tackle different issues. Right. The cultural competency that may be being in a very diverse classroom has helped. But yeah, I mean, I want to move on to Johnny's presentation, but that just brings to mind that our incoming classes actually represents 50 different countries this year. So we're really excited about the global perspective in the classroom and having this symposium represent the alumni community so well. So thank you and Johnny. Okay, let's hope this works. Let me try. Let me know if it doesn't. I guess it's sharing. So good. Looks great. It's good. Okay, perfect. I'll tell myself in a moderate. I got to keep on time. Okay, great. Really super, super happy to be with everyone. I think the 15 years. I'm also very surprised of all my colleagues and teams, what they have been doing. Yeah, so I'll head into the presentation straight away. It's been 15 years since our graduation started all in New York, Columbia University, and what a 15 year it has been. I was digging up some old photos of us as 15 years back. This was a beautiful collaboration discussion and throwing ideas around with everyone. And most importantly the parties parties. I think I remember it happened on the Friday night right and then also the parties at home. So, yeah, don't forget that. These are most memorable moments. I always thought, I always thought I was staying in the US or go to England or back to Japan back to the Australia. But it was not until an illness that really capture me that removed me from all the physical abilities and literally just allow me not to go anywhere and just stay in the hospital bed. So unfortunately, life didn't go as planned after two years in New York. I had to go back to Taiwan for some treatments. And was during the treatments. I got known by my ex-employee that the ex-employer that he was doing a competition and he wanted me to join him. I don't know what better way to spend the hospital bed than to draw some 3D models and do some drawings. So there we go. So I started to do sketches 3Ds and presentations and submitted the competition. And then two months later, we won the competition and now it's the sits in New Taipei City. It's for Taipei University Library. It was a really cool thing for me because somehow it led me to believe that Taiwan government and the Taiwan environment has this ability to innovate itself and be better than it was. It was so, so before. And so I really had this confidence that I should come back to Taiwan and build my company, which is JC architecture. And then I invited my girlfriend and now wife to join the company. So we're about 10, 11 years in and with about 25 staff. In the beginning was really hard struggles because I was trying to bring in all these experience and learnings and cultural things from the West. And so there was a very big clash of communication ideas between all my clients. Everything about here is about time and constraint and budget. So after a few years we understand rather than using a Western mentality best do something that the Taiwanese time clients can understand that's talk about language of time and budget. And how can we design faster and cheaper. Okay, so there are a couple of breakthroughs. I don't have any huge projects, like my previous colleagues, but I want to show like how fun and the kind of interesting projects that we are testing and prototyping in Taiwan. So, let's say this was one of the first projects that allow us to speak to an international audience. I mean, at that time when we was in 2012. At that time when we got into our daily was like, yeah, we made it. It was quite fun. It's a very tiny project from 45 square meters was for cupcake store. And so we thought about no cupcakes can we use the idea of folding to create the shop itself. So basically we show the client that okay let's fold it with show the client let's fold this shop like this. And so on the left is the actual cupcake box and on the right is how we did the model. So the two languages after completion shares the same denominator that when you walk into the store you can feel the idea that we want to encapsulate inside the shop. So everything was was done. Very quickly day one, day 10, day 27 finished voila. And the clients was pretty happy. I mean there was a lot of ideas about how to save budget and time on this project. For example, if I use this thin board and we folded up, we create a nice shop. But what's more interesting is, we allow for everything to be white. That means picking the materials easy. So we had to do a short front and discuss what the shop fund elevation was. Plain piece of glass that extruded to the street facade and voila becomes a little icon and symbol on the streets. But wow, this idea of thin is becoming very interesting. Everything in Taiwan has some kind of that history of being fast and cheaper. And so like though these advertising boards, or these canopies is plastic. And we got really it relates to less is question about, you know, how do we use heritage and how do you what do we think about joining a volume. Volume volume. Am I speaking to to soft. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Okay. So yeah, we wanted to test these ideas of the thin so for example this paper church. Why not we tried and test that. And so the idea of manufacturing and testing came into our head. And so with this next project co happier cafe with only $4,000 so $10 per square meter. We got the we got the idea of, if we you can, if we can use the idea of paper to build the space that we can express ourselves as well. It also happens to be in the library. So we bought these giant huge rows of paper. And then we started to test, is it possible to use paper, is it possible to use paper, and to build a space, or the paper rip itself, or the paper, you know, as much. So we, we, we love these ideas of testing and we started to play around with it. We started to draw shapes in terms of the different functionality to spaces. And then we test it out in real time. So this is a final result of the happier cafe space, and then people were starting to write and dance and express themselves inside. We were then also invited to Tokyo with this, this project. And then we were having a even bigger site, we were able to work with very big brands like BNB Italia so this very cheap idea, a very fast idea, working with the best furniture makers in the world. It's really crazy and astonishing to me. The practice trace the architecture. It's really a lot of ideas of testing the possible productions and material ideas and technologies that we can source locally in Taiwan, and then try to push the boundaries in terms of design and spatial ideas. The next project is again a tiny one is the fine art museum in Taipei. It's built in the 70s. It's a really, really tiny shop, but because the building itself is built in the 70s and the architect use the idea of metabolism. So we also wanted to see, is it possible to extend the shop beyond this tiny little room. Is it possible that we use the metabolism ideas and push forward the living machine idea so that the shop expands into the giant lobby area. Again, we do it all prototyping and testing inside factories that only 20, 20 minutes away. So it's kind of the idea that we set the garage idea in the Silicon Valley with test a lot of things inside a little factory. And then, yeah, we try it for example this is a sitting test idea. We wanted to the shop to go 4.6 meter into the space. We needed to test as a possible to have this length, but without any deflection. As you can see the testing works with very small deflection. We spent about two weeks to fill out the shops, and it's now becoming one of the tourist attractions. It's very simple concept 4.6 meter shelf able to rotate it inside the space. There was a very exciting moment when I had to jump onto the shelf in front of all the media and the press, and we have models working up and down. Just to test the structural integrity of this, the shop. I want to quickly share it's the most fun project exciting project for me. Last year, 2019. Two years ago, the Taiwanese railway trend designed a train like this, crazy blue seeding and little colorful flower petals and blue ground and like crazy lighting and like almost like a hospital right. So, we were all very sad and we wanted to propose an idea of a redesign of the train. We call it the moving beauty that we literally wanted to encapsulate all the Taiwanese landscape beauty into the train, maybe by removing all the various from the inside to the outside. So it's a train moves. There's a lot of connection between what we see outside and what we actually feel and smell and eats again. So that was it. We proposed the idea. And we want the bidding. And yeah, this is the locomotive design. It was a design process about seven months, two months design five, five months construction. And the beauty of it is not using a new train is using a 70 year old train that try to also encapsulate a lot of the culture and the heritage of the old train itself, and making this train, the tourist train around Taiwan. And this finally revealed to the public in December 31, 2020. So I don't know my boy's dream was to post designing transportation. So this was a really crazy dream project. And now I'm more bigger appetites, designing a yacht, designing a plane or even a rocket. And my first yacht design was also just revealed about a month ago. Yeah, so a lot of opportunities in Taiwan and we really want to capture everything, but allow me just 30 seconds more. I want to share a program that we've been doing is called out scholarship. It's kind of after the kidney fund that the Columbia gave it to us for us to travel and learn new experience so when I came back to Taiwan 13 years ago. I also wanted to do something similar so we provide also each students $3,300 for Taiwanese students to travel around the world and also for foreign students to come to Taiwan. And so there's a different exchange on culture on knowledge and on works experience. So if you have students or if you are students yourself, welcome to participate in this award, and, and that's exchange interact. Thank you. It took a little bit longer than amazing stuff Johnny. So, I mean we are the we're the lucky group we are a little bit. I mean, we only have five. But I guess we we can spend a little time if there's no questions we can spend a little time to talk about cultural aspects talk about. Yeah, like Leslie was asking what Columbia has taught us. I'm really glad that because a lot of our sorry Johnny. Go ahead. The lot of our audience is current students and incoming students, as well as alumni. And of course our alumni are already in practice but I think there's a lot of curiosity. Because our student population is so global. How that translates to working both in New York as an international graduate but also bring that sort of way of thinking. Back to their countries of origin. So that's where that that question came from but I also wanted to mention that Johnny is the new president of the CAA Taiwan. So, any questions about transitioning to the alumni community he's also available for that so we don't have any questions right now but Johnny maybe you have one for for the cohort here. I mean it's 9pm here so I thought maybe we can start with a happy hour I don't know if everyone has a drink on the hand. That's for Friday's Johnny. Beautiful whiskey in Taiwan called Kavalon tastes like chocolate. No, it's really great because Columbia allow us to to have friends over the world and I think that's the most beautiful part so whenever we go whenever we want to collaborate and share ideas. I think that's what Columbia taught us not to be afraid and also push forward also I always tell my students, Columbia gave us 30 years of education to see the future. So we use up 15 years, we have 15 more years and then we have to go back to school. Yeah, but yeah so I think my biggest hurdle coming back from Columbia was to actually use that language with my clients. Like I said in the presentation I had a lot of struggles but eventually I find the methodology and the procedures. That was taught in Columbia was very useful for me that if I don't, if I if I sorry if I use that methodology to rethink my thinking process, but inserts the local ideas and culture and heritage and memories. It allows me to speak to my client in local way, but also allows my work to speak into an international audience in a way that it's not only Western and Western is really Taiwanese and Western and I think that's what's beautiful about me coming back here I don't know about your experience. Would you like to share some ideas. I don't coming here. So, I think Johnny you said the right thing that you know, at the start, you try and implement, you know what you've learned and what you think is the right idea, but very quickly you sort of come back to, you know, level, and you realize that you need to implement your ideas while communicating it in a certain way. And that's also one of the things that Columbia did teach us that the crits are quite tough. And, you know, you have to get your ideas communicated in a way that the person that you expect to receive your idea understands it. So there's the idea and then there's the communication and then how do you bring the two together. Coming from, you know, starting, starting life in, in this part of the world and then learning in another part of the world and then coming back, thinking you know everything and then realizing that you actually don't. And then you sort of put it all together and try and forge a, you know, some kind of understanding of it is a slow journey that can only be gathered through experience. This way, you know, like you talked earlier about the 30 years, I thought it's even more than that because it kind of, you know, kind of opened up all the opportunities. Like this was great in the sense that it doesn't direct you in one particular mode of architecture or one particular idea. It kind of lets you do whatever you want in any medium at that point. And all kind of architecture were kind of given equal importance and exposure to every one. So that's, I thought it was like migrating and opened up all the ideas coming from India. We were little enclosed or traditional in some certain ways of thinking. And I thought that kind of opened up, gave us limitless opportunities to any design. And I would credit a lot of that kind of thinking process really started after the Columbia. And the next thing was like Carl, if you have mentioned, to communicate those ideas, to get a friend of an audience and get your idea communicated. Which I thought I was kind of lacking back then and trying to still learn that process like you mentioned. But I really thought that this school really helped us to open up and doesn't limit our thinking and kind of then get it done with a good idea of making it happen. Really pushed us and I thought that was very, very critical at that point. And it's still getting benefited from that exposure and that opening up. Abdullah, you want to add anything? For me, it's actually a little bit different from in the sense that the population of the UAE is about 10 million. Only 1 million is actually a local population. So during our education, even in the UAE, basically all the faculty were non-immigrant teams. So the studios in the UAE and even in New York, in terms of the way of communication and ideas and so on, it has been taught by someone who was not living in the UAE, not lived in the UAE for a long time. So in terms of communication language, it's a continuation of the same trend. But what was the challenge for me was I went and studied abroad at one of the top universities in the world and then I come back. So how do you show that or how do they accept that? Because for example, when I go to a client to present it, whether it's public or private client, the first thing he would ask me, who is in your team? Who else is in your team? What nationalities are working with you? At least at some point in the office, I was the most qualified person in the office, but they don't see that. Okay, you can work with this person and see what you get. So they started working with that architect in the office and so on. And then Abdullah, the result was not the same. Now I know that it's your input that's important to me. So that's not easy to get through. So that's one of the difficulties. Another thing also, this also our population is limited, is having a majority to actually doing, actually have their own office, running their own practice and actually designing. It can be counted on two hands. It's not that much of an empire. A lot of them go into public sector or private sector. They do have their own businesses, but they're not as involved. So that I think that was coming from abroad and showing that. Great, I understand your point. We have one questions from net. Where do you feel there's more creative freedom as designers in public architectural privates or developers, and which clients are more receptive to your thoughts. Do you want to take it away. What do you say Johnny. There's a question from connects. What was, I think what's your answer. Oh, what's my answer. Well, I think, I mean, I don't think there's any client. I mean, because this is a recorded session so I can only answer in the very political voice. We all has a balance. I mean, we do public works to really help the society, and we do private works and look for private clients that look that understand who we are. And so it's very important for us to choose the right clients who are listening to our voice. Of course, they are money making projects. They're also PR projects, but we try to stand ground and not just say yes to everything we try to do what we like to do. And after 10 years, 11 years, we now have our own voice and so the right clients seek us. And then now so now it's much more easier down the line that we know they like our work and then so we help them with the designs. Okay, so. For us, it was a struggle initially, like the kind of like the convey ideas and things like that. But once you kind of go through the process and get some of your buildings built, please in India then you kind of start to get a little bit more of what you want. The earlier part was really tough. I think how would be easier because they have a huge project and they have a lot of experience of handling them. We use like the bigger project and if you want to try something new, unless you haven't done something on a similar scale, it gets really tough to convince people back. I think now we started building and getting things done. I think the client is getting a little bit more than, you know, designs are getting realized a little bit more than how it was earlier. I think the answer that person only ways to start building the way we want and slowly you can start getting people to let us do what we want. I guess that's the way that we are at least finding it happening for us. So if you want to share anything, then we'll wrap it up for you guys. It depends on the personality of the person I'm dealing with whether it's private or public. We have some public clients who basically want the project to finish quickly so they're not going to pick on everything as long as the overall vision is fine and then things go really quickly actually after that. And then actually we'll take in every single square meter you have in the design making sure we're not wasting public money on some extra we actually can avoid. And I think, as Johnny said, once you start building a name then you start to just more than new ideas. I mean also the biggest difference of the client who comes because you think you're the I believe the right firm for them or designer for them and there's a client who just listen here that you're a good firm and come to you. I think there's a very big difference between those two. In terms of accepting your ideas and and building them. I think what I'd like to say as an answer to that question is that projects that come through, you know, your door through repeat clients and stuff like that. There's always going to be some amount of limited freedom. At least in my personal experience and at our firm, what we try and do is, you know, once in a year, at least do two competitions, because that's the only way you can express yourself fully. And whether you win or lose doesn't matter because you're doing it for yourself. If the client picks you as the winning entry, then you kind of got what you wanted in the first place. So it's very important to do competitions, not just for your own satisfaction, but also to at least we feel so to keep the studio nice and tight and sort of activated and not get lazy. And that's one thing we learned at Columbia that you know you've got to continuously compete and better yourself and that's the only thing that you know that's the way to get the best out of this. Very beautiful. Yeah. I got to do more competitions as well. I got to stop making money. Okay, it's great. I think, I think Asia is the next frontier. We are very lucky in Asia to continue to have projects and discussions and in collaboration. So, I'm sure all of us are very receptive to students wanting to come to Asia and work with us. And, well, we welcome you guys. The next session is in 12. 12 p.m. your time New York time. And we look forward to seeing you there. Thanks again to all the speakers. It was really great to see you guys and push Carl Abdullah. I hope we can do this soon again. Thank you guys. Thank you Leslie. Thanks Leslie. Thanks for putting this together. Thank you so much. Bye everyone. Bye.