Blog | CHENG Design | sustainable, emotional, timeless design

Residential Architectural Design in a Climate-Challenged Post-Covid World

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“Ooh, a storm is threat’ning My very life today If I don’t get some shelter Ooh yeah, I’m gonna fade away” ––The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter What is shelter? Where do humans seek it? If one were to boil these questions down to their fundamental essence, humans seek shelter wherever we can find it. And this year, where the Californian finds it is in the calm eye of each of the four season’s hurricanes, aptly named Pandemic, Global Warming, Drought and Wildfire. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, our…

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House 7 Stairs | Sideview | CHENG Design | sustainable, emotional, timeless design

FLOATING CONCRETE: Stairway at House 7

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I'm standing in the foyer lobby of the house [House 7]. Finally, here, I was able to utilize all these different experiences of working with finished concrete in a super-engineered sculptural way in this staircase. For myself, being so involved with concrete for so long, for so many years, this is the pièce de résistance of sculpture and function all coming together in one fell swoop. Each one of these treads weighs approximately 250 pounds. They were "sledded" in on tracks. The guys moved each tread and slid it on...
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Warrior | ART-BREAK: Terracotta Warriors

ART-BREAK: Terracotta Warriors

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I played hooky from the office one Friday with my 14 year-old daughter. She was on school break. It was impulsive, but I was warned: you only have these waning, fleeting, post-pubescent days as a father to leave a lasting impression. So we went together, on a sunny San Francisco (!) morning to see the opening of the Soldiers of the Qin Emperor exhibit, where a few of the 7000 life-sized terracotta soldiers have been transported from the tomb in Xian, China, to the Asian Art Museum downtown. Before Rome…

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Hogan/Mayo House 3 Project, Del Mar, CA 1996 Designer: Fu-Tung Cheng

Imitation can be the Highest Form of Efficiency

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It’s a fool’s errand to try to compete with, or imitate, Nature. Our gut-level, natural design instincts can sniff out most tacky attempts at imitation. Faux “cultured” marble, stamped concrete flagstone, and plastic roses are no substitute for the real thing. We may momentarily be fooled, but like sugar-and-salt-loaded fast food, they are full of empty calories. On the other hand, it’s foolish not to emulate, if not copy, something made by a craftsman, artist or innovator who may have spent years researching and perfecting a look that you admire––especially…

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