Architectural Cast Glass in the World Financial Center. The Park Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai boasts the highest hotel in the World. It is a stunning building. The building is perfect in the mysterious Shanghai night.
The entrance lobby is simple with architectural cast glass. The glass is clear with some motion in the waves and texture.
The Elevator cases have a brightly lit cast glass header. There is some beautiful Chinese modern sculpture.
We can feel that there is something special in the lobby by the sounds of the air in the elevator shaft.
Once you are in the elevator the motion is very soft. The elevator is the fastest in the world. From the first floor to the 92 floor only takes moments. The major feature is a red lantern light.
Once you reach the lobby floor for the Hotel. The first striking features are the architectural cast glass panel. The surface is a complex clear glass texture.
The face is fractured planes; the planes are organic as if they were formed deep underground. The lights are purple and from behind. The view to the outside is dramatic, with glimpses of the Jin Mao Tower below. The combination at night with mysterious fog, enveloping the Tower and the Purple refractive cast glass panels is incredible.
Reminds me of starry nights staring at the Milky Way.
The open plan exposes the core of the building. The wall decorations are mostly architectural Cast Glass panels. The Open Kitchen has White Cast Glass Panels. Enjoy the beautiful Toni Chi design at the top of the world. Contact us at East Asia Portal, Ltd for Architectural Cast Glass
New York City is an excellent place to poke around and find excellent examples of Architectural Cast Glass. In, November 2009 I was working on a Architectural Cast Glass Project and since I had jet lag I was walking around at 5:00 am admiring the architecture. While I was walking down 145 West 44th Street, an amazing piece of Architectural Cast Glass caught my eye.
The Woman Eating Grapes
Lalique Women Eating Grapes with Man Playing Flute, Architectural Cast Glass
Lalique Women Eating Grapes, Architectural Cast Glass
Lalique Man Playing Lute, Architectural Cast Glass
LaLique Women Arms up Man Playing Flute
The stunning piece is of a woman eating grapes while a man plays the flute. A dove is flying and the grapes frame the scene. Nature worship is a theme of Lalique. There is an exquisite beauty in the movement of the figurines. The Art Nouveau lightning bolt hair and the bountiful grapes. I imagine Aphrodite and Pan playing the lute. Lalique is the master glassmaster from the 20th Century. Lalique was not only famous for his exquisite Jewelry, but for his Architectural Cast Glass.
Lalique Dragonfly Woman
The Lalique Millennium Hotel piece is frosted glass blocks. The relief on both sides. The glass is in excellent condition, the caulking between the cast glass is showing some age, and should be restored. There was a couch that was back up against the glass on the lounge side. I advised the security guards on duty to keep the piece better protected.
This is a treasure and is museum quality. Considering that collectors pay millions of dollars for Lalique`s work it is great we can walk in and see it easily. Stop by the lobby of the Millennium Hotel and enjoy! Or watch the home movie.
Introduction to PartIII Future Visualization of People’s Influence on Projects
In Part I we looked at Social Networking, In Part II is an evaluation of current visualizations. The point has been made that we can use the enormous visual bandwidth to think. Part III is going to add some more evaluations of current Visualizations and Conclude with an example of how we can use existing open tools to gather and visualize data for our projects.
Evaulations of Current Visualization Technology
First we all know there is no escape to Death and Taxes, so where does the US taxpayer money go? If you don’t know than glance at the US Budget 2009. Or how about a real time map of US Stimulus Spending.
A 3 dimensional visualization of semantic language is the “Visual Thesaurus” . This Thesaurus is novel because it allows us to locate words that are related in terms of closeness in 3-d, we can browse and explore them in a very intuitive fashion. There are many other proprietary solutions Tableau Software is very interesting. It has the ability to combine data from many different sources for example spreadsheets and databases, the output is very nice. You can publish interactive visualizations to the web. This software shows great promise for the enterprise user due to the powerful combination. You can download a free trial.
Part II Lets Visualize Peoples Influence on Projects
Dynamic Interactive Visualizations
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) 'The eye, the window of the soul is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely sense and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature
In Part I of this series on visualizations we developed a compelling reason how success is related to our people. To summarize: Success is related to peoples connections to each other, not only their connections but the critical core connections, the quality of those connections and the ownership of those connections. In the second part we are going to delve deeper into the current technology for visualizing information.
The purpose of this Part II blog post is to evaluate current visualization and interaction techniques. Dynamic Interactive Visualization will allow us to abstract the information, effectively analyze data and make decisions. This is an area that is undergoing tectonic shifts and new techniques are evolving every day.
In 2009 we are living in uncertain times. Still, we need to find competitive advantages. Continuous innovation is a tool to create knowledge. We as Project Managers need to understand people and their relationship to success.
People are connected to Project Success
Specifically, we need to understand the people that are connected and critical. The problems we face is complexity. Complicated projects span countries, time zones and cultures. As Project Managers we need to set a goal to expand our knowledge. We have to develop an artifact that dynamically communicates peoples hidden relationships in an explicit visual image. How can we do this? We are going to explore. First, where is mankind in terms of social networking? Second, visualizing social networks. Finally, what would be the ideal solution for Project Managers.
Ryoan-ji or ” The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon” is on the north-western edge of Kyoto. When we walk into Ryoan-ji temple grounds, we can feel peace because it is nestled in the trees and mountains. We can stroll along the 600 year old paths beneath cherry trees next to tranquil ponds and fragrant gardens.
When we enter the tea house there is a special type of Japanese Dry Rock Garden pronounced “karesansui”.
Ryoanji Dry Rock Garden
We can view rocks emanating from sand waves. We can ponder the emptiness and the spaces between the rocks.
We also learn there are 15 rocks. What makes this somewhat special is that we cannot view all 15 rocks at once.
All of us; who have seen this garden, want to see all the rocks.
Legend has it from the proper perspective the enlightened master may view all the rocks.
