FIVEFOOTWAY | Blog

I-S Magazine interviews our chief, Adib Jalal

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:00:06 +0800

I-S Magazine interviews our chief, Adib Jalal:

“As a student, I wanted to read an intelligent yet accessible magazine about Asian architecture.. I couldn’t find it, so I decided to make it.”

“The value of FIVEFOOTWAY is in its editorial voice. We look at the city through very unique lenses and only publish our own stories.”

Full interview including awkward photograph here.

FIVEFOOTWAY at the Young Writers Media Festival

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:00:05 +0800

FIVEFOOTWAY’s editor-in-chief Adib Jalal and Editor, Justin Zhuang will be conducting a workshop for the Young Writers Media Festival on 18th & 19th Feb.

Featuring a slew of workshops and talks about writing & publishing, the festival targets Singaporean students from Secondary 4 (age 16 and above), Junior College, ITE, Polytechnic or those enrolled in any tertiary institution with writing aspirations.

Titled “‘5 Wives & 1 Husband”, our workshop will specifically explore online publishing and will see Justin giving a short presentation/lecture about the nuances of online writing/publishing before Adib takes the participants through a 1-hr activity to further discover and practice some of these ideas.

Hope to see you there.

———-

DETAILS

- 18th & 19th Feb, Rendezvous Hotel, Singapore. (Our slot: 2.30pm to 4.30pm on Sunday 19th Feb.)
- Full schedule here
- Register here. $20 for one day pass and $30 for 2-day pass.

Adjusting the rudder at FIVEFOOTWAY HQ

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:53:00 +0800

Being an independent publication with no attachment to external funding and advertisements, FIVEFOOTWAY has the ability to be extremely nimble and responsive to change. This has allowed us to constantly experiment with new things and also react to feedback from our readers with little friction and today, I bring you a series of updates to the magazine in that spirit. Consider it an adjustment of our rudder to get us to greater places.

1. Last month, we took the decision to release one free article per week and all of you have been showing lots of love to it. Following on from that, we feel that this has made the free trial account that we used to offer redundant and so this feature will no longer be available to new subscribers of the magazine.

2. We are also very encouraged by the compliments that we have been getting for the quality of content that we have been producing but we know that we can do much better. With that, the team has decided that we will be tightening our editorial control and no longer be bound by the 16-article a month schedule that we previously had. This means that you might be seeing some issues with only 8 articles in it, but you can be sure that we will make it the best that we can come up with.

3. Similarly, we will be having a tighter curation of the links that we have discovered across the web and this will now be presented in a Commentary format rather than the quick and almost disposable nature of the present Broadcast section. This Tumblog that used to host Broadcast will now be converted into a team blog where we will be posting news and updates from the FIVEFOOTWAY HQ.

4. Last but not least, we’ve also heard feedback from you about your reading habits and we’ve decided to tweak our publishing schedule in response to that. From this February issue onwards, we will be publishing new articles monthly instead of our usual weekly updates so that you can read the full issue in one sitting over a weekend.

Let us know what you think of these tweaks as it pans out over the coming months and you can do so on our FB page, Twitter or via email.

We are very thankful for the support that all of you have shown us and you can do a bit more by taking out an annual subscription that will help us pay our contributors and designers. Or if you would like to be a part of this team, drop us a note and we’ll be in touch. In addition to contributors, we are also looking for Web Designers and a PR/Marketing person to bolster the team. Unfortunately we can only afford token payments so this has to be a labour of love.

More next time. See you at the FIVEFOOTWAY.

Peace,
A

@fivefootway asks

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:19:26 +0800

Where are the best places to have some quiet time and make out in Singapore? Recommendations? Its for a @fivefootway story. Promise.

You can also reply on Twitter (@fivefootway) or email hello@fivefootway.com.

Read for free

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:27:00 +0800

From this week onwards, we are making one article from each of our weekly update for free. No sign-up or purchase of subscription needed at all, just click to read! We are also making the best article from each of the past few weeks available to all of you. These free articles are marked by our logo at the bottom right corner like this:

Here’s a list of the free articles that are online now. We hope you enjoy the read!

Volume 1 Issue 1- DEATH

Looking after death - We follow a funeral director through the final rites of a muslim burial

Kims pyongyang - A peek into the architecture of North Korea

Volume 0 Issue 2- EVERYONE (II)

Future asian city - We imagine what this might look like

From the ground up - We profile some grassroots initiatives that are reclaiming the city for all

Saved by buddha - The monastery, the ancient heart of Burmese society, is once again bringing together the future of Myanmar.

How to setup a hotdog stand - The best food in Asia are usually found along the streets. We find out how we can setup our very own hotdog stand in Singapore.

Volume 0 Issue 2- EVERYONE (I)

The last lap - As its city grows on land, Brunei’s biggest water village fights to stay afloat.

Instant asia 4- It’s been said that cities are all about its people. FIVEFOOTWAY asks everyone what their city means to them.

Our hometown, Toa Payoh - Once a big swamp land, the public housing town of Toa Payoh, the ʻheartlandsʼ for Singaporeans, is home to many.

A visibly invisible community - The Gurkhas are protectors of a city that they are not a part of.

This is how you get into North Korea

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:12:27 +0800

This is how you get into North Korea:

If you had read our piece titled Kim’s Pyongyang and feel like going to North Korea, these people might be able to help you get to the country.

mpdrolet: bremser: Kevin Yuen, Hong Kong, 2008

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:04:05 +0800

mpdrolet:

bremser:

Kevin Yuen, Hong Kong, 2008

Watching Movies about Architecture (and Design) by Mark LamsterA...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:12:00 +0800

Watching Movies about Architecture (and Design)

by Mark Lamster

A couple of days ago, a friend commented that watching movies about architecture is like dancing about baseball. It’s true that communicating in one artistic medium about another is inherently difficult; architecture poses special problems when it is reduced to a two-dimensional surface. I don’t think there’s any debate that too many (most) films about architecture and design are boring.

CONTINUE READING…

(via Observersroom)

"We should put human beings at the head of our thought process. You want to hopefully spark their..."

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:06:00 +0800

“We should put human beings at the head of our thought process. You want to hopefully spark their enthusiasm. Like riding in a glass elevator: everyone talks on a glass elevator. You get on a closed-in elevator, everyone looks down at their shoes. A glass elevator lets people’s spirits expand. Architecture should be a symphony.”

- John Portman, b.1924

[American architect and the man behind some of Singapore’s most well-known hotel buildings]

Where Have All The People Gone? In the project “Fatescapes,” the...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:31:00 +0800

Where Have All The People Gone?

In the project “Fatescapes,” the visual artist Pavel Maria Smejkal goes a step further and forces us to reconsider the veracity of historical images and the photographer’s role by digitally removing the people that made these images resonant. What is left is the scene as it might have looked just minutes before or after the photographer passed by. These images are reminiscent of a time, before Photoshop, when photographs were believed to be a reflection of reality. Mr. Smejkal’s alterations question whether photographs should be viewed as accurate representation.

Original photo: Stuart Franklin / Magnum

Urban Carpets. (via Behance)

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:00:05 +0800

Urban Carpets. (via Behance)

25 big ideas for 2012: Open-sourced construction (Wired UK)

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:02:05 +0800

25 big ideas for 2012: Open-sourced construction (Wired UK)

The death of a building

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:00:06 +0800

The death of a building

We welcome new faces to the FIVEFOOTWAY contributors network

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:19:00 +0800

FIVEFOOTWAY is made by a core team comprising myself, Adib (chief/designer), Justin (editor) and Mark (designer) and we are supported by a network of wonderfully talented people including programmers, illustrators and writers. To keep the magazine evolving into a better form, we are always looking to improve the team and we are pleased that over the past few months, we’ve had more amazing people come forward to join us and today, we welcome a few more names into our network.

THE ADDITIONS

We begin by welcoming Rachel Koh to the team as Editor. Working closely with our other Editor, Justin Zhuang, Rachel will bring her laser-sharp editorial skills and scour the articles for grammar and punctuation crimes while looking out for ways to tell the story better. She also brings her experience in the publishing world to the team and we think the magazine will have much to benefit from having her around.

You can also expect to see a few new names in our contributors list over the coming weeks including the likes of photographer, Philip Aldrup and Writer/Researcher, Shirley Surya as we file stories from various parts of Asia.

CONTRIBUTORS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

We are very interested to know more about our immediate neighbours so if you are based in, or have an interest in the various cities of South East Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, the Phllippines, Vietnam, etc), we would like to hear from you. We know that there are a lot of stories from our Asian cities that are yet to be told and you might have a gem in your hands.

If you have browsed the magazine, you will know that we are open to various story-telling formats including prose, infographics, photo-essays and we are even looking at publishing some fiction/poetry in the near future. So if you think you have something to contribute to FIVEFOOTWAY, do write to us at hello@fivefootway.com with a short intro of yourself and writing samples if you have any.

Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the things that we will be serving up in 2012.

-Adib

They lived on a floating village and didn’t have any field...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:00:06 +0800

They lived on a floating village and didn’t have any field to play football. So they built one. TMB Panyee FC is now one of the best teams in Southern Thailand. True Story.

Reclaim your city and make the difference.

thiscitycalledearth: by Andre Gansebohm, Kuala Lumpur.

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:08:01 +0800

thiscitycalledearth:

by Andre Gansebohm, Kuala Lumpur.

In November 2011, we organised Surprise Stove Singapore with...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:56:00 +0800

In November 2011, we organised Surprise Stove Singapore with our friends JongArsitek and KeukenBdg. Here are the photos and remember to check out the video as well!

More at our Facebook page

In November 2011, we organised Surprise Stove Singapore with our...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:53:00 +0800

In November 2011, we organised Surprise Stove Singapore with our friends JongArsitek and KeukenBdg. Here’s the footage that you’ve been looking forward to.

The Sleepbox unit at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport contains two...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:15:36 +0800

The Sleepbox unit at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport contains two beds and can be rented for between 30 minutes and several hours. The pod is equipped with LED reading lamps as well as sockets for charging laptops and mobile phones. This booth is constructed from ash-veneered MDF, although future units could instead be made from metal or glass-reinforced plastic.

"…modern civilisation had replaced the private enterprise of killing. The steady increase of..."

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:19:37 +0800

““…modern civilisation had replaced the private enterprise of killing. The steady increase of such unintentional murders as traffic accidents, and moreover the low price attached to an individual life, usually less than one million yen, gradually nullified his profession as a killer, lowered his wages, and hurt his sense of self-esteem. According mechanism called the city, which was the inevitable product and the physical supporter of modern civilization. The city, therefore, was the killer of all killers and, worse still, being anonymous, it was a curious enterprise to which no responsibilities are attached… The aim of his company, therefore, was to destroy cities by all possible means.””

- Arata Isozaki, City Demolition Industry, Inc. (1962)