Wednesday 28 May 2008

DATUM KL!

For those who are interested to participate in the DATUM KL forum, please submit your registration forms to the Programme Office, either to Ms. Shereen or Ms. Hilda. (Download form *here*)


The cost for each participating student (without food) is RM160/-. Forward the payment the same time as the form to Ms. Shereen or Ms. Hilda as well.


Closing date for the registration form + payment = 13th June


*Gossip Girl informs us that if we get enough people (200 students), the college may be able to subsidise. But honestly RM160/- is SO much cheaper than the RM280/- price stated already, so sign up people!



Sunday 25 May 2008

What color is your soul painted?

What color is your soul painted?

Blue

Your soul is painted the color blue, which embodies the characteristics of peace, patience, understanding, health, tranquility, protection, spiritual awareness, unity, harmony, calmness, coolness, confidence, dependability, loyalty, idealism, tackiness, and wisdom. Blue is the color of the element Water, and is symbolic of the ocean, sleep, twilight, and the sky.

Personality Test Results

Click Here to Take This Quiz

quiz
Quizzes and Personality Tests

Saturday 24 May 2008

What color is your soul painted?

What color is your soul painted?

Yellow

Your soul is painted the color yellow, which embodies the characteristics of joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, gold, hope, liberalism, sociability, friendship, death, courage, intellect, confidence, communication, travel, movement, attraction, persuasion, and charm. Yellow is the color of the element Air, and symbolizes the sun, grain, and the power of thought.

Personality Test Results

Click Here to Take This Quiz

quiz
Quizzes and Personality Tests

Thursday 22 May 2008

STUDIO WORK ARCHIVES

Guys and gals who are all so free,

I'm here posting on behalf of Ian and miss V.
He needs copies of what we did for the visitor centre this semester.
Among the things needed are:

1. JPEG of our presentation board
2. JPEG(s) of our plans
3. JPEG(s) of interesting and nice shots of our design
4. JPEG(s) of our model

all JPEGs have to be a quality of at least 2MB per jpeg aka higher resolution if not, your photos will be blur and it doesn't help in showing off your nice designs.

choose the best shots of your design and email it to ian pls.. he needs them for his lectures..

and another copy of whatever sent to ian should be burnt into a CD and submitted to miss V when the new semester starts. that's for taylor's archives and STEPS.. try to have as many people's work in a nicely labelled CD as possible to reduce the wastage of plastic and help reduce global warming =)

ONE MORE THING...

a portrait photograph of yourself that features your signature "pose" or "look"
you know like what the famous architects have, their signature portrait photograph like Zaha Hadid etc.


seriously, ian wants that portrait of ourselves. not joking.

so kindly email them to ian.

thank you.

Wednesday 14 May 2008

THE STUDIO 3 SHOW (13 MAY 2008)








(More photos on my facebook after I've caught up with my sleep...haha)

The Wrapping Up Party yesterday after the final presentations was FUNTASTIC! Thanks Issac for suggesting it the night before. And thank you Everyone in Studio 3 who belanja-ed us tutors!

I enjoyed the mad photo session, I enjoyed hearing all your little speeches, I enjoyed the pizza, I enjoyed your company most of all. Hearing Wei Shyan and Yu Sheng speak was like...wow...a stunning experience! Haha.

Sorry I spoke at the speed of the bullet train---that was my strategy for blocking out my feelings. Otherwise it would have been kinda messy (haha.)



For those of you who missed it (the party, I mean) here's my little speech. Not word for word---how can i remember it word for word...haha---just the formalised gist of it.


GOODBYE UNMISSED

(wa...got title somemore... Good presentation must always be labeled mar...haha.)


Well, guys, this is it, I guess: The end of one hectic semester. And quite possibly, for some who may care to think of it that way, it’s kinda the final leap over an important milestone.

Milestones that matter in life are not often measured by the money you make or the fame you achieve, nice though those things may be. Rather, markers that matter are perhaps that little remark from a friend, that small gesture that came at a time when you most needed it, that prank you played with your classmates—completely carefree and unrelated to architecture—or those small hours you spent together, your bodies so weary you wondered if the sun would rise for you...to go and face yet another crit!

Treasure those moments, my friends, for you will remember them more, much more, than the great lessons in architecture—which will take a lifetime to learn. And remember those who stood by your side through them all.

It’s been a pleasure running this program for you. Experiential poetics is always the fun part of architecture. And if you are still a little blur about it—don’t worry: It’ll come to you…after many hours of sleep (with dreams), after many more days of looking at the world, and some more years of practicing. The important thing is… in Studio 3, Taylor’s College, 2008, you started.

(Along with V & K) I am a tutor because the rules of the game require tutors. But really, as I am just as passionate about architecture as you are, in a deeper sense I am a colleague, learning alongside you. Sure I’ve seen much more, read a bit more, built some. But creativity is no man’s captive. It is a gift of God to everyone, regardless of age, yours as much as mine. And each time you showed me your designs, however tentative, you allowed me a peek through yet another window—yours—into a world I’d never seen before. And for that I am always grateful, and about that I am always excited.

I may appear a little Banana to you (haha.) But I assure you, this banana’s very much dipped in kaya! Haha! Really, I am very Asian at heart—and proud of it, too. And I see no embarrassment in doing the Asian thing in closing.

If I have said any unkind word, if I have ever been overbearing, or if I have sometimes appeared just too harsh, please forgive me. It is not because I hate. Rather it is because I love enough to see a better you.

I bid you farewell in the greater things to come, and thank you for teaching me as much as I hope I have taught you.

Thank you, and Goodbye.

Monday 12 May 2008

PRESENTATION CONFIDENCE 2/2

I was halfway through this last, outstanding article. But this afternoon I saw the schemes that came in till 5pm and hey! U guys don't need any articles on confidence.. haha! They're all so much better than we expected. Well done, guys! So relax... All u have to do is take us through your buildings from entrance to exit, and pause along the way to explain briefly any design idea that happens to be well illustrate at that point of the tour. That's about the easiest way to do your presentation. You may off course have a different, preferred method of presentation...stick to whichever you're comfortable with. Anything around 5 mins of speaking would be fine. Smile and go for it! The panelists will love you. The erstwhile trinity should be floating around.

Li Meng...wear a tie that matches the colour of your wall. You'll be a knockout!

Sunday 11 May 2008

LIFE THROUGH THE AGES


This one's for Ei Ei

(Received from bhy 11 May 2008)

EXAMPLE OF RENDERING












The REN Building is a proposal for a hotel, sports and conference center for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The building is conceived as two buildings merging into one. The first building, emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses the sports and water culture center. The second building emerging from land, is devoted to the spirit and enlightment, and houses the conference center and meeting facilities. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel, a building for living. The building becomes the Chinese sign for 'The People', and a recognizable landmark for the World Expo in China. (Received from bhy, 11 May 2008)

Friday 9 May 2008

ONE LAST CRIT!!


before go on to the final stage, i hope can get one last crit from Ian as well as all of u. here are some of the images of my spaces. feel free to give any comments.. what do u feel from each space?
( BENSON ! These are MINE hahahaha)

thx


View from Cannon Square
night view from Cannon Square
Gallery - "Ying"
Foyer
Exhibition area- " yang"

Retail shop and reading area

Thursday 8 May 2008

Sneak Preview. But one picture more than Benson.

ok la. just a sneak preview of my building also.

I welcome you with..and..



ok la. enough. haha.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

random photo of my space


yos......... here u r ..... hv a quick look for my random photos of my spaces in my visit centre....

ALL MUST AIM FOR AN 'A' ... OR ELSE!

I did hesitate before deciding to forward this. It's the timing, you see: It's full throtle time to final submission on May 13 and I really wouldn't like any of you to chuck it in at this stage.

Not that I think any of you would.

It's not so much the fixation with the A grade that some of us might have but rather the valid call towards the larger Life-Agenda that I think makes this email worth a read ... over a teh tarik...or ice-blended coffee...or something. (Moccha, Vanilla, All Choclate are all ok, actually.)

I really would like to hear some comments from those who got more than 3 As for their SPM.

(email from homefrontier egroup)

Sunday February 26, 2006
`A' is for attitude

Success in life does not depend on scoring straight As in exams, but rather on another kind of `A', opines ZAHIRA TIARA SHAFIQ.

I WAS a good student in school. Could have been a straight-A student, if only I had heeded my teachers' admonitions to study harder.

I did well enough in the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examinationsto qualify for the science stream, but opted to study literaturebecause I wanted to follow my heart. I knew I wouldn't enjoy science at all, so why go through the anguish?In school, I was very active. I was in the school's debating team in Form Four. We emerged district runners-up and even wrote the lyrics ofthe song for Teacher's Day celebrations that year.

I also became a major fan of Channel [V]'s By Demand and created a fanwebsite for them. They loved it, and I soon made friends with the crew and the VJs.

However, when I was in Form Five, I was diagnosed with panic disorderand depression, and had to undergo treatment for both. My headmistresswas sympathetic and asked if I wanted to take a break from school.

My family and I said no. I continued at school, but was appalled to see how teachers cared more about the number of As students could score than their welfare.

They relaxed this stance when one of my peers passed away from a heart affliction, but within a month, it was back to the mad frenzy for As,without regard for health or anything else.

Some of my friends were so stressed out over the impending SijilPelajaran Malaysia examinations that they went into depression. A classmate suffered a bout of hysteria and was transferred to anotherschool.

My teacher's response?

"I hope she doesn't take her SPM results here; she would only bringdown our perfect grade record."

Eventually, I scored five As in the SPM exam. However, those five A swere meaningless as I did not qualify for scholarships.

Not to be deterred, I took a year off after secondary school and did lots of things. I travelled, enrolled in dance classes, joined BRATs(even did an interview with Asha Gill which made the front page of OleBrats) and took a Radio DJ workshop.

I also designed and launched Asha Gill's official website Asha Gill.Comas well as set up my freelance production company Blessed*Be Productions.

Mind you, all this had nothing to do with my SPM grades. Later, I enrolled in university. I did well and was a volunteer withAmnesty International. I was even selected to interview our PrimeMinister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and the Democratic ActionParty's Lim Kit Siang.

I was also a semi-finalist for the Hitz.FM Radio Icon.

It was while I was in university that I started looking for alternative opportunities to education, and I stumbled into the UpWith People's WorldSmart Leadership Programme which offers successfulcandidates an inter-cultural global educational experience involvingtravel to seven countries around the world, with plenty ofexperiential learning.

In the application, they did ask for "high school results", but thatwas not a priority to them. What mattered was leadership andcommunication skills as well as the willingness to learn and be flexible.They asked me many things in the interview but nothing about the SPMresults.

I applied and became the first Malaysian in the WorldSmart LeadershipProgramme in its 40-year history.

I spent a semester travelling through the US, Japan, and Europe with people from 27 different countries, doing community service, learningabout the region, working on internships and projects, and living withhost families.

Due to my active involvement, I was elected Crew Representative for mygroup.

I am now on a hiatus from university. In a few days, I will start anew job with Channel [V] International, thanks to the fansite I madewhen I was not even 16.

And I realise that whatever I have achieved so far was done withoutthe scoring straight As in the SPM.

In fact, the SPM results did not matter at all.All that stress and panic for nothing.

I have been in touch with friends from school who scored straight As, and while they are doing okay, they sound envious of me.

I even gave a talk at my former school about the opportunities out in the world and the students were amazed and inspired.

It is not difficult to get enriching experiences.

All you have to do is to look out there and be open to new things. Opportunities are there if you look hard enough.

Some people say you need As to get scholarships. That is not necessarily true. FastWeb's Scholarship Search, a big online database for Americanscholarships, offers plenty of scholarships where priority is increative and critical thinking, as well as life experiences.

They have scholarships that require you to make a short film, writeessays, analyse books, write a science fiction story... but there isno mention of exam results.

There is no point in getting straight As if that is all you are goodat. Even Harvard encourages its students to take a year off and getsome much-needed experience before enrolling.

Employers do not care how many As you have as long as you get the jobdone. As for self-employment or entrepreneurship, that definitely hasnothing to do with your SPM results (just ask Bill Gates).

There are so many opportunities out there that do not depend on exam results.

Why stress yourself out over something that, in the long run, does notreally matter all that much?

Why put yourself at the risk of mental trauma, or even suicide?

Really, SPM results are not worth worrying over.

There is so much more to the world out there than just As.

Go out and learn.

Experience.

Have the right attitude.

The world is much bigger than that slip of paper with your results on it.

QUICK REFERENCE
Tiara's Blog: EducateDeviate <http://educatedevia te.wordpress. com/>>
Worldsmart Leadership Program <http://www.upwithpe ople.org/>See also < http://orgs. takingitglobal. org/6139>
FastWeb: Scholarships, Internships, Colleges <http://www.fastweb. com/>contains over 1.3 million scholarships worth over $3 billion.

Monday 5 May 2008

Missing External Hard Drive

*Mr Ian, I hope you don't mind me using the blog for this*



My hard drive with 5 semesters worth of work is missing. Although I have the current assignment files in my X drive (Working Drawings and Studio), it is not updated or as complete as I would like.

This is a picture of what it looks like:



I had left it in the ICT Dept. for only 5-10 mins around 2.20pm today and when I realised it was gone and returned to find it, it was taken already.


If anyone sees this hard disk anyway, please give the handler a whack on the head and then wretch it away. ARRRGH.


Please contact me ASAP if you have any idea of it's whereabouts.




In lots of pain, frustration and regret for not taking care of something so valuable,
Josh

Saturday 3 May 2008

Sneak Preview



Ian, this is a sneak preview for you of one of the "lantern" box. Does it look like a lantern ?? LOL

Guys, feel free to comment.








5000 members of Soka Gakkai Malaysia perform the human mural at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, KL.(image added by ian ng in response to comment 6)

Ian: And the Marceedi comment.......

It's from the film, The Killing Fields, for which the late Khmer actor, Haing S Ngor, won an oscar for Best Supporting Actor. In the story....(see comments)

Friday 2 May 2008

CHINESE RENAISSANCE

This may have some bearing on the way we understand Renaissance Architecture onwards.
(The book, 1421, was a rather good read.)

Excerpt from it's latest newsletter:
1434!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We have been keeping it under wraps for the last year, but are today delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of Gavin's new book, 1434 - The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.
In the new book Gavin presents evidence that it was Chinese advances in science, art and technology that formed the basis of the European Renaissance and our modern world. Until now, scholars have considered that the Italian Renaissance came about as a result of a re-examination of the ideas of classical Greece and Rome. However, through a detailed analysis of recently uncovered source material, Gavin describes the visit of a sophisticated Chinese delegation to the Papal Court at Florence, Italy, in 1434 - a visit which sparked the Renaissance, forever changing the course of Western civilization and global history. After that date the authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy was overturned and artistic conventions challenged, as was Arabic astronomy and cartography.
The book will be published by HarperCollins in the U.S.A. and U.K. in June 2008. Needless to say we are very excited about the prospect! It has been years in the making and we hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we did preparing it.

Thursday 1 May 2008

Bribing a Professor


A professor was giving a big test one day to his students. He handed out all of the tests and went back to his desk to wait. Once the test was over, the students all handed the tests back in. The professor noticed that one of the students had attached a $100 bill to his test with a note saying "A dollar per point." The next class the professor handed the tests back out. This student got back his test and $56 change.