Sydney Architecture: The Apartment I'm Living In

The apartment I’m living in is called the Acacia Gardens. I cannot find out when is it built, but I guess it was built in later 2005 considering to its new walls and rooming style.

The Garden is divided into 4 blocks, and the garage underground connects all the blocks. The apartment building was made of cement and steels as exterior and the basement of the building is on a rump. It made good use of the rump as the lower part is built as the garage and the upper part used as apartment rooms.

It is designed according to the modern style of building, mostly using black white and orange colors with big windows and glass gateways, which is simple and convenient. Because the building is pretty new and functional, it is still fitted into the buildings which people nowadays would need, new, enough lighting and convenience to go in and out. The apartment is also related to the environment because it is near the city, so some tall modern style of architecture design is not standing out too much.

 
As a person living in the building, I feel really comfortable and convenient here.

Design in women's clothing

As I previously talked about the dress Sonia wore when I went to the Power House Museum and wrote the review, In this blog I’m going to talk more about design in women’s clothing and how it is changed in Australia. From old 19^th century, woman used to wear dresses that were designer in fancy shape but pale, simple colors. Women who came from wealth families don’t really work, and were dressing totally different from the women who lived and worked on farms or in the woods. The other women are wearing short dresses or pants combining blouse to make working easier. (what are wealth 19th century women wore like, image from: http://www.kristenkoster.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/shawls.jpg)

After fashion is developing rapidly in late 20^th century, women are wearing more different clothing. They have more choices, and they are braver to show themselves. We can see from the dress been worn by Sonia McMahon and Madonna’s cone bra. This shows the society’s attitude is becoming more open minded.(Picture is Madonna's cone bra, image from: http://www.whatsabouttown.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/madonna-conical-bra.jpg)

After late 20^th century until now, people are caring more about comfortable and quality rather than styles. More clothing that are beautiful in quality also has multiple functions is been designed and been welcomed to the world. (New functional women's clothing nowadays, image from: http://www.thefemalegene.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Working-women-get-an-innovative-and-multi-functional-clothing-line.jpg)

Sub Cultural Style

About the sub cultural style

Sub cultural style nowadays is making greater impact on teenagers’ thoughts and behaviors. It includes the dress way of Punk, Hip Hop, gothic, indie, surfer, skater, cyber punk etc. 

People who keen on those wearing styles are always considered to be strange, wired or out of tune. They maybe get misunderstood by the main string, but they are also seeking a way of themselves and for the unique culture type they believe and fight for. I'm going to be focused on Hip Hop the style.  For example, those Hip Hoppers always wear snapbacks or fitted hats, big tee, big pants and sneakers. 

Because hip Hop culture is based among all the black people in the States or Africa, and many of them don’t really have a peaceful life. However they still have faith in their heart to live and move on. Many of the hip hoppers are tattooed, and keen on weed and alcohol. They have a dream in their mind of becoming wealth; they also have anger in their mind of the unfair situations happening all around themselves. They are good at showing their expressions by the music style of rapping.  (Fitted hat, Oversized pullover, skinny, and sneakers, signs of typical Hip Hopper dressing. Shot at Starbucks Haymarket) (Picture below is Jay Z wearing a typical Hip Hop artist style hat, chainz, camo large pants and a pair of timberland work boots. image from: http://www.donbleek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/jayskylar2.jpg)

 

Power House Museum Tour

Power House Museum Exhibition

One piece of the exhibits that gave me a really deep impression is the piece of dress worn by the wife of the Prime Minister William McMahon, Sonia when she first met the president of the United States, Nixon in 1971.

The piece of dress which split the thigh on both sides was design by Victoria Cascajo, and it is very limited one of two of the style designed by this designer.

In this unique dress, we can recognize it among all the designer clothing because it is in the color of shiny white and it is smooth because both of the design and the material used are special.

Sonia then remembered the experience of wearing the dress. “Sick of the normal frilly, frothy things” after she wore the dress, she thought the world knew where Australia is. World is talking about the dress as it is elegance, simple sexy and with a Spanish sensibility.

Sonia chose to wear the dress because it is unique in design, also it is able to convey the idea of confidence in woman. It is telling people that the dress owner if a self confident woman with power and intelligence. And the design idea has affected lot of fashion designer later as more and more celebrities would bravely show their perfect body curves and shapes by wearing these designer clothing. (image below shows how did Sonia's dress was like. image from: http://images.smh.com.au/2010/04/03/1286108/420-sonia-mcmahon-dress-420x0.jpg)

My Understanding of Design HIstory

-       What is Design History?

  In my opinion, Design history can be defined as the process of people seeking for a better way to live our lives. It is a pathway to approve the perfection of the world around us. It is influencing people’s understanding of everyday life. It creates fashion, graphs, industrial products, crafts and art works and a lot more. Our lives are based on design and from the world is created it brought a huge change which still affects nowadays.

 

-       About my favorite design style and designer.

 My favorite designer is Tinker Hatfield, who is the chief designer of the sport wear brand Nike and Jordan Brand. He is considered to be the first person to change the sneaker and sport wear market, changing sneakers from sport equipment to an adorable and stylish fashion trademark. (In the picture below on the left is Tinker, and the black man on the side is the basketball legend, Micheal Jordan, image from: http://www.zackhackett.com/contentCLOSEups/web_design/WEbsites/tinker_porto/images/mj_and_tinker.jpg)

-       What I admire about Tinker?

 Tinker is a pioneer in the field of sneaker design. He is the first shoe designer who pushes out the design theory of fusion and crossovers. In his designs, he put animal prints like elephant prints and other fashion elements into sport shoes, and making the shape of shoes looks like fighter jets. Streamlining design has affected his works. He put air bags at the back of shoes so people can feel more comfortable when wearing them sporting. All of the design elements he has used on sneakers is a first that nobody else don’t even think of before. 
(Below is the Air Jordan 3 sneaker which changed the shoe game and the market that time, using elephant print and air bag at the back, image from:http://s3.amazonaws.com/nk_wp_media/uploads/2011/10/air-jordan-iii-black-cement-official-images-2.jpeg)

-       What am I interest in learning Design History?

 I think the most important thing I can learn from design history is the knowledge about how designers come up with their ideas by observing the world around them and thinking more than normal people who won’t be aware of. Designers before were full of passion and ideas to make a set of ideas into reality. There is some magic power in design the subject that has the power to change people’s life. I really want to earn all the skills by studying more about the course and achieve more goals based on my ideas.