李哲建
LI Zhejian
It has been approximately two months since I came back from German. I still miss themoments when I was accompanied by all those fellow buddies, classmates and teachers. I?m sure I would never forget those memories that I and Sven explored the site region to get a birdview photograph by climbing up onto the 32-floor high rise building and that we experienced the Berlin night life patterns by entering the famous market hall. Actually, from my perspective, such a Sino-German international studio enables me to perceive the world from a different pair of lenses and makes me more diverse and thoughtful.
Firstly, What profoundly exerts a great fascination on me is that by discussing fiercely with my studio partners, I could get closer to know what the kinds of foreign or international insights about urban development are. Just before the studio started, I held the belief that German are all very strict with survey methods or even almost everything. After I stayed with those German friends, I found that some beliefs were proved and some were not. Sometimes German were so rational, strictly follow the plans and steps they made, sometimes they were not, exposed enthusiasm and madness. That is the spirit what a designer or urban developer should have.
Secondly, the inter-disciplinary courses help me get a three-hundred and sixty angles view about how the urban issues develop. I have never paid attention to what needs emphases when a project moves to the practice process, whether we should take the local investment, public participation or the social surveys into consideration. Also, we need to balance all kinds of benefits to get to an ideal situation.
Finally, I really enjoy the field trips in Essen and some other cities. I still remembere we students had great fun in the Duisburg Landschaftspark. The renovation there brings people a positive public space, we could run, jog, meander or even sing in that free area. During the guided tours, we also got to know about what kinds of methodologies could do good to a historical heritage.
In all, thanks a lot for this international studio, we really appreciate that.