Monday 31 May 2010

To all who's too worried & can't sleep.

To all studios, especially diploma studio 3. Good luck to the final review tomorrow morning.
All done is done, just relax, be confident, and prepare yourselves for what all the critiques have to say (or maybe nothing to say.)

It's not the end of the world, you have all the luxury to make huge loads of mistakes.

Each individual has his own pace of improvement. Just do your best, show your sincerity through yourselves and very importantly your projects, constantly, and you'll be fine.

Best Wishes.


What images to show??

Hey guys and girls.

I could really see some of you all are struggling to present your design scheme in images that best describe what your building is all about.

Forget about the exterior image of your building for a moment. Ask yourself "What sorta spatial quality does my building have that I should show to the external crit?" Don't get me wrong here..exterior image is also important. It shows a lot on how your building sits onto the site and how it fits into context but it shouldn't be the main focus.

As what Khang Siang has mentioned in his previous comments "if this is about religion..I guess you ought to focus on displaying images that show the religious sides of your buildings"..that's exactly what you guys need to do! What makes your design scheme so special and different from others are those spaces inside it!

I'm gonna share a little of my studio work I did in Melbourne Uni. I won't be elaborating much about my work here. There's still some refinements that has to be done for my final submission. My studio theme is all about Atmosphere and we had to design a building that is a centre for climate cognition. My building functions as a weather museum that has a photo gallery, exhibition spaces and also a meditation space.

Each student has their own unique spatial devices that drives the design scheme which we got off from our workshop phases. Mine particularly was about the tension of spaces through instability.

The two images below are my community space. The contour wall was a direct representation of my external form, as well as what I thought would portray the tension of the spaces within my building (bull$h!t!ng your way tru ur ideas are very important! The crit bought my idea! =P )




The image below was kinda the best image that portrays what my building is about, hence I blew it the biggest in my board.


The photo gallery. Walls coming off from ceiling and side walls. This was one of my weakest space I had in my scheme. I directly copied the exact idea from my workshop outcome..which is good and bad. Good cuz that's what the Melbourne module wants you to do..progress our work based on our workshop phase...bad cuz it wasn't anything extraordinary...a copy and paste work.

My exhibition space. One of the strongest part of my scheme. Box floors extruded upwards at different height. The lightings from the box makes the floor seems floating and instable (a whole lot of stuffs about this spaces. wont talk about it here)

Hmmm..that's roughly what I would show to my external crit that would best describe what sorta spaces i have inside my building.

For the exterior..I think one good montaged image of your building onto the site which shows accessibility and site context is good enough.

Oh yeahh..a good section of your building do help a lot too in explaining what your scheme is about. If you have time, do a sectional perspective or an exploded axono (no problem to those sketchup people). Gaya to the max man! =)

Saturday 29 May 2010

MEMORIAL TO A MEMORABLE EVENT

This is to say a BIG Thank You! to Ker Chwing, Pei Wen, Wilson Yong and Ronald Yoh for the stunning show last Tuesday. We were impressed!

All the actual winners for the competition are accessible here And students putting their work together now will find lots of good ideas on how to lay out your final presentation boards.

Look out for Ronald's and Daniel Tjong's entries! Taylor's College is there through them.

Friday 28 May 2010

Saturday 22 May 2010

Greetings from Melbourne =)

Hey wassup people. I bet most of you guys don't know who am I. Well I'm Daniel and Mr Ian asked me to pen down some stuffs here to encourage you guys/girls since it's like the final moments of studio.

I'm currently in Melbourne University, doing my Bachelors of Environment. I'm in fact having my final presentation for studio this coming Tuesday! Studying abroad in Melbourne Uni taught me a lot of things, whether in living skills, social skills, and also not forgetting things in the 'architecture package' (construction, design, history, blah blah).


It's autumn right now in Melbourne and it's freeezing cold!

Now I know everyone will be busy completing their design schemes, especially doing their 3D, making physical models and drawings. Time flies by, you'll camp in digilab and not know the hour of the day. The only time you know when to eat is when the sun goes missing and when the sunlight pierce through your eyelids as you're sleeping on the bench.

Here's a quick tip for the 'final hour' preparation.

1. Don't waste time doing real looking renders. I think this would be the biggest and best tip anyone could give out. Hahahaha...seriously..don't! It's really time consuming. Instead spend more time on doing diagrams and your presentation board that can clearly illustrate your thoughts and ideas, and especially your developement since day one. I've learnt from my tutor over here that a good 3D image for presentation should always be detail enough to show your ideas and spaces, and not too detail to allow room for people to imagine. Remember that we're always suppose to sell our ideas, not our 'already-built-building-and-this-is-how-it's-suppose-to-look-like". A physical model properly litted up sells better than a real looking 3D!

This is something I did for my tutor during tutorial. Believe it or not, it's just a 20minute work. He like it and it made me feel stupid for spending hours on renders last time

2. Know when to freeze your design. I know we always criticise our own work while working on it and think it isn't good enough. Well nothing is ever good enough. We always have a better solutions and ideas when we're designing our studio scheme. We always want to give our best and showcase our best work to the external crits. Even once completing our presentation board or design, there's the devil in you that goes "Aikkss..I've should have done this" or "AhhH! This isn't resolve quite properly" or "I think if I do it this way it would be better"

The best way to solve this is to sketch out the problem and solution on a butter paper..and bring it along with you during your crit. Talk about your scheme..and do point out that you've notice a problem with your design while doing up your presentation board. Talk about it and show your crit how you've solve those problems in your butter paper. I personally think crits will appreciate you for doing so and it shows how critical you are. It's a whole new level.

This was what a few of us faced during our final studio 4. We were so busy changing this and that, we didn't had time to finish up our presentation board, hence we missed our final crit. Isn't it such a waste?

3. Talk to your tutor and make sure they know what your scheme is about inside out! Whether your design is 'geng' or not 'geng', I think showing and letting them know your progressive work for your studio is very important. They'll be the one giving you the final grade at the end of the day. Make sure all your progressive work is on your presentation board as well! Your external crit won't know what your scheme is all about. Showing them how you begin in Stage A and ended up in Stage B is important. How you get to the end isn't everything, it's the journey that is equally important!

Okay thats all for now. I can't anymore! Pulling an all nighter again! =)

Friday 21 May 2010

WHAT WILL MATTER


Notwithstanding the hereafter following (or on account of it) all students should work their butts out to produce scintillating displays for the Dip and Deg Studio 3 Final Presentations forthcoming. All the Best All !

What Will Matter

Michael Josephson

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

© 2003, Josephson Institute of Ethics
(http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/stories.cgi?record=44)

pic: My dad in front of the house he built that decided my career, March 2010, a week before my mom died

Monday 17 May 2010






2009 Diploma Studio 4 projects




Project 1 : Design a pedestrian bridge - Petaling Street
CONCEPT - Spaces Transitioning
lighting.shadow.volume.

























Project 2 : Tourism Launch Pad - Food Tourism

Given a task a Tourism Launch Pad which providing visit guide for the tourist also providing few accommodations for the tourists. Before designing, my group did a research about Malaysia had a great potential of food tourism. Visitors can enjoy the delicacy and travel, experience the culture or history behind the food.


Below are my final presentation board for the comment :


































my 1st post... just leave any comment ~ thx thx

-end-

Sunday 16 May 2010

MEMORIAL TO A MEMORABLE EVENT

Announcing: All students of Degree Studio 3, please note that there will be a composite design presentation by Yong Wai Soon, Kam Pei Wen, Ronald Yoh & Lim Ker Chwing at our studio on Tue 25 May at 830h. Attendance is compulsory. (Very helpful design exposition relevant to your current Sg. Lembing Museum project.) All are welcome to the presentation. Watch this space for Pei Wen's and Ron's banners :) Ian. (Tx Wilson, Pei Wen, Ker Chwing and Ron!)







































The Pavilion

Semester3 second project

------- "Pavilion"








The basic material forms not only a glue-laminated envelope

but also the main structure and furniture of the pavilion.




The pavilion is embedded into the ground, or maybe it's growing out of it,
or maybe it's like the driftwood of time, washed up by the river.