Day 1 Reflections by Claire

1. How is innovation a key feature of survival?
Innovation helps a lot in helping us survive and is very useful. In this case, innovation helped the Vietnamese during the Vietnamese war to fight against the American soldiers. They innovated on things like traps and tunnels, also how to move around the tunnels. This gave them quite a bit of advantage over the Americans. They reused a lot of items, and they were very smart. The Americans were depleted because of the traps. This is one of the examples why innovation is important for us to survive.

2. How is cultural integration reflected in design?
Design has everything, even cultural integration. In Vietnam, there is a religion that combines these three religions, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Confucianism together. In the Cai Dai temple that practices this religions, the design of the building is very unique, which shows off the beliefs of the people. This makes the building special to the people and shows very clearly their beliefs.

Day 1 reflections: Devanshi

Day 1 Reflections: Visit Cu Chi  tunnel and Cai Dai temple 


Learning outcomes:

1. Students will learn about the essential considerations that influence the design of an underground structure. 
2. Students will learn how innovation can be applied to overcome resource and other constraints. 
3. Students will uncover how culture and religious can be integrated.

EQ1. How is innovation a key feature of survival?

As shown by the innovation of the Vietnamese during the war, we can see that innovation contributed to the survival of many Vietnamese. The Vietnamese and the Americans were both very innovative when it came to them trying to mislead the other. For example, the Vietnamese released the smoke from the tunnels when they were cooking more than 100 meters away from the kitchen and they released it in the morning. This made the smoke blend into the surroundings as mist to make it less noticeable and to conceal the location of the kitchen. And them having the holes far from the actual kitchen would mislead them to think the kitchen was there. The Americans used dogs to sniff out places the vietnamese would have been since the dogs are not familiar with the smell of them. 




The Vietnamese  also   assembled several different types of traps that would increase their chances of survival. They made the traps blend into the surroundings very well and made use of the resources they had such as bamboo sticks to use to their advantage as a weapon against the Americans.  This shows that innovation can be very beneficial and may even be the difference between life and death in this case. Example of holes that American dogs would sniff out. 

 

                                                                      EQ2. How is cultural integration reflected in design?

Cultural integration was reflected in design when we visited the Cai Dai temple. The temple was a combination of three different religion, Buddhism, Catholicism and Confucius. These three different religions were brought together in this temple by having an eye as the see and protect all in the world. These three religions were incorporated into the building by having three different umbrella like structures together to represent each religion and by hanging flags that show the three colours representing the three cultures together. A bamboo trap made by the Vietnamese. 

The three coloured flag(Credits:SevareidFamily)

Day 2 Reflections: Lim Jia Jun

Essential Question 1

How is innovation a key feature of survival?

Innovation is a key feature of survival because resources are important in survival, and to survive, resources will have to be handed well. Also, innovating new ideas or equipment could be a change to whether you live or die. 

An example is the people living in Cu Chi tunnel. They dug down to where bombs could not reach them. They also utilized bomb shells dropped by the Americans to make traps and equipment for themselves. This is the process of recycling materials and also innovation. The Vietnamese also utilized their environment well, such as cooking in the morning so that the smoke from their cooking would blend in with the morning fog. Their traps and other ideas such as masking their scent from dogs and wearing American uniforms were extremely innovative too.

Essential Question 2

How is cultural integration reflected in design?

Culture affects designs of structures a lot. This would be most prominent in temples, churches or mosques. Carvings, colours, painting and statues would be the most obvious, but there are other smaller things that could be noticed was the elevation of the temple in regular intervals.

Day 1 Reflection by NG YING LIANG

Q1: How is innovation a key feature to survival?

Innovation is very important to survival during the war time in Guchi Village. Villagers made use of their small sizes and created small tunnels for villagers to crawl through to escape from the Americans. It is linked to the Saigon River at the end. Also, the vietnamese created the slippers with the sole inverted so that Americans will be confused by the footprints and won't know where the vietnamese is escaping. Lastly, making use of the morning fog, they cook so that the smoke that is emitted while they are cooking can be disguised as the fog too so that Americans will then not find out where their locations are.

EQ2: How is cultural integration reflected in design?

The design of the temples merge the three religions, Buddhism, Catholicism and Confucianism together. In the temple, lots of dragons could be seen, even the pillars of the temples have dragons carved on it. Also on the wall of the temple, there is a eye, it is said to look over everyone and protect the people. 

Day 1 Reflections - Isaac Lim

 EQ1. How is innovation a key feature of survival? Innovation is the improvement of existing items around you, and then using them to your advantage. Since in survival, you can just barely get along with each day with the limited materials and resources, innovation is a must. For example, the Vietnamese had used the Americans’ camouflage cloaks to hide from enemy helicopters and to deter dogs from their scent. That was innovation, since they had used the cloaks that they had salvaged from the dead American soldiers for different uses than they were originally intended, and this had all been a very important part in the survival of the Vietnamese.

 EQ2. How is cultural integration reflected in design? The designs are thought up from the people who were affected by their culture in the first place, and as such, those people’s minds are influenced by the culture that they are used to. As such, the designs in a country would be heavily influenced by their cultures or religions. For example, the temple’s pillars had carvings and imagery on them of dragons, and these decisions in designing would reflect quite clearly on either the culture or the religion and beliefs of the people.

Day 1 Reflection by Kaneko Yoshiki

EQ1: How is innovation a key feature of survival?
The Vietnamese people created a network of tunnels so as to hide their supplies and to be able to hide away from their enemies. In those tunnels, there are some misleading ones where they do not lead anywhere. Also, some of their tunnels are so small that one has to lie down just to get through. These tunnels can even lead to Saigong river. Also, the vietnamese created their own traps and these traps were simple yet very effective. The vietnamese soldiers also wore the american uniforms so that if they were sighted by the american soldiers, that american soldiers would not shoot them straight away but hesitate.

EQ2: How is cultural integration reflected in design?
Their culture is a mixture of the three cultures and when it is mixed a very nice impression is formed. The religion also has one eye whereby it is said that it watches over everyone and part of the different religions. This eye is what the people worship to.

Day 1 Reflection by He Shiying

EQ1: How is innovation a key feature to survival

Innovation is very important and an example would be how the people of the Guchi Village had adapted to survive the war. The people dug tunnels 3 or more meters deep as shelter and even added rooms to fit their daily needs in order to survive. An example would be the people cooking only in the mornings and make use an underground kitchen with a unique system for steam or smoke to escape, disguising it as fog in the morning. Another example would be making use of used bomb shells and unattended American uniform capes allowed the soliders to camouflage themselves and protect themselves against the Americans. 

EQ2: How is cultural integration reflected in design?

Based on the visit to the temple, many of the pillars are based on the 3 cultures itself. An example would be the inscription of dragons on the pillars. 

Kenneth Han Day 1 Reflections

My Reflections:
Today we visited Cu Chi Tunnel and the main highlights was going through the tunnel itself.It was made during the American occupation to protect themselves from the bombs and allow them to be protected under the hard dirt.As the tunnels were relatively small this allowed the vietnam people that lived in these tunnels to move around undetected by all the american soldiers for them.They also created many traps to kill unsuspecting American Soldiers they happened to walk on them,they also were very smart and wore the American uniforms so that they will not be fired on immediately when seen.

We managed to go through one of those short tunnels and it was very small and hard to navigate through when we were told that it had actually already been widened for foreigners I was surprised as it was already very squeasy.

Day 1 Reflection Tan Yu Tao

Q1 How is innovation a key feature of survival

Innovation help the Vietnamese prevent the lost of life. From the usage of the americans clothes to mask the scent of their air holes to creating traps that protected them and their tunnels.











 Without innovation, the lose of vietnam lives would be much higher. The vietnamese also used the bombs from the Americans to create their own mines and bombs that they hid well and managed to destroy many of the american tanks

Q2 How is cultural integration reflected in design?

The culture is affected from three culture that is put together that makes a mix of three religion that creates and interesting architecture The three religion has one base that is the eye that over watches all everyone and is also part of different religions.

The building also has steps that represent the many years of the person has been in service of the religion. The building also has a large orb in the building that represents the universe and also has the eye on it and is what the people pray to.

Day 1 Reflection By Jonathan

EQ1: Using whatever remaining leftovers and items, be it from nature or man-made, innovation plays a huge roles in providing oneself some equipments and tools that enable a higher chance of survival. Like how the Northern Vietnamese or the Communist party of Vietnam had made use of the bamboos and soil available in the natural surroundings and the bomb shells and the uniforms of the US army to build their base and equipments. Also, they made use of the usual ergonomics to fool the Americans into believing that they were walking in the other way around.



EQ2: Different cultures have different thoughts and views about visuals. This results in when merging religious places, the area might seem abnormal as there visuals might not match sometimes. However, if the visuals actually match, they give viewers a really nice impression. Therefore when designing cultural influential places, it is important to place the well fit visual together and give a better viewing experience in the design.

Day 1 Reflections by Koh Jia En

How is innovation a key feature of survival?

Learning to make use of the environment and recycling almost everything possible is a form of innovation. These adaptations and innovations were well-shown in the tour of the Cu Chi Tunnel. The methods they adopted to solve problems and how they strategically chosen the place to build the tunnel was the key to their survival. Underground structures used were extremely innovative, so were the ways they made up for the loopholes that would have gotten their tunnel discovered. It is amazing, their survival methods.

How is cultural integration reflected in design?

Cultural integration is a culture gaining characteristics of another, like that of what we saw at the Cai Dai Temple. They have integrated Buddhism, Catholicism and Confucianism in the temple. The walls are designed in a way to show the integration, carved with the symbol of the integrated culture, the symbol meaning that the integrated culture has enabled the eye, part of the symbol, to see everything and protect everything. Instead of making all 3 religions well-defined and separated, they have gained different ideas, being more open-minded.

Parents' Briefing slides