Wei Lin by RMIT Landscape Architecture

Interview

Seminar Level <Interview Intraview> Seminar 4 Tutor Fiona Harrisson Submitted by Wei Lin(Aria)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

--------------------------Interview-----------------------1. Research and Practice -Summary of interest -Practice 2. Interview 3. Reflection --------------------------Appendix-----------------------1. Readings: Theory - On dialogue - Deep Listening - Presence - How to Conduct an Interview -Action Research inside a Reflective Social Practice: A Delicate Empiricism

3-4

5-11 12-14

15-21

2.Speaking and Listening: Practising theory -Reflection

22-24

3.Research: related to practice -Research interest. -Practices/Agency

25-26

4. Interview: preparation -Questions & Answers

27-28

5. Reflection / Intra-view

29-30

Research and Practice

Summary of Interest

“As a landscape Architect, from your past practices and experiences, how do you understand the role of landscape architects at the SOCIAL and CULTURAL level? How do you think of SOCIAL ISSUES and your professional field?”

Practice

Name：HA THAI Location：Melbourne, Australia Contact Details：Ha Thai <ha.thai2@rmit.edu.au> Previous Work： <The resilience of street vendors in surviving Covid-19 crisis in Vietnam> <The evolution of pathways linking main streets and marketplaces to home-based business locations in Hanoi, Vietnam>

Name：Fengzhen Guo Location：Hangzhou, China Contact Details：+86 15659763769 Previous Work： Hengchun Landscape Gardens Construction Company Design Engineering Co., Ltd.

Interview

Interview Time: 10/10/2021 Interviewee: Ha Thai

Interview with HA THAI • Hi, How are you. Sorry it’s a bit late. • That’s ok, just a small talk after my day’s work. What do you wanna ask? • yeah, I guess maybe I just, uh, start with introducing myself for a little bit. Is that OK? • That's fine. • Yeah, my name is Aria, and I enrolled this interview seminar in this semester and I'm like the email said one of these men are one of this. The man assignment for this seminar is to find someone who practices in landscape architecture and to interview them about the questions or topics that I concern. But except for the seminar, I'm also studying project A and I guess the inspiration of the topics today actually comes from my project A. So basically, what I'm doing in project right now is using African immigrants in China as a case study. I'm trying to figure our system to provide social space for those minorities in China under the guidance of tactical urbanism. So, I guess I'm not sure if you kind of know my position in the design is I stand with civilians instead of the government, but it doesn't mean I don't think the government, or any kind of authorities might be helpful or supportive when it comes to working with the designers. And also I read about your article published this year. The resilience of St vendors in surviving COVID-19 crisis in Vietnam and I found it interesting. And it's I. I think it's kind of kind of have something in common with my project. Uh, something about when citizens are doing, you know, doing something for their needs? But might annoyed authority. • So yeah, I think my first question would be during all your practice in terms of this specific topic for we can do as a landscape architect and how we can solve the dispute? • You mean in the topics of designing the space for the less well off part of the communities? • Yeah. • Alright. That has been quite an interesting question, I think. • Public space. is one of the most important space in the city. Yeah it is. It is the voice by it's the empties by flowing between the building now and it is a sort of glow sticking things together. • Yep. • In this case, it's the buildings together and it is the only type of space where different kind of people share. And the tone public space, you know it. It got two part. We've got Public and it caught space. Yeah? So, which means it is an elements which belong to everybody. But in the world, sometimes We are designing that sort of space is not very equal. Yeah, some people have more control owners, buyers. While some other is kind of left over. • Yep. • Yeah, some spaces are being over manage by the government's making the people just to become someone who are the user of this space rather than the producer of this space. • Exactly. • So, in the context where the residents are the only the user, yeah, they are. And whatever they do. We'll have to follow the regulation or sets of regulation and a set of code provided by the government. And whenever they do something that is not live with those sets of Good. No, that would be wrong. It will be seen as a wrong thing. • Yeah. • Right, so at the moment the government, someone you know, the one who managed the public space I despise is can only be used for walking. So if you are doing something else other than walking, there will be wrong. You know, so when you are so hungry and then you are bringing some fruit or some vegetable that you plan on the backyard, and you sit there, and you sell it to make some income that is wrong. • You know, so whether that sort of practice is right or wrong. Is it something to discuss? • What we call this place is public space and who's it belongs to is another thing, how can people use? Public space is one thing, but how? How can people produce the public space is

Interview Time: 10/10/2021 Interviewee: Ha Thai another thing. • Yeh. • And if we look into the cities, we are proud of some public space because that public space is, well, used by my people and it is produced by people yeah. Despite used applies. They put function in it. You know the kind of function, not necessarily be defined by the government, so you know they might be. Spies become vibrant. They make this play become unpredictable. • And then they give the space A character. • Yep. • Due to that type of character. That space, you know it. It is loved by people. • Right, so if we trying to micro centre public by, that is so boring, that is that is over manage by a set of code, will have a series of very boring public space. if we can help find a way let public space to be more open. We are allow the various types of practices you know allowing not only the rich to help the wealthy set of population to contribute to the creation of public space, but we also let the marginal part of the community. • You know, the less the poor are part of the community, the less well or part of the community the you know children. And the elderly. Somehow they can have The right to the city. They can claim that it's their space, you know, like they owned it, they can produce it. Then we will have more. We will have more interesting, more lovely public space in the city. • Yeah, exactly. because I feel like if the government overreach the power and then It's kind of like control people's behaviour like what you can do and what kind of people can gather here. It's not flexible anymore... I don't know if I make sense. About what you said is really interesting and worth thinking, and also do you have any good examples about the vibrant public space you just mentioned? • I think we have good spies everywhere you know, and then if you open the front door, The first type of public space that you see will be the pavement. • Yep • And that kind of public space is the most widespread type of public space in the city. You know, we got pavement everywhere in front of our house whenever people park their car, opened the car door, boom there on the pavement. When they come, they when they want to go from home to the office. Boom there on the pavement when they walked from office to the single market again on the pavement. So pavement is the most important type of public space is even more important than pop. Even more important than Urban square... • And we have seen lots of pavements that is boring. But we also seen lots of another pavement that are so interesting. You know they are packed with people they we got. We see people walking along that we see people standing, talking, watching other people. We see other people stand there and smoking. And then we also see lots of different type of transactions happens on the pavement. So if you ask me what is an example of a good public space I can point out to any segments of pavement and they say that is a good public space? • Right and then the question is How to highlight its role? How to make that mundane public space to become something RECOGNIZABLE? • This trip is an example of public space, long, long time ago everybody do everything on the street. Yeah, the street is a place where we just get out there and we just play there. We do everything there but then since we got to think we got a car. and then we spend a large proportion of the centre of the street and then record it. We called it the driveway and that is occupied by car. • And then all the people we post them on the side. and then we call that the pavement. Right and then then we got lots of people you know, stuck being on the pavement while on the street. There's only on is only occupied by car and in each car usually there's only one pupil or one person or two pupils in it. And in some cases even the car with no people, no persons in it. That is a that is a parking car. Yeah, and that is a very poor way that design.

Interview Time: 10/10/2021 Interviewee: Ha Thai

• That is a very in equal ways of subdividing public space to different set of people. You know how to design that kind of spaces, not only for the rich, but only also for the poor. That's another question, right? • Uh, I'm kind of interested in. I'm not sure if you are when you are doing like some specific practice like the project in real life. When you have different stakeholders that stands for different profits. they kind of like have dispute to each other and how we can you know like are we are we just listen to one certain party or how can we kind of like coordinate different parties’ profit? • A good designer. will be the designer who take the money from someone who are the client and then they designed to meet the standard to meet the benefit to meet the requirement of that person or that party. Yeah, that is the designer. A good designer somehow will know to find an innovative solution. • And if you ask me, the project that I'm doing and how I'm experience with different stakeholder. I can refer you to the one that I'm doing now. you know little Lonsdale St.? • Yeah • So that is a very narrow St. It's about 50 meters wide and the pavements on each side is only 1.3 meters wise, so very narrow and it's about 11 meter at the centre, more than 11 million at the centre is occupied by car. And what are we doing there is we're trying to introduce new public space to extend the pavement, so we claim the car parking space. Alright, so we claim it. We say let's not make this one hour car parking spaces make it a public space. • And then we put the things we call apartment. the cool apartment, which is a temporary public space. So we can temporarily introduce some sort of public space on the pavements where we will be able to organize all sort of events over there and. What we are doing now is we might get to fit with Melbourne games week. Yeah, my everybody, we bring music we bring light. We bring bucket drama so it's like a music player as is only use the bucket. And then we make lots of noise over there, attract people to come to the city. • So, who benefit from that project first of all? We do that for the series for the City of Melbourne. • Yep yeah City Council. • Yeah, yeah, they are all client. They they want they want us to bring more people in the city, so we do that things and then we'll bring more people in the city. Yeah, everybody loved music. Everybody wants to have fun. Just come there and have fun. And then when they come there they generate more foot traffic. Yeah people after watching the event they're going to go to the local restaurant and have a have some meal. And then they're gonna some other one will have my, well, my buy a pint of beer. Yeah, so that's why we will. We help the local restaurant. • Yeah, local business • Exactly so they can make some money. for the local residents who live nearby who might suffer from the noise. When the events over you know some of them really enjoy the event, but some other might not. So when the events over they got the little you know, open space on the ground floor where they can bring the kid tells or or they can themselves go down and sit down there and you can smoke. So everybody got benefit, yeah? But for the car driver. They will be the one who suffer the most from. • From us typing over the public space. But in fact, despite that we took is, the is the loading zone. Where they can't pop in there, you know nobody can park in the loading zone except for the local business who really need to to pick up and drop OPS goods. But you know, that's the COVID terms and there's not much car in the city, so we took that one. It will not create any negative impacts on the local business. So in order to run that project, we would need to talk to all related party. We need to tell them what we're going to do. Then we tell them what we're going to do, and then we asked them to consent to agree with us. So everybody agree I might pay the money. City Council in other money, and then we got the project.

Interview Time: 10/10/2021 Interviewee: Ha Thai • We are in the process of building it, but then you know it has been quite so, so successfully done through some pilot study. • So we're going to make it more permanent. You know? It's a temporary, but then we're going to make it more permanent than other City Council. Not only Melbourne City Council, Stonington, Morlands, Yara. They said we want the same thing. Let's make some in in our place. • Thinking about public benefit will be very important. Yeah, talking to related stakeholder, really trying to listen to them really see what they want and try to come up with an innovative solution is a critical quality of someone who now have to serve the public. • This project sounds really really fun, though I hope I can go there. is it gonna finished soon? • Are you in Melbourne at the moment? • Yeh yeh I ‘m in Melbourne currently. • we will. We have to depend on the opening part way so hopefully on the 5th of November when people can move around or then we can make our parklet so come to life. • I would definitely go, it sounds really really cool. • Yeah, I guess that's all. Thank you for today's interview. I actually did learn a lot, especially the first question and the public space and pathway. Yeah, and uh at equality like the design quality and stuff. • Thank you so much, thank you for giving me this chance to learn from you and listen to your thoughts. Great chance for me to talk to you especially I haven’t got any chance to enrol in your class. • That’s ok, I will hopefully see you somewhere sometime • Bye thanks!

Through: Microsoft Teams Time spent: 22min29s

Interview Time: 08/10/2021 Interviewee: Fengzhen Guo

• Why did you suddenly work overtime today • Oh my God. Because after the National Day holiday, many projects have to catch up again. But a lot of people just haven't gotten back to work yet, and things are moving slowly • Is everyone tired? • No, mainly because you know I am currently doing the connection between the scheme and the construction side. However, no matter you make a plan or construction, you can not only have your part of the knowledge, which is unrealistic and inefficient. But many people pretend they don't understand, and then pass the buck and don't want to solve the problem. The more clearly you draw boundaries and the less internal communication you have, the less effective you are. • So are you currently working on the polish and detail part between scheme and construction? • Yes, yes, it is the greening area. I am in charge of the greening construction drawing area recently. • Do you still design a plan? • You have to make a plan for greening, but it is not like the previous university project plan. It is more specific about what trees to plant, how many trees to plant and where to plant them. Early to calculate good, and then make the model, and put the plant in detail in the renderings as far as possible to achieve 100 percent reduction. • Does your company work on major government projects or private real estate projects? • Both, but more real estate these days. • Hahaha I think your answer is very serious, I will ask you a more serious question then. What do you think is the biggest difference between working in design company and going to university? • well.. It may be the gap between the ideal of being a designer and the reality. In the past, a lot of our homework was built on stilts, and the teacher might say that some contradictions should be solved according to the actual situation of the site. When we were students, we would use some design language to solve the site conflict, which we thought was solved. But when you put it into reality, there are some things that a designer can't solve. All designers can do is wait for them to say something, and then we can do the design. In reality, many conflicts are actually involved in the chain of interests. In the process of pulling and pulling their interests, we are a servant, rather than like God. Whoever I want to cut the cake to can get my cake. No, in fact, the real power of speech is not in the hands of designers. • You mentioned earlier that "all designers can do is wait for their word". Are you talking about, like, waiting for the government to respond to certain terms? Or what does it refer to? • Actually, you need to look at the project. If it is a government project, such as "Beautiful Countryside", it involves the interests of many people. What I mean by interest here is that they have different needs for a site from different angles. For example, the needs of the government are related to the background of The Times; The words of the people their needs start from themselves. Sometimes the needs of the government are related to the needs of the people. For example, both the government and the people want to build an activity square in the community. The designers themselves will filter and advise on the design itself. But they have no way of deciding what the other really wants. • Because I am actually doing a project about DIY design for the masses, but as you said just now, sometimes it is different from the appeal of public power. So, have you ever experienced in the design process, in some way, using "the curve to save the country" strategy ? • well.. Yes, like land. For example, there are certain permanent capital farmland of the state, which we can't touch, or the farmland is related to property rights, or different from the specific regulations of the local, this is also not allowed to touch. I also personally experienced one time in the design process, we were actually in the middle of the plan, and suddenly the government came in, and all of a sudden they drew a red line and said they were going to plan this land. Is what you know is not the same people, we are planning and planning of late, and then their temporary

Interview Time: 08/10/2021 Interviewee: Fengzhen Guo planning out a plot of land as a temporary water, so we spend all that the early stage of the design scheme of a lost, it will certainly be bad mood at that time, that also is not only our bad, they as people living in the village compared with us, They must be in a worse mood. So maybe, I think it's a very helpless situation. • Then I have another question. Do you think the role of landscape architect will be replaced in the future with the current development of AI, especially the rapid development of domestic Internet IT industry? Or is it going to be different? • I don't think it will change. Oh, I mean the essence of being a designer doesn't change as long as I live. Compared with robots... Man always knows man best. Machines can crunch data, they can learn historical examples, but machines can't learn empathy in people, or in designers. But a few hundred years from now the future of super advanced AI is probably out of my discussion lol In addition, people will make progress, and people are not stagnant. In fact, when we do design, it comes back to the thinking of people and the thinking of the site. In fact, designers in the final analysis is the service industry, now including our company, a lot of landscape companies are integrated, early, late construction, all kinds of materials to help you consider. • I have almost finished the question. I think you are really serious about this industry and are thinking about it. I think it is very rare in China's current society. • It's very introverted right now and not something I can control. I just want to give designers more money hahaha.

Through: Wechat Video Chat Time spent: 34min

Reflection

-Reflection of Interview with HA THAI

During my chat with Ha Thai, I was glad that he used public Space as an example to solve my doubts. He mentioned that many negative phenomena occurred in public space are actually because people are only users of the space, rather than producers of the space. Space can't come alive, even if it's scripted, if people don't actually participate in the production of space. A space without vitality can lead to many phenomena, which we can simply call boring, or lead to social injustice. There are many reasons for the lack of vitality, sometimes it's the designers, sometimes it's the government overreach. But personally, I think it's because a third party is eager or has to make predictions about this space. I think predictable space is not necessarily rigid, but boring space is more or less due to someone's overreach. At the same time, Ha Thai mentioned an interesting point that in urban public space, the most important thing to be paid attention to is the street. Because people don't go to the square or the centre every day, but they go through the streets every day. The smaller the area, the easier it is to overlook, and the impact can be huge. Ha Thai gave an example of his current project as an example of how designers can work with different interests. There are many interests involved in the narrow streets of Little Lonsdale St. and the designers do not seek to satisfy everyone. However, as long as the people who are in the venue for a long time are satisfied, there will be no big problem. The most important thing is how to flexibly meet the needs of different people through innovation, the needs of making money, leisure, government and so on. I actually chose Ha Thai as the interview subject because I read his article on how Vendors in Vietnam survived through public Spaces during COVID-19 and thought some of his ideas were similar to mine. Through the interview with him, I learned a lot, especially how to see the relationship between the whole city and the whole society from a small aspect and detail. Meanwhile, in the process of realizing social justice, it is not a huge project that can be solved within a day, but something small, like a pot of flowers at your door, can gradually improve the whole society.

-Reflection of Interview with FENGZHEN GUO

At present, there is a phenomenon called "Involution" in China. In fact, before the interview, I have generally understood that even if you have the chance to find a job as a designer in China, you can't earn enough to support yourself through this job. Fengzhen is one of the few of my undergraduate classmates who still works in the landscape industry. However, she also changed from the project group to the construction group, which can also illustrate the difficult situation of Chinese designers. As we chatted, I could sense her fatigue, but she still tried to do her job. It has to do with her personality, but it also has to do with Chinese society. In the interview, she emphasized the identity and role of designers as mediators in the social level, as well as its greatness, but also mentioned the helplessness when facing some force majeure. After the interview, she sent me a message on Wechat, saying that the reason why she changed into construction group is she was really disappointed about how designers design in China. She also realized that she was not strong enough to change the status quo, so she changed her direction. She's not the first designer in her age to tell me that. I chose to interview a designer based in China, to explore the extent to which designers can help solve social injustice in China. I know the answer doesn't seem very positive, but I'm looking for all possibilities. In fact, most of the content of her interview was not out of my expectation, but I am very grateful and glad that she still has a yearning for the future and faith in her heart. I think this is the spirit that a designer needs to keep no matter who your clients are, what your demands are and what your projects are.

Appendix

Seminar Level <Interview Intraview> Seminar 4 Tutor Fiona Harrisson Submitted by Wei Lin(Aria)

Readings: Theory

-<On dialogue>

Summary This article mainly explains the nature of "dialogue" in the author's concept. He believes that dialogue is actually a kind of dynamic magnetic field flowing among the participants in the way of communication. He also contrasts the "discussion" with dialogue. He points out that the difference between "discussion" and "dialogue" is that "discussion" is highly purposeful and competitive, with some winning and some losing, and one point of view prevails. And in the conversation, no one wants to win. In other words, winning in a dialogue is the spirit of dialogue being carried forward -- both sides being open, tolerant and respectful, and speaking their minds without assuming a position. He also asked why we need to talk. He said, "Everybody's interests are different, and generally everyone has assumptions in large or small groups, and with assumptions there are opinions based on those assumptions." Before all the context is known, the communication will gradually shift from being 'conversational' to being aggressive and competitive. If we make sure that there are equal opportunities for communication in schools, in companies and even in society, especially before big decisions. The opportunity to understand what the other person wants on an equal footing, and many times the conflict will diminish. A lot of people say that the different groups in society are not coherent, and that's true. However, if there are more dialogues on an equal footing, and if there is greater understanding, the possibility of cohesion will increase. For a nation or culture, the degree of tacit understanding will also increase. Reflection Have information, don't have assumption. try to know the interviewee's background story, but stay open about the person's opinions about things.(what the person did doesn't mean what the person stand for, vice verse)

-<Deep Listening>

Summary This article introduces Koori Cohort as the beginning, to tell audiences what is 'Deep Listening'. Deep Listening is based on stories, silences and the spaces that lie between. As a research m.ethodology, the practice of Deep Listening is an invitation into culturally congruent ways of learning and knowing. Deep Listening is a concept which also has implications for contemporary organisational life. The practice of Deep Listening teaches us about learning from the past, about being fully present in the moment and about opening to an emerging future. The concept of respect is central to Deep Listening and when applied in the workplace, it is about working with our commonalities and with our differences. Taking the time to invest in relationships is central to deep listening. The building of community is predicated on the development of mutual trust. The building of trust is slow work and needs to be attended to in an on-going way over a sustained period. Reflection The first we learned from talk and then we learned from listening. I guess the deep listening is to make sure when you listen, you are not just absorbing everything you heard, you also have critical thinking and have reflection about yourself.

-<Presence>

Summary What is Presence? Maybe first understand what the whole is. The general idea is that the whole is made up of parts. But unlike machines, the authors argue, our bodies are self-created. The whole is not only a combination of parts, but also constantly changing with the elements. The whole is dynamic, and a change in one detail can potentially affect or change the whole. At the same time, the author takes the example of multinational corporations. He believes that the emergence of multinational corporations has brought about great changes in history, politics, religion and culture. Multinational corporations or globalization have reshaped the world to some extent. Multinational corporations are like living organisms. Every whole is a part. Each part has its own whole. But this transnational global institution has yet to realise that it is alive, and that is what is lacking. The authors say there is a limit to learning when people are in a state of fear or anxiety. We subconsciously view the world in categories that are immediately familiar to us. This is for Reactive Learning. However, we can move from reactive learning to Deeper levels of learning. If awareness never goes beyond superficial events and situations, action = reaction. And the key to deeper levels of learning is that the whole process is dynamic. In the end, the author introduces the production process of the book, stressing that it is not like other books, which have been processed to appear logical and capable. Instead, he retained as much as he could in the process, both what he understood and what he did not understand. His book has no answers, he just leads people to find them. Reflection This article let me realize 'Interview' is like a Wholes. We could say peoples who join the interview are as Parts, but those people are Wholes in their lives as well. When we are doing the interview, probably at that moment, the interview is a Whole. but it's a dynamic live Whole. We shouldn't trap ourselves into the Reactive learning mode which keeps thinking on a superficial level and act like "Robot" Having a interview means having a deep, flexible valuable conversation with other people. If we keep the whole conversation as a dynamic flow, Our perception of things will become more multidimensional and it will also enrich our impression of the interviewee and his image as a person.

-< How to Conduct an Interview>

Summary This article gives people tips about how to operate a successful interview. And it helps people to conduct a viable interview from specific practices to dress, etiquette, and all kinds of small details. This is a specific method guide, irrelevant to the content of the interview, suitable for further sorting out the whole process after the interviewee's background check and the interview content are prepared Reflection It helps me to prepare all the details before actually starting the whole interview process.

-< Action Research inside a Reflective Social Practice: A Delicate Empiricism>

Summary This article mainly proposes an interesting social practice: reflective social practice. An important part of reflective social practice is action research. As a method of reflective social research, action research aims to visualize social conditions and adjust behavior based on information obtained from observations. And this information is a substantive fact. The summary in one sentence is probably: human subjective experience. At the same time, everything in the world is alive, moving, and changing. Action research too. The process of action research is changing, and the subject is changing. The content and scope of observation also change. Therefore, the reflective social practice derived in this way is alive. And expand the scope of understanding for the object. Reflection I think that action research, or this kind of reflective social practice, needs to be used as a guideline in one's life. In fact, from the infancy stage, we have learned to walk through the "subconscious" reflective action research of falling down. However, as the age grows, because the existing knowledge is deep and solidified in the mind, and because of the persistence in the availability of the existing knowledge, reflective social practice becomes extremely valuable. In design, whether it is communicating with clients or communicating with other designers, it is an excellent opportunity for reflective practice. Not only is it rethinking, re-testing and determining the design method, but also asking myself whether I have stereotypes and preferences for certain things.

Speaking and Listening: Practising theory

-Interview practice

Topic: The current status of women's working life in China Interviewer: Wei LIn Interviewee: Xvxin Zhang Background: Xvxin is one of my classmates in my bachelor uni. After graduating from architecture, she worked in a architectural practices for a year and she changed industry. She is currently changing jobs from former educational institution to a playwright freelancer. We knew each other for over 5 years. 1.You just quit your job a few months ago. How is your job search going? I found a new writing job, but I still need go to the company time to time 2. Are you experiencing any difficulties or feeling discriminated when you were in the job market? To be honest, personally I haven't experienced this yet. 3. Why did you decide to leave your last company I can't stand the work and rest schedule (996), also wage and labour are not equal, problems with the company's equipment. 4. Have you experienced a female working dilemma? Or anything sexism? Well...like I said before, I didn't experience that on a job search, but I DID have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. It’s in my First job. The leader asked me to go out for dinner at non-working time, and also bring me to a nightclub. He called hosts right in front of me and He also arranged for a certain male (a friend of the leader) to get close to me and drive me home 5. Did this have anything to do with your decision to switch industry from architecture? Well.. it has something to do with it, but not the main reason. If I still like this industry I would just chose to change a working environment. It was mainly my disappointment in the industry from personal interest, not sexual harassment. because honestly i know sexual harrassment happens in every single industry. 6. Do you think you'll be sexually harassed again? In other industry or company? Not really. I hope if the practices have more young people and more women, that type of things would happen less. 7. What do you think of the recent Ali cases? (Young intelligence technology company, sexual assault female employees) This is a common social phenomenon. I feel numb inside. Women need to improve their selfprotection, but for guys I only have little hope of changing their behaviour. 8. Under such society for a long time, what changes do you think happen to your body and mind? Very numb and desperate. I am really disappointed about this society, those people. It's either no one stands out and say this is wrong or those voice got covered. I feel like I need to do something, but I don't know where to start, everyone around me just pretend they can't see, I feel hopeless.

-Reflection

Through this interview, there was less than I expected. And the reason is, I think the divergence problem is not going to be able to play out. When the interviewee doesn't give us much content or speaks less, if you guide them to think more deeply about the problem, then you can dig out more information, or some information that the interviewer subconsciously hides. I think the outline is necessary, but in the outline, apart from a few key node questions, it is very important to grasp the respondents' answers to deepen the detailed questions. But after you get into the details, remember to pull back to the outline and don't forget the topic of the interview. For the next interview, I will do background research on the interviewee first, and identify the valuable interest points before the interview begins. If there are no bright spots during the interview other than the outline, try to find out more about the person through these points of interest.

Research: related to practice

-Research interest

What's the role of Landscape arhictecture in Culture and Society Aspect? How to associate SOCIAL JUSTICE with landscape infrastructure? How to understand to use unorthodox design principles in landscape architecture?

-Practices/ Agency

Jason Ho Mapping Boot Camp 2014-Current PhD in Architecture at RMIT 2010-2014 Sessional Lecturer in RMIT 2007-2011 Master of Landscape architecture in RMIT 2005-2007

As the current candidate of Phd. in RMIT, Ha Thai has published some articles mentioning social injustices and how people use their own wisdom and effort to recreate the site designed by designers.

Ha Minh Hai Thai RMIT Lecturer University of Melbourne studio leader

Jason received a PhD of Architecture from RMIT University, in which his creative design research is focused on the bottom-up mapping of lived experiences around boundary walls in China. His research profoundly enhances the discourse of global urbanization, demonstrating how boundaries may become shared landscapes for the common good. After his PhD between 2014 and 2016, Jason has led more than 30 mapping workshops at different universities. In 2017, Jason was invited by Prof. Richard Weller and Prof. Margaret Crawford to give talks on his mapping workshops at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.

2018-Present 2018-Present

Interview: preparation

-Questions & Answers

1. Hi Jason, I watched your lecture about your mapping studio and city experiments in YIXI 4 years ago and at that time I felt really touched, especially when you mentioned the pink part as the ending of the lecture, I almost tear up. I really appreciate the work you've done and the fact that you shared to the public. And believe it or not, after watching your lecture I Googled your name and that's the first time I knew about RMIT. And this is definitely one of the reasons why I chose RMIT to study my master. Well, since we are alumnus, Tell me about your study in RMIT! What do you think is the difference between RMIT and other schools? Or what is the biggest characteristics of RMIT? 2. I am currently doing research about how to use landscape architecture to resolve the cultural conflicts in the city caused by policy and social level. What do you think of the role of landscape architecture on the humanistic and social level?

3. I read a lot of your interviews before, you always call yourself 'an architect without doing architecture'. obviously I know you don't actually mean it, but what's the real reason/ trigger for you to decide you want to open a studio for students to observe and design for those nonmainstream people? 4. So after I decided to chose Africans in Guangzhou as a topic for me to do the further research, I received a lot of 'opinions' from my peers or families. they told me this is kinda agianst the policy, this is not gonna work, this topic is a bit sensitive .. so i am wondering when you are doing the practices of mapping studio, have you met any sort of dilemas? what's your attitude towards it? How did you deal with it?

Reflection / Intra-view

-Reflection

Through the content of these lessons, those reading and the last lecture. Actually I feel like that having an interview or dialogue with someone is like ‘serving customers’ in hospitality. I was working in hospitality for almost a year as a part-time job. Most of times I was asked to sell more drinks and food to customers without annoying them. And I know maybe for some people it’s really easy but I felt so overwhelming to do that. My boss she told me the key of working hospitality is you don’t sell to them, but they come to ask you. And I reckon for interview, it’s the same thing as well. Of course, we need to ask questions, but the more important thing is how we can let the interviewee share their stories spontaneously. When we are interested in the person, in the meanwhile probably we need to let them got interested in us as well. and I think this’s the most difficult part for us to achieve, since that requires us confidence, professions, or maybe even charisma.