Library @ Orchard

I went to Orchard Gateway (again) and I found this super cool library. This is called Library @ Orchard, under the National Library. Unlike other libraries which usually have dull or old fashioned structure with a lot of books, this library had fascinating design that can change your mindset about old-fashioned library. These are some cool stuffs that I wanna share from the library.

I entered the library from third floor, and I saw this computer. The interesting thing is that we can scan the book that we want to borrow on the black board under the table. In my country, usually the librarians scan the book manually for us. So, that's why I think this is really cool!

When I walked inside, I found out that the ceiling also have amazing design like the picture above. I cannot describe the shape or something from the ceiling, but well, this is a ceiling of a library, and this is totally awesome and unusual even for common ceilings.

The picture above is magazine shelves. I thought it was only showing magazines covers, but then I saw a visitor pull the cover place and hola! There are a lot of magazines inside. 

As I walked through, I found this CD's shelves. I think is an example of creative design as the shelf itself has a aesthetic shape and we can put the CD's inside each layer.

When I went to lever two, I just realized the shape of the book shelves are interesting! Unlike the other book shelves which usually plain, monotone, or straight shape, this shelves have curve shape! From above it is a really cool thing to see and the design is also interesting!

 Last but not least, I found this reading seat. I think this seat is well designed because it kind of give some privacy to someone who sit there. As you can see, the design is like a secret chamber, which from one side you think its only like decoration, and you cannot see whether its a reading seat or maybe someone is sitting there ( the left picture). However, when I saw from the front, I just know that it is actually a chair. Well, this is very suitable for the readers as usually people don't like to be disturbed when they read something, especially in the library LOL.

Eat and Eat

To celebrate my last day of holiday, last Monday I went out to eat with my friends. I found two interesting places with unique concept of dining.

1. Nando's

The thing that I found interesting is the dish. It is because they use uncommon way of servings. Usually, other restaurants grill the chicken and use put it on the stick as decoration and serve it on a plate. However, instead of putting the stick on the plate, they even hang the stick. I think this is really creative as they think out of the box to serve this grilled chicken perfectly.

2. Food Opera (ION)

Different from Nando's, the things that attract my attention is not the food, but the decoration of the food hall. It have a lot of unique decorations, which I will show you below.

Thousands of Faces

The faces are really artistic and some may have funny faces. But the interesting part is a food hall can have this kind of decoration, and I think those faces can amuse people who are eating there with unique yet funny expressions. While sitting, I can feel those faces are looking at me, and it kind of give strange feeling though, lol.

Dining Equipments in Frame

This decoration is really suitable for a food hall as it has complete set of dining properties, like bowls, spoons forks, plates, etc. However, they are not ordinary dining equipments; they are put on a frame. Giving the vibes of a painting, this decoration kind of have 3D effects on it. I think it is really creative because rather than using a paintings or pictures of dining equipments, they kind of use the real one, and put it in a frame. 

Wooden Horse

When I was about to go back, I found this 'wooden' horse. Different from the usual wooden horse for children's toys, it is bunch of woods that forming a horse. This is really amazing as the woods can be piled up and formed into a horse perfectly. It gives more like natural feeling while seeing this horse, as it is made of fresh woods and I kind of accompanied by the horse and other free animal in this food hall.

Happy SG 50

Happy 50th birthday Singapore!! Singapore had its golden jubilee last Sunday, August 9th 2015. Because of Singapore turned 50, there were a lot of spectacular promo and events on that day. Here's are some interesting things that coloring the important day.

1. Free Rides
Well, I don't really know whether last year Singapore also gives free rides (because its my first year in Singapore), I find this thing is really interesting. We could go anywhere or everywhere we want that day, but of course, most people would go to Marina Bay LOL. No wonder why the streets were very, or extremely quiet, with only one or two cars went by, and it is very rare happenings in Singapore. I used the MRT to go to Marina Bay, and you can imagine what happened next. Tons of people got off in Marina Bay station, and we could barely move already.  Then, I decided to go to Raffles Place MRT and directly went to Merlion Park.

2. National Flag on the Sky
Finally I could reach the Merlion Park and helicopters sound welcomed me. Then I saw three helicopters with one of it bringing the national flag all around the sky. I found it really interesting, cool and beautiful as it is very rare to see this kind of moments; when you see the national flag flying around up in the sky with helicopters. It surprisingly had good vibes from the spectators, as all the people down here cheered when those helicopters fly off.

3. The Black Knights
Later after the helicopters, the Black Knights finally showed up with excellent entrance. They directly attracted attention with their machine sound, then showed off their perfect formation. The most interesting one is the '50' as the formation, and even the distance between one jet to another is so perfect. Beside, it is also great and creative idea to make this formation, as it is different from ordinary jet formations like the first picture.

4. Fireworks

All people already said that the fireworks would be really spectacular and amazing, and indeed. The fireworks kept on going from the water, buildings, up to the night sky. For few minutes, the sky changed into red with colorful lights on it. The interesting part was the Marina Bay feels like burnt out and surrounded with fireworks and colors; the area feels like come to life and follow people celebrating SG 50.

5. The Flowers

At night after watching the fireworks for limited of time (I went back early so that I could avoid tons of people), I went to Orchard looking for dinner. Then I found this flower, forming SG 50 beautifully. It is really creative as even flowers can be formed into SG 50 and it makes me think that flowers can even celebrate SG 50.

In my opinion the celebration of SG 50 is really amazing. I can see a lot of new things like free rides, black knights (showing off their skills). or even stand in the middle of thousands people in Marina Bay. It has the feeling that everybody, or every aspect of Singapore celebrate its 50 birthday. It is really different with my country's celebration, which usually we only have ceremony at school or watch the national ceremony from TV. Nothing special like air force or the national flag flying around the city, or even fireworks. So, I think Singapore is really creative in finding ways of celebrating its golden jubilee and indeed did a good job.

Brainstorming

Last week my group having brainstorming from our lecture. There are a lot of choices, around 10 choices, and each group should chose one. In the end, my group chose how to use an umbrella and we should find 101 ways to use it. We drew the ways to use it using color markers in a mahjong papers. For the first 20-30 ways we didn't find any difficulties and the idea kept on flowing. However, for the next 40 we kind of stuck. Then, crazy and impossible ideas started to come in, and we just drew all of those crazy ideas as our lecture said that there was no right and wrong ideas for brainstorming. Few minutes later, finally we could finish 101 ways to use an umbrella.

This is our brainstorming result

This brainstorming activity is really fun and full of excitement as I can explore and develop uncommon or crazy ideas and not afraid whether it is wrong, dull or something. I can increase my creativity if I do this for many times, as great innovations mostly come from creativity or out of the box ideas. 

The Exceptional Mall - Orchard Gateway

I went to Orchard Gateway last time and I found this mall is really cool and fancy. It does have not only great design on the outside, but also a lot cool and creative things in the inside. This is some things that I think interesting and creative enough.

The mall's design is already eye catching, because a lot of lights sparkle and forming patterns. This design is different with other common malls, which usually only plain walls or glasses. In the entrance we can see the escalator, with lights surround it. Its kind of feel like we are the spotlight and I think it is really cool!

 

When i got into the mall, there are a lot of sweet stands, and i found this umbrella. Different from others, there are water drops hanging on the umbrella, giving the sense of raining. I found it cute and uncommon thing so I took the picture LOL. 

I kept on walking and these two chair caught my attention. Yes, those two are chairs. I never thought that chairs can have designs like hand watch or sunglasses. Besides, they are placed in the middle of a mall. WOW. Whoever made this, I give two thumbs up!

As I found this mall interesting, I decided to explore the basement also. Then... I found this!! I don't know whats the usage of this, but I think that makes the mall even interesting. I think this can be used as a good photo spot, LOL. I like how people design the wall by making it into a kind of houses with the doors and plants hanging around there.

I found this mall extraordinary as it showcases a lot of interesting things that I never found in malls, and I even don't think this Orchard Gateway as a mall HAHA. Besides, the design (both inside and outside) is reeeaaalllyyyy, underlined that, really amazing. Using a lot of colorful lights, it makes the mall become more interesting and eye catching.

5 Breaking the Rules Design - Philippe Starck

Philippe Starck is a well-known designer for his innovative and creative designs. These are 5 designs that i find interesting and 'rules breaker'. 

The chair looks like flower petals that starts to bloom. Besides, the bottom of the chair have no legs; instead, i have round shape ends. 

This stool also get my attention as different from other stools which usually have four legs, this stool only have three, and the legs are quite sharp and thin, especially on each ends and they all gathered into the center. Besides, the upper shape is also quite interesting. The seat is not flat as usual stool, and it doesn't have back rest; it only has hand hold one side.

This orange or lemon squeezer also very innovative as the legs are quite tall, enough to put on a glass under it. Besides, the squeezer's form looks like spider. The squeezer itself have sharp ends so that the juices can come down directly through the glass. 

It may looks like an ordinary table, but one thing that make it different is the legs. Usually, most tables have solid and straight legs, but this table's legs are all have a little bit bend and sharp ends, which look like horns. 

 Last but not least, the most interesting one is the famous scooter-bike. It is really breaking the rules as joining the bike and scooter into one form perfectly, and i think it is even more convenient and effective to use.

Good Spots on Marina Bay

Last Sunday, I went to Marina Bay areas with one of my friend to fill our spare times. Besides, we are also wanna explore new areas that we've never gone before.



First stop: Gardens by the Bay

Just as I arrived there, my eyes are locked into huge fascinating tower with plants as it decoration (as you can see on the picture above). I think this is really cool design where we can say it rare to have garden or plant themed towers. The towers are look like trees, with purple branches on the top and surrounded by plants by their bodies. Besides, they have bridges to connect one tower to another. If you try to walk on the bridge, you will see a very beautiful scenery of almost the whole gardens there. Cool right?

Second Stop: Marina Barrage 

Tim Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert - Creativity

Both Tim Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert bring the same topic or issue; it's all about creativity.

Tim Brown - Tales of Creativity and Play

Tim tells about strong connection between creativity and play, As people get older, they become too serious and afraid of other people's judgment. However, children freely play around in their trusted environments which help them to explore with less worries or fears. Thats why some famous firms like Google, Pixar, etc. make their workplace as comfy as possible, in order to make people more secure and relax to explore something innovative. He divides play into three types; exploration (exploring new things), building (making quick prototypes and thinking with our hands), role-playing (acting out through experience to develop empathy for the clients)

Elizabeth Gilbert - Your Elusive Creative Genius

Elizabeth emphasizes that someone with creativity is not 'being' genius, but actually everyone 'having' genius. Genius is not a rare person who born with creativity with him/her. Creativity and depression might be linked together, as people tend to compare your work with the most successful one, and if you don't satisfy them, it will be a hard time. Besides, in the past people thought that creativity is the work of magical or external being. As the time passed, people started to put out that magical creatures and called creative people as 'being' a genius. Then, those creative people became the center of universe. However, this is fully wrong idea as that put too much burden and bring depression towards that creative people. In everyday lives, sometimes we are visited by some elusive ideas, thoughts, and we should directly embrace them, not ignore them. Those elusive ideas is not only for artists, but also everyone including us.

In my opinion, these two videos are extremely helpful as I can open up my mind to new ways of thinking what is creative all about. Everyone do have creativity, and these two speakers tell how to embrace and also develop my creativity very well.

Creativity and Play

We've been thinking what is the connection between creativity and play. Is it true whether creativity comes out mostly when we're playing? The answer is yes.
Like most children, the will find hundreds or thousands ways to play with their toys, or even anything surround them. They will show their artwork, whether it is good or bad, to their parents, teachers, or maybe friends without hesitation. They don't have fear from other people's thinking or judges because they have trust and feel secure towards their trusted and comfy environments; that will encourage them to play more. Unlike children, adult tend to fear what other people think, whether they like or dislike it. That will make adults cannot explore more of chances, and afraid of discovering something new; instead they choose to edit things, not explore new things. Play gives us that secure and relax feeling, and when we relax we won't have any burden at all. Because of that, we can be easily engaged with new open possibilities and lead us to be more creative.

In my opinion, playfulness cannot be taught because playfulness is based on people's own mind, feeling, mood, or even thinking. There are no exact rules or study to playfulness. Besides, playfulness is also subjective. One person's playfulness doesn't mean other's playfulness. Playfulness will comes out when people enjoy the things they like; so people actually can make their own playfulness, not by being taught by other people.