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Design as Healing – Turning Loss Into Beauty Food for thought

Design as Healing – Turning Loss Into Beauty

Fire, earthquake, riots—Los Angeles knows destruction. But it also knows renewal. Wildfires sweep through, leaving nothing but scorched earth and memories. The 1994 Northridge earthquake shattered buildings, only for the city to quietly retrofit and reinforce them while life continued. After each disaster, we rebuild, but rebuilding should be more than just restoring what was lost—it should be an opportunity to create something better, safer, more intentional. I’ve spent decades designing homes that blend beauty with resilience. Fire-resistant materials like concrete and metal roofs drastically reduce a home’s vulnerability to…
Sarah Owens
February 19, 2025
From Peanut-Brittle Concrete to Dream Homes – My LA Story Food for thought

From Peanut-Brittle Concrete to Dream Homes – My LA Story

Los Angeles is my homeland. It’s where I ate my first 10-cent McDonald’s burger and a 5-cent bag of fries. Where I learned to pee in a jar rather than wake my family while we sat rapt at the Victory Drive-in. My mother, ever resourceful, made our farmhouse driveway in Van Nuys with her own homemade concrete. She and my father, with five boys crammed into a ’47 Nash Hudson, would haul sand from the open banks of the LA River in Pacoima, stuffing it into used rice sacks. We…
FuTung Cheng
February 3, 2025
Residential Architectural Design in a Climate-Challenged Post-Covid World DesignFood for thought

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

“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…
Cheng Design
September 23, 2021
House 7 Stairs | Sideview | CHENG Design | sustainable, emotional, timeless design
FLOATING CONCRETE: Stairway at House 7 DesignFood for thought

FLOATING CONCRETE: Stairway at House 7

I'm standing in the foyer lobby of the house . 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 so…
FuTung Cheng
August 20, 2015
Warrior | ART-BREAK: Terracotta Warriors
ART-BREAK: Terracotta Warriors Food for thought

ART-BREAK: Terracotta Warriors

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…
FuTung Cheng
July 28, 2015
Hogan/Mayo House 3 Project, Del Mar, CA 1996 Designer: Fu-Tung Cheng
Imitation can be the Highest Form of Efficiency Food for thought

Imitation can be the Highest Form of Efficiency

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…
FuTung Cheng
June 30, 2015
Tiburon House - Hand Drawing | CHENG Design
ARTFUL DEBATE: Hand vs. Computer Drawing Food for thought

ARTFUL DEBATE: Hand vs. Computer Drawing

A response to Enzo Tessitore's editorial on Hand vs. Computer Drawing: A Student’s Opinion for design purposes in architecture. Instant disclosure: I have no training or experience working as a designer with CAD programs. However, I have worked out design problems looking over the shoulder of CAD literate associates at the monitor and found it a most useful and very efficient tool. Tiburon House, Computer Perspective. 2013 Copyright by CHENG Design   The touch-points of technology and human culture have fused into one another in the digital age like no…
FuTung Cheng
April 28, 2015
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