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The Mission Bay campus of UC San Francisco is slowly but surely growing with the recent addition of a parking structure designed by local firm WRNS.

Contrasting the rather staid corporate research boxes surrounding it, the crisp white facade of new structure positively glows. Wrapped on two sides with panels of perforated metal, the north east tower acts as a wayfinding beacon through the tree-lined pathways, echoing the Legorretta designed Community Center across campus.

Cut with a holes which vary in diameter and spacing, the perforated panels project an ever-changing array of shadows through to the interior of the structure as the sun moves.

Sweeping gracefully around a corner site in Beverly Hills, Michael Palladino of Richard Meier & Partners has designed a new corporate office for a prominent Los Angeles real estate firm.

Channel glass office walls offer individual privacy but bring a soft light through to the interior spaces. The central conference room features a skylight with operable louvre shades allowing views to the blue skies above.

An unfamiliar white blob on the distant horizon caught my eye a few days back. Somewhere near Berkeley, something big was afoot.

Trawling around just west of the university, the object in question soon revealed itself to be an enormous white elephant of a building, wrapped no doubt to minimize the release of asbestos dust during demolition and/or refurbishment. The presence of asbestos in these older buildings has been a major health concern and potential financial impediment whenever they are considered for redevelopment. The plastic wrapped facades would have done Christo proud and gave the whole scene a rather bizarre look, particularly with the textured wood and stucco structures along the surrounding streets.

Ironically, it turns out the building is the old California Department of Health Services.

In Singapore, WOHA’s School of the Arts has partially opened to its students. The project is essentially a full sized school perched atop a performing arts centre in the middle of the city. While the lower theatre and rehearsal spaces in their final stages of completion, the open plazas and rooftop recreation areas of the school are buzzing and active with the influx of this year’s crop of bright young things.

Mesmerisingly hovering at one end of the large void is a five story, rolled steel spiral staircase. A work of art in itself, I’d think this can’t help but inspire those students who twist up through its treads each day.

It would seem that not everybody who purchased apartments in WOHA’s award winning The Met in Bangkok was keen to move in straight away. For the first time, the building exterior was clean and devoid of the maintenance gondolas that had plagued our earlier visits. From a distance, one could see that many of the windows had been covered with brown paper to keep the low winter sun from directly hitting the floor boards.This somewhat killed the sleek verticality of the lines.

Access to the individual apartments was impossible (and on a 60 story tower, insanely impractical), so there was nought to do but knuckle down at the computer for a few days going window to window and cleaning off the paper. Unlike a flat, glazed facade, this could be no simple cut and paste job as the random patterns of the balconies, cladding and landscaping all needed to be taken into account.

While it got there in the end, there were times whilst sitting glued to the computer with an aching wrist, that I thought I might just….erm, go blind.

Dramatically redefining the developing skyline of Singapore, the urban garden linking across the three 55 story hotel towers of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort is taking shape.

Running a quick poll among today’s taxi drivers, it seemed the most popular description of the project was “the banana split”. Word has it that a few voices on the design review board were of the same opinion but lost out to Singapore’s growing appetite for the sweet things in life.

I can’t help thinking that this model wasn’t given an adequate site safety induction.

Surely she must have know the dangers of working on a construction site without a hard hat. The text to the right read The Sky is Not the Limit. It  certainly didn’t say the sky was a dangerous place with loose light fittings that can swing down and knock you unconscious.

The linkbridge on WOHA’s Iluma project in Singapore has been completed. The elevated bridge contains small retail outlets and spans Victoria Street, giving pedestrians a direct route into Bugis Junction.

There’s a limit to the number of old Star Trek episodes you can watch on a long haul flight without succumbing to the temptation of sitting down low in your seat and shouting loudly “I canna hold her much longer Capt’n! She’s breaking up!” in a broad Scots accent.

So it came to be that I watched a good portion of Transformers 2 before being saved by our final descent into Singapore.

I’ve long admired the Public Utilities Building, in Somerset Road. Designed in 1971 by the now defunct Group 2 Architects, this was a robust example of the Brutalist style. Recently however, the PUB has undergone something of a transformation itself and has emerged, re-clad in a shiny new suit.

While the original forms have been retained, the sharper edges and crisp material give it the appearance of a giant yet sleek machine. I just can’t figure out whether it’s friendly or not.

Just across the road, the massive Orchard Central retail centre has now opened. It too, seems to be made of an unspecified series of folded panels. Perhaps it could simply eject all the empty tenancies and make itself smaller?

As always, the prevailing weather plays a big role in the success of each day. The Bangkok forecast that day was for passing showers in the afternoon. Dutifully the clouds thickened, the air seemed to thicken and the breeze picked up, carrying with it the smell of the impending rains. And right then, the moment of truth….. that moment when you must decide “do I stay or do I go?”

It’s only a quick shower, right? I mean, it will blow through soon enough?

When the first enormous drops began to pound the pavement, it quickly became obvious that I had made totally the wrong call in electing to stay. But we were a hundred meters from decent shelter and further still from the safe confines of the hotel (where our cumbersome umbrellas lay resting). Weighed down with camera kits and laptops, simply running for it wasn’t an option. As a result, we spent the next hour and a half cowering in a nearby row of public telephone booths to remain, even if only partially, out of the torrential and relentless storm that ensued.