CREEP A C U L T U R E M A G A Z I N E
MAY 2014
ISSUE No.1
WE’RE SECRETLY WATCHING YOU.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
SINCERELY, THE EDITOR I originally started this project to kill time. I landed a summer internship in New York but haven’t had my visa approved yet. I still don’t know if I’ll have the visa in time but at least I have a magazine now, which is really just an excuse for me to talk to interesting people. Like that one time I had a crush on the lead singer of that band and then had the most awkward conversation when we met at a party. That could’ve been avoided. That sounds terrible because it seems like I’m just using this publication as an excuse to hit on people. Which isn’t true. I’m using it as an excuse to day drink – helps the models feel more comfortable during photo shoots. That sounds horrible too. I’m a decent human being, I swear. I’ve actually always wanted to start a magazine though. As my spirit animal (also known as an Ally Chang) tells me, this is like a scrapbook but “funner.” CREEP is a chance for us to gather all the things that we’re passionate about and to share them through an uninhibited, uncensored space. We have the freedom to explore anything we want, to voice whatever opinions we have, and to publish it in a way that reflects our quirks. And THAT is why I started the magazine. But of course, the other reasons aren’t entirely invalid. Anyway, enjoy the issue. This glorified PDF document would not have been possible without a lot of incredible people. I want to sincerely thank all of this month’s features for putting enough faith in me to be featured in a start-up magazine’s first issue. I love all of you. And a serious thank you to P and J. This puppy would not have come together without you guys. Also Papa Cheng for lending us his gear. Alright, that’s as sentimental as I go. Have a whale of a time. Long live Honey Boo Boo, Z
ZARAH CHENG
11 Songs to Dance to When You Realize That You Are Just. Over. It. Rescue, Mister (Tarantula X Remix) by Trust Best Intentions by Satchmode Sexercize by Kylie Minogue Sons and Lovers by Black Light Dinner Party Gooey by Glass Animals Lines by Solar Year Anomaly by Doldrums Trans by Gesaffelstein I Don’t Believe in Love by We Are Trees Amicus (Dominic Pierce Mix) by Les Loups Victor by Prinze George
CONTENTS
MUSIC Interview Baby Alpaca Interview Stefana Fratila
FASHION Interview Shun Kinoshita of MMVIII Closet Feature Blaine Metzgar
ART + DESIGN Interview Ronald Yeung A Molecular Biology major who is now an Architecuture graduate student at Columbia.
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BABY ALPACA words Creep Magazine
Baby Alpaca’s sound is a summery medley of heartwarming dreams, alluring undertones, and haunting rhythms, all wrapped up in ethereal goodness. The band’s members, Chris Kittrell and Zach McMillan, find themselves continuously traveling between Seattle and New York for music. With the little free time they have, they design and paint clothes, film music videos, and sail along the West Coast. The charming talent of the two will hoist you up from wherever you are, and carry you through a dazzling and meditative reverie, flooded with effortless happiness.
photography R. Bekker
photography David Dewitt
Creep: How was the Strictly Sexual remix show in NYC? Chris: We played a few shows and they were all different and wonderful in their own way. My favorite was our performance in The Boom Boom Room, atop the Standard Hotel. It is such a beautiful classic space. And has such a great view of the Hudson River and Manhattan. It is like a big fancy glass tree house with a grand piano. A lot of my friends came and it’s just always so fun to [have] a release to celebrate the end of a lot of hard work. Who remixed the songs for you and how did you decide which ones would be released? We started reaching out to our music world friends, then listened to everything we received when it was time to turn the tracks in. Anything that got me dancing and made us happy made the list.
You have your own clothing line. What inspired you to start it? I was in my friend Kevin Baker’s art studio one day and had been making tank tops for our band t-shirts and made a stencil to paint our logo on. Being around all the paint and art supplies lead to me splatter-painting the tanks (which was also similar to a demo music video I made for “Run With You” with Baker that Interview Magazine premiered). I started making splatter clothes in a bunch of different styles and that was pretty much the beginning of it. Do you have a particular muse in mind when designing? All of my friends act as muses. I want to keep the collection comfy, soft, and sexy.
I LOVE LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.
You travel a lot across the States. Do you find elements of traveling (ie: flying, clouds, random people, time away from scheduled life) play a role in your ethereal sound? Definitely. All of my travels and experiences on the road turn into the music in one way or another. The sound is also true to the things I hear swarming around the deep crevices of my brain. What is an important aspect you look for in people when choosing friends or significant others? I don’t think about it much. My relationships seem to choose me. I have a reaction when I first meet someone and I always try to follow that reaction. I love love at first sight. What are some pros and cons of both the fashion and music industries? PROS: Freedom to be creative with friends CONS: Things seems to take five times as long as you would like them to
What is your heritage and has it played a role in your music? I have been interested in my Native American (Cherokee Indian) heritage recently. I love all of the fetish charms and symbols as well as being in touch with nature and the things we can lift from it and learn from it. Do you view music as a mere creative outlet or more? It is a creative outlet for sure, but also philosophical. I express the lessons of my life in the lyrics I write, it helps me work through things. It acts as a cathartic activity. What’s the biggest personal change you’ve ever made? Losing all thoughts of judgment. Constantly checking myself. But much less these days. Being an understanding person is the most beautiful and wise thing in my opinion.
photography Mark Sommerfeld
Do you believe in a spiritual realm that humanity rarely taps into? I am definitely spiritual. I believe most in our personal human spirit and the way our energy combines with those around us to make something bigger and more powerful than just one. For example, thousands of people applauding after they hear their favorite song at a big concert. That is so special – it’s a lot of spirit, infectious applause, laughter, and smiles. Have you ever had a spiritual experience? Once I was at a Beach House concert at Webster Hall in New York and was so happy. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Victoria Legrand the whole show. And she kept looking at me! First I thought it was in my head, then my friend was like, “Dude, she keeps looking at you!” It was their last song, “Gila”, and I was swaying and dancing and smiling really big and then started laughing and Victoria looked at me, she started laughing, the guitarist started laughing, and then almost everyone in Webster Hall laughed. It was such a cool chain reaction and one of my favorite musical experiences ever.
Did you attend post-secondary school? I did. I first attended The Lee Strasberg Institute for acting, then The University of Cincinnati (where I studied psychology, art history, creative writing, fine arts, and fashion). I also went to The Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts. Additionally, a lot of private voice teaching. Do you think it aided you, or no? My education, which is all across the board, has given me many skills that I use daily. But I am always learning, whether in school or not. When and where are you the happiest? With my family (and by this I mean all of my friends, a chosen/curated family). What we do and share with each other makes me so happy!
STEFANA FRATILA photography and words Creep Magazine
A Romanian immigrant and university student, Stefana Fratila spends a great deal of her time studying, working, and traveling. After stationing herself in Vancouver, she expresses her creative margin through her electronic, experimental project. Here she communicates her thoughts on oppression, violence, the internet’s role in her musical journey, and living as a musician in Vancouver through her lyrics and sound vision.
Creep: How has the transition from Romania to Canada impacted your music journey? Stefana: Hugely. I grew up listening to TLC, Destiny’s Child, and Missy Elliott in Canada and then I’d spend my summers in Romania listening to “muzica populara” (a kind of Romanian folklore) and “muzica lautareasca” (played by Romani musicians). These all carry decidedly different histories and have impacted my understanding of music and the role it has to play in our societies more widely. You are a Political Science major, do you incorporate any aspects of this into your music? Definitely. I initially had a desire to keep politics and music separate when I first started studying Political Science. While studying in Paris, though, I quickly realized that everything is political, including what I initially understood as being perhaps too
personal or intimate to be political. I would walk around and just be so enraged by the degree of objectification that I had to cope with. Creating music became my manner of confronting the oppression and violence that I – and those around me – have, and continue to, live through. Through my degree, I was introduced to a sub-field known as transitional justice. I began to understand learning as a process of bearing witness, and a privilege. So it was on me, my responsibility, to privilege stories that address gender-based violence, body politics, and the legacy of repressive social injustices. I address these themes in my lyrics and I channel my desire to resist against systemic oppression though producing music. I’m translating this into content that can be understood, accessed, and listened to by a wider audience in order to empower survivors of sexual violence. I
want to break the boundaries of silence and break the barriers of fear we face in confronting violence and oppression. These are highly political motivations for producing music. What do you plan do to with your degree? I start my Masters in Political Science in September at UBC. I am an aspiring transitional justice scholar and intend to become a practitioner of transitional justice. What sparked your interest in music? I was a teenager and all I did was write lyrics in my textbooks, on buses, on my arms. My friends and I would go to allages concerts every weekend and soon we started a band. We couldn’t help but be inspired by all of the incredible Vancouver bands around us.
How has the Internet played a role (both positive and negative) in your music career? The Internet is amazing. I booked my first tour in Europe when I was seventeen years old just through sending emails. The internet has been integral to empowering myself to play shows all over the world and to combine performance with travel, spending a week in a city and playing a few shows while I’m there. It’s always been super DIY and underground and I’ve gotten to meet such amazing people this way. The biggest drawback of the Internet is that there’s so much out there, and sometimes I feel at a loss with reaching a wider audience because it does feel like you need the biggest blogs behind you and for that you need a label with good PR, et cetera. So there’s a lot there to reckon with if you’re a truly independent artist. Where, when, and how do you find the most inspiration? Fear inspires me. Music empowers me to feel fearless. Is there a particular message you wish to convey through your music? There are all kinds of messages and meanings to draw from sound. I use lyrics to draw attention and to confront issues that anger and frustrate me, like gender binaries or legacies of violence and repression. Sometimes this is more explicit than at other times. What I’m most interested in is weaving the beats, loops, and themes a manner that allows the listener to be swept up in both moments of confrontation and of tenderness. I want to create a waterfall of sound that the listener can make sense of in their own way.
How would you describe your sound? I’m riding on the periphery of so many genres so it’s hard to pin down. It’s experimental and electronic in its essence, lots of polyrhythms and strange sounds but it can also be ambient, psych, drone...it depends on the night. Sometimes it sounds like a funeral procession. Sometimes like industrial screamo. A number of your photos as well as your music performances could be likened to Grimes, do you consider her an inspiration at all? Claire [Boucher] and I actually went to the same high school, but she was a few years ahead and so we only met after I had graduated and briefly lived in Montreal in 2010. She’s fantastic and
it’s been really interesting to watch her become so successful. I would say that I am inspired by her commitment to staying true to herself and speaking out against the gender inequality in the music industry. I do hope, at the same time, that people move on from comparing all female electronic artists to her because there are many other female producers in Canada doing really ground-breaking work that deserve to be experienced without. Who would you tour with if you got the chance? Missy Elliott and M.I.A. What is the first thing you normally notice when meeting people? It depends on the person.
FEAR INSPIRES ME. MUSIC EMPOWERS ME TO FEEL FEARLESS.
Your performance set-up appears complicated. How long did it take you to learn the equipment? I slowly started incorporating electronic gear into my set-up five years ago. I started using Guru (the program I use to create beats) in high school. I’ve had a long time to get familiar with my gear and different software but the very beautiful aspect of electronic equipment is that every artist will use the pieces differently. These are instruments with many dimensions so I’m always learning, in a way, how to use my equipment in new ways. Gear develops with you. Would you ever incorporate different members into your live act? In high school I only played with a backing band, when the songs were orchestral pop and made so much sense with live instruments. Sometimes my good friend Thomas Weideman still accompanies me on cello, but he has a very deep understanding of my music and we work together exceptionally well. But I prefer working on my own, particularly in a live setting because I’m creating so much while on stage. I have a dream, though, that I’ll one day be able to hire an all-female backing band of Romani and Balinese musicians for a completely new set of songs, something that would take a great degree of rehearsing and intimacy between myself and the musicians.
What do you think the pros and cons of living in Vancouver as a musician are? Honestly, the only con is that most people aren’t paying a lot of attention to the incredible music we have here. But this is changing. My sound has changed so many times while I’ve been in Vancouver and I’ve felt supported throughout this process. Vancouver feels small but still exciting. Vancouver also offered me the opportunity to join Gita Asmara, a Balinese gamelan ensemble, and tour to Bali. There are many ways to be an artist here. I kind of experience Vancouver like being in a cabin in the woods because you don’t feel surveilled by the music industry here, so you can create very freely. But your friends are all around you, so it’s a very good vibe. What does the future of Stefana Fratila entail? Finishing up various recording projects and performing/traveling. Your live show is very impressive and quite different than the recordings, what do you do to add to it? I often improvise and make decisions about what I’ll do in a performance setting. With the show that you saw at Rainbow Connection, I closed with a 7-minute dance jam that sounded like early 90s house music. I wanted to channel the spirit of Aaliyah’s “Miss You” (lyrically and thematically) and
even though I was singing and looping live, I wanted it to sound like I was sampling classic soul hooks, repeating “What am I gonna do? / Without you / I miss you”. It’s so exciting to me to create in a live setting, that song was entirely improvised live and the crowd responded so positively and that’s, for me, the best part of performing engaging the crowd in my process. Do you use music as a creative outlet, like a hobby, or is it something else to you? I’ll always be producing music. It’s an integral part of my life. What do you hope comes from it? I’ve already gotten more than I could have hoped for, which was to reach people with my music.
Stefana Fratila’s memory EP is now available for download on Soundcloud. soundcloud.com/stefanafratila stefanafratila.tumblr.com
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MMVIII
photography Ian Lanterman stylist Emily Oberg model Marcus Scott model Emily Oberg words Zarah Cheng All images from MMVIII.
Shun Kinoshita is MMVIII. Having recently released its 2014 Spring Collection, the clothing line showcases a futuristic sophistication that reflects the creative genius behind the brand. Acting as designer, creative director, videographer, social media coordinator, and basically every other position needed for a clothing line, Kinoshita runs the show. From humble beginnings as a teenager spraypainting t-shirts for his friends, the MMVIII visionary takes a moment to chat with me about his passion project that has become a cult favourite among street wear purists.
Creep: What does the name MMVIII mean to you? Shun: I’ve had a bunch of brands because when you’re sixteen, you don’t really think about the longevity of the name. I [started] Gold MMVIII in 2008. That actually got really big online and then this pretty big skateboarding company [from the States] sent me emails with lawyers and stuff like, “If you don’t shut everything down, we’ll sue you.” So yeah, that was pretty devastating for me. Because you know, you build something and it’s kind of like your baby. That was the first time I felt really shook. But I just took away the “Gold” and I kept going with MMVIII. The name isn’t supposed to mean anything, and I like that. I mean, 2008 was sort of a significant year for me, but it doesn’t really mean anything. I like how it looks [laughs]. It’s always just been a passion thing. You just released your Spring 2014 Collection. What inspired the designs? For this drop, the theme was 2015. So I was thinking in a futuristic mindset. I mean, people might not wear it in 2015, but it’s an innovative take on street wear. Maybe some people will be wearing arm sleeves in 2015, I don’t know. And the allover print I did, it was [inspired by] my friend from UBC. He’s an engineer, and he was using this special scanning electron microscope. It’s a microscope that shows nanometer stuff – you can go really, really deep. You can see grain and hair and stuff. So I liked that because I’ve never seen those graphics on t-shirts yet.
For me, [MMVIII] has always been a passion project but I’m at a point where I just want to make something that people haven’t seen. I mean, I want people to wear it but I’m not really concerned about selling them. I’m more concerned about the art of it. I did the look book and I thought the images turned out really well because of those arm sleeves and those weird graphics. So it’s more about that than me making shirts that have a logo on the left chest and a graphic on the back where it’s an easy sell for me. I just wanted to make something different.
I’m glad you brought that print up. The HAÉ T shirt has a very tactile quality to it in the online images – I thought it was leather at first. How do you approach experimenting with different textures? Well HAÉ is a Japanese word for “fly.” It was [actually] more about what was possible to print. So the printers here, they do sublimation. How sublimation works is they first print on paper in full colour, then they transfer to another machine where the paper goes through with a piece of fabric on top so the ink transfers to the fabric. It’s a heat transfer so it has to be a certain type of fabric. That’s why it’s polyester – you can’t do it on cotton.
Your Spring 2014 video has an almost CCTV or Big Brother vibe to it. How did you decide on this creative direction? I usually make a video for every drop. To be honest, it’s just for myself – I like making videos. I guess it also adds as a promotion thing. But for that one, I shot it during the photo shoot. And the lighting was perfect for the photos, but it wasn’t ideal for videos because videos you need really nice lights that are bright enough. This video actually went grainy, and I was like, “Well I can’t use it as is.” So I tried to make it work with putting effects that made it look lo-fi, early 90s. So yeah from that point, I thought maybe I should go with a 90s feel because they’re wearing Nike Air Forces and the colours worked out really well.
I love the bright colours and deadpan expression of the model in your KOI Collection images. It’s pretty different from the aesthetic of your previous sets. Do you think that the way you approach shoots has changed over the seasons? I think that my taste, visually, has always changed. I don’t think what I like has changed drastically but you know, you grow up and like different things. KOI was kind of the line where I wanted to be like, “I don’t care about people wearing my stuff anymore.” I just wanted to make something that people haven’t really seen and to make something awesome. They might not buy it, but they would think, “Oh, cool photos” or “Cool piece.” So that was my point because I can’t make a t-shirt that [just] has a logo on it. I mean, I could sell it
but I’m such a small brand. If you’re a big brand, you can make plain t-shirts or a t-shirt with a small logo. But if you’re a small brand making one piece or three pieces every drop, it has to be something that is impactful. So it’s always been difficult, but yeah I think the colours were just because the piece was black and white. I wanted to make it pop. My friend shot these, but these were really quick. This wasn’t planned that much. I knew I wanted to use a projector and I wanted to just shoot. I always work with different photographers and they’re usually my friends, so my summer stuff….you’re probably thinking of the ones in the forest?
Yeah, the summer ones and the ones in the parking lots. Oh yeah, the parking lots! Those were, I guess, the concrete ones. Concrete has always been my favourite background and I’ve always been interested in concrete. I think that’s kind of my weird obsession. I’ve always thought concrete fit my brand very well because it’s not flashy, but it has a little bit of an industrial feel to it. My brand was never happy happy, not sad, but I wanted it to be cool. And concrete was always my go-to. I did a couple of photo shoots in the forest but that was because it was summer and I wanted to be a little bit more colourful. Your website recently underwent a drastic redesign. How do you feel MMVIII has grown since its inception and how has that reflected in the way you brand it? I think since I started MMVIII, my branding hasn’t really changed. It’s always been: everything [else] peripheral. Say like my website, it’s kind of minimal. My old website was mainly black but it’s similar, it’s very simple. Because it’s not really about the website, it’s about the pieces. The Spring 2014 look book has a pretty edgy vibe. Do you follow new trends showcased during Fashion Weeks? No, I don’t. But the latest photo shoot was actually styled by a girl named Emily Oberg, she’s a friend of mine. She knows her thing so I pretty much just told her I wanted black pants. I guess I do follow fashion in a way – I follow blogs. I don’t really follow the high-end stuff. But I really like Yohji Yamamoto. He has his own brand, Yohji Yamamoto, but he also does Y3. He puts skirts on guys and in one of [MMVIII’s] photos, the male model is actually wearing a skirt but I decided that we didn’t want to use it because it is a little bit too out there. Although I really like it, it’s not for the brand. That’s why I said no. But the whole styling was Emily and the point of the shoot was to be futuristic with the 2015 theme. So I didn’t want
the pants to just be normal pants. I wanted them to be something different. Does street style play an important role for you when designing for MMVIII? I think street style, as in street wear, I definitely follow. I do because I don’t want to do the same thing. That’s the number one thing. I look at them and I will definitely be inspired but at the same time, I don’t want to make the same thing. I don’t want to stray too far away from street wear though. I want to be somewhere in between – closer to street wear but a little bit of modern fashion. Collaborations and “limited editions” are pretty regular for MMVIII. Is there a particular approach you like to keep in mind when working with someone new? Definitely people who have a similar vibe to the brand, I don’t like to go too far off. I want the balance though, because I don’t want to work with a brand
that’s doing the exact same thing. Usually when it comes to clothing brands, it would be someone that has a similar vibe. But when I’m working with an artist, it could be anyone. Anyone that I personally think is cool. If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? Whew that’s a hard one…I’m going to say for right now, because I can’t really think of the past, Mark Bulford. That’s his real name, but his graphic design name is Barney Baker. He’s local. He’s this graphic designer, I’d say the best in Vancouver to say the least; he could be the best in Canada. But yeah, he’s really awesome. Music plays a pretty big role in setting the mood for MMVIII’s collection videos. How do you choose which songs or artists to feature? Music might be the number one thing, or number two after visuals, and it definitely is very, very important in setting the mood of the brand. Over the years,
I’ve always picked music that I personally like. This brand has always been a brand of me – not that I’m this cool guy [laughs] but I’ve always just put out what I like. I pick songs that fit the brand, but I just pick songs that I like. Usually I do hip-hop, I’m a big fan of rap. So most videos have been rap but this video, this newest one, is my friend Brock. He’s producing as Rook Milo. I’ve known him for a while and he’s been making music for a year and a half now. He’s been blowing up, locally and online. I think my taste is changing a bit, definitely. I still like rap, I would’ve used rap or hip-hop for this video but I mean, he’s a friend and he makes really awesome music and it was perfect for this futuristic theme.
Which artists are on repeat on your iPod right now? Schoolboy Q, Rook Milo, Gesaffelstein, PartyNextDoor, Yeezus, Drake, Yung Lean MMVIII’s Spring 2014 Collection is now available at www.mmviii.ca.
CLOSET FEATURE words Zarah Cheng photography Creep Magazine
BLAINE METZGAR
toque Supreme shirt Christian Dior blazer Martin Margiela for H&M leather shorts Altered pants from Value Village
hat Gift from friend shirt Raif Adleberg x Ion Magazine collaboration pants Issey Miyake shoes Doc Martens
toque Supreme shirt Fred Perry shorts Altered pants from Value Village shoes Vans
toque Supreme shirt Christian Dior blazer Martin Margiela for H&M leather shorts Altered pants from Value Village shoes Vans
toque Supreme sweater Gift from stylist friend, Mila Franovic pants Handmade by Blaine’s Mama shoes Doc Martens
toque Supreme sweater Supreme pants Handmade by Blaine’s Mama shoes Doc Martens
toque Supreme tank Richard Kidd camo sweater Tommy Hilfiger
toque Supreme shirt Christian Dior blazer Martin Margiela for H&M leather shorts Altered pants from Value Village
toque Supreme sweater Gift from stylist friend, Mila Franovic pants Handmade by Blaine’s Mama shoes Doc Martens
toque Supreme shirt Christian Dior blazer Martin Margiela for H&M leather shorts Altered pants from Value Village shoes Vans
toque Supreme tank Richard Kidd pants Handmade by Blaine’s Mama shoes Doc Martens
Where are you from? Palm Beach, Florida What are you listening to right now? Oceaán, Black Atlass, Le1f Where do you shop? Value Village, online from Oak NYC, The Board of Trade, Neighbour, Dover Street Market It’s Friday night. Where are you going? Brixton and then to my house to get more drunk. Favourite city? New York City, of course. What’s your poison? Cheap beer. Preferably Old Milwaukee though – I love my pretty ladies. My little pinup girls. Favourite TV show? True Detective Favourite celebrity? Dane DeHaan Do aliens exist? It doesn’t matter.
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RONALD YEUNG ____________ Connecting the dots with a Molecular Biology major who decided that science just wasn’t his thing. words Zarah Cheng All images from Ronald’s portfolio.
Ronald has been peeping through microscopes and playing with cells for the past four years. He is a recent McGill grad with a Science-Arts double major in Molecular Biology and Sociology. Now we’re chatting over coffee and breakfast burritos about how he will be attending Columbia University as an architecture grad student come September. In between discussing the demerits of studio cabin fever and vogueing monkeys, Ronald tells me about how he found himself. Creep: Why did you decide to study architecture? Ronald: Well I was studying for a bachelor [degree] in molecular biology and sociology. I really liked my degree. And honestly if I could go back, I wouldn’t do anything differently. But I couldn’t see myself doing anything within those two fields permanently as a career. I was applying for my masters in molecular biology and I was like, “I can’t do this. I can’t even write my letter of intent.” [Architecture] was something I wanted to do, so it kept me going. I chose architecture because I liked that it was creative and there was space for design, but at the same time, it’s technical. There are regulations and rules and laws that restrict what you can and cannot do. Which I think helps, in terms of the creativity. And I kind of like that. There is that balance. It’s not all design.
Molecular biology is very laid out. But so is architecture, in a sense. There are steps that you take first, or could take first anyway. There isn’t a right or wrong way, but it’s different. [In architecture] rules are made to be broken if there’s a good reason for it. Do you think that your background in molecular biology affects the way you approach architecture? I think my background is one of the reasons why I got into a masters program – it probably actually helped me. They want to have a heterogeneous group of students interacting in studio, so they’re feeding off of each other and their different perspectives. That way, it keeps the future architects and the students coming out [of the program] from being too disjointed from reality [laughs]. There are other perspectives for them to play with and to relate to. I think that with my background, I approach things differently. A lot of my projects focus on more modular themes, where I bring smaller elements together to create larger things whereas some people prefer to look at a big piece and then they cut down. There’s no wrong way, but I just think that with my background in molecular biology, learning how very small parts of the body make up an organism and how the organism survives, it kind of guides the way I see things and approach projects.
RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN IF THERE’S A REASON FOR IT.
When we were last chatting, you mentioned that architecture isn’t just about buildings. Architecture is anything that occupies a space. Could you explain that a bit more? I spent the summer at Columbia doing their intro to architecture program. It was a 6-week, very intensive program. I was in a studio group with [others who had] little or no architecture experience. None of us had studied it. We were introduced to theory and the concept of how things are first made. So we weren’t allowed to design anything that looked like a building. If it looked like [one], we got shit for it. From what I learned, architecture isn’t always necessarily about a building. It’s anything that occupies space. Before you can even start designing buildings, you have to understand form and space and how things are translated within different information and how you can manipulate data. There’s just a lot of information and you’re trying to clarify it in a different way.
What’s your approach to architecture? How do you start conceptualizing your designs? A lot of it is collecting as much information as you possibly can on one thing. Then you kind of extract what you want and turn it into useful data and you represent it differently. All my projects are basically simplifying or focusing the data and using it [in a different way]. There is something organic about it and I like allowing things to organically grow within those restrictions and limitations of what they’re allowed or not allowed to do. And reiteration is very important. Just doing that over and over again and it will naturally turn into something that you want. There should always be intention. You always want to do something with purpose. It’s not like, “Oh I did this because it looks pretty [laughs].”
You said you got shit for the hexagons in your first project. Why is symmetry “bad”? Symmetry is kind of like a default. And if you do use it, you should be using it for a reason. It’s supposed to show something. One of the panelists for the final review put it [this way], “If you’re going to put triangles in your project, there should be a reason why the triangles are there.” Like [for example] light hits the triangle at a certain time of day. Not just because you like triangles, or not just because the triangle happens to fit there better than any other shape. So yeah, I got shit for that. What would you say is your favourite type of design aesthetic? I really like things that are very minimal and don’t necessarily talk too much. Something very to the point and clean, and does what I want it to. Otherwise, I can’t control it [laughs]. Is that the same as being functional? Yeah I think it is. I think as an architect, you should always do something with intention. You shouldn’t just do something because it looks aesthetically pleasing. I personally prefer minimalism right now because I want it to do what I want it to do. I want it to be very clear and for the content to speak for itself. And there is a function in that. And I’m sure [that for] things that are more extravagant and have more pieces, those pieces serve function as well. So I think in architecture, there should always be practicality and functionality. I personally prefer things that make sense and have a reason to why they’re there.
You’ve lived in all 3 cities at one point or another so in terms of architecture and urban landscape: Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver? They’re all very different. I think just because of where I’m situated in Toronto, which is the financial district, I don’t love it. Brookfield Place is beautiful – but I don’t know. I guess all the Toronto Dominion buildings are very strong-looking. They look very sturdy [laughs]. Because I had been in Montreal for the past 4 years, I prefer that the most. The buildings and houses in the area that I lived in had a lot of character because they were very old. I never lived IN Vancouver so I don’t know where all the old buildings are. I lived in Coquitlam. Cookie-cutter houses everywhere. I love Montreal houses, especially in Westmount. The houses are huge, so old, and there’s a lot of history. What do you want to achieve as an architect? I want to focus on things that are smaller but at the same time, I do want to have some experience with corporate firms that work on very large-scale buildings and structures. But I think at some point, I want to focus on things that are smaller scale – more personal and residential, or smaller commercial spaces. And this sounds really weird, or very cheesy, but someday I do want to design a small little house or little cottage for my parents. I would like to design something for them one day… and hopefully they’ll want to use it.
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