Today's Lecture: Space/Worlds by Dr. Zailan

Alright, so today Dr. Zailan touched on Space and Worlds. He gave us basic definitions of space and world. Here are a few:

Space;

- unused/unfilled gap or area between objects/points.

- unoccupied area or place available for use.

World;

- everything that exists in the universe.

- earth with all it's countries and peoples.

- heavenly body that may be like the earth.

He also touched on seen space and unseen space.

Unseen space was explained through a series of slides touching on personality, words and paradoxes of life. One example of life's paradox include the fact that we now have taller buildings but shorter tempers, and wider freeways but narrower view

points.

Seen Space was described through a series of slides as well, through some night vision photos, National Geographic photos and the most interesting of the lot, images of the building boom in Dubai.

Anyhow, I'm more interested to post up my thoughts and opinions on this matter as some of us were asked to share with the class our take and our understanding of what was presented by Dr. Zailan.

The Seen and Unseen Merging:

While it is good to take a look at visible space and invisible space as two separate entities, it is vital to look at it and make a connection between them as the two share a very special and important relationship. For example, an architect in designing visible space has to manipulate all that is within his/her invisible space to engage in the production of the aforementioned seen space. The visible space of his/her production is the extension of his/her invisible space.

So, now we or rather I, shall take a look at the offspring of my invisible space, and they are (just) questions. Maybe it will provoke some thoughts in you and challenge you to question certain events, or maybe you can provide me with some answers in reference to these questions:

Regarding Dubai's building boom,

isn't it just a big, fat waste of resources?

Do we really need all those elaborate and exaggerated entertainment, leisure and recreational centers?

Why isn't some of these resources used to build homes for the homeless instead?

How does the act of the rich affect the poor? Will these mega structures give a chance to the poor to change their fate or will it oppress them further?

I think the biggest question here is, why does Dubai use so much money to build empty buildings to be filled, and not use that same money to fill already existent empty stomachs and souls?

Give it some thought.

Let not your mind be chained by conformity.

May the grace of God be with you,

Stephanie J.