hi. i gotta confess laziness and procrastination was the reason for the long lapse between the entries. sorry.
in the last 3 weeks lots have happened... since the last entry we had the Tropical Architecture Workshop, the mid-sem break and the recently concluded primer for P2 (the second design project for the year)
Tropical Architecture Workshop is like some year 3 thingy they have every year. previous years they did crazy stuff like build a dwelling in east coast with stuff ard the site & having to live there overnites for a few days. and i heard that year it rained. Thank God this year it was more humane =) we were supposed to design and make the life-size model of something (can be a product or a dwelling which of cos no one was foolish enough to attempt) but the main point is that it must be tropical - that is, it responds to the particular climate of Singapore in terms of sun, water and wind. There were several requirements though. and they were what made the workshop interesting. best encapsulated in the concluding 2 sentences of the project brief.
"It will contain the highest degree of sophistication and consideration in detail and selection of material in its making. And it will have to be constructed entirely out of garbage. "
C= no kidding man. we did exactly that and it was kinda fun cept for the periods we had no idea what to do. but it was hilarious man, laughing at each other's ugly projects. oh btw the workshop leader was Kevin Low. studio1 pple wd rem him from the year 1 aki trip... safari roof house yeah. he's real good man, in terms of ideas and details. ok for my grp we did this 'tropical chair' which makes use of trees whereby it is backless, foldable and doesnt collect rainwater much. It essentially uses tree trunks as the source of support.
ok on the left is the chair posing as a pseudo-designer specimen.
on the right is the chair in its rightful tropical context.
Ok it's time to stop sniggering. heh btw it works ok ... unbelievable huh? by God's grace it held all the tutors who sat and even bounced on it on the final crit =) and its real shiok sitting in it... u dun wanna get up after that. seriously. its only just b4 u sit that u feel kinda insecure but once u're in it, it feels feel comfortable. btw the supposed 'garbarge' it's made out of are - the hoops from those huge sieves pple use to dry food and we cut out the sieve part (cos the wooden hoolas were too ex), badminton net, elastic band, string, velcro and anti-slip mat compliments of the other half of my studio which did this picnic mat-cum-bag thingy. hmm but b4 we came up with this we had this real ugly looking hammock seat thingy which was frightfully awful in terms of colour haha. but thank God the final product was satisfying =) and our video which was part of the deliverables was real funny thanks to our diva Nassar who did a solo =)
ok other than our chair, there were other real interesting stuff too. like the sandal-shoe convertible, the wearable umbrella that doesnt flip up and is hands free & folds in 5 secs, the picnic mat that folds into a bag, the chair that doesnt trap rain water (essentially it was with scrubs but amazingly it aint painful sitting on it erm supposing u were wearing jeans that is =) etc etc. so we had a roti prata cum pappadum party courtesy of the tutors to mark the close of the workshop. it was real fun in a way haha. hai possibly the last fun thing in aki sch. 1st sem of sch is usually more exciting with projects like this. only thing is they dun count for much. but i've always liked building life-size stuff that works so stuff like that is always fun for me.
then after that it was time for the mid-sem break. the 1st sem we have a full 1 week break ever since i entered NUS. finally they came to their senses heh. it was quite an interesting week. went for the singapore biennale rite after the tropical aki crit with studio1! plus some others. astee worked for the firm that did place for the biennale. went for the exotic more or less exhibition by WOHA and W architects now on at URA - one of the 2 most sought after firms to work for. then we went to the opera gallery in Ngee Ann city to see the Salvador Dali exhibition. ooh i love the 'Alice in Wonderland' sculpture. have yet to see the huge one on orchard though. oh we had this real interesting aki yr 3 bbq at some highly ahem 'exotic' location in robertson quay - the site for the urban studios in P1. Let's just say it was a higly bizarre place to have a bbq. we had to use tealight candles for light cos it was real dark. and a real scary thing happened to me. i was walking and suddenly a spray of some liquid hit my face and right eye. I thought i could no longer see. it was so surreal. Thank God and i say again I really thank God for so graciously protecting me, cos that liquid was warm wax from the candles that had gone out. had I been wearing contacts... well i wont wanna think what cd have happened. yups so that was a real close shave. thank God with all my heart =) so, other than the exhibitions and grp work stuff i think the hols weren't that productive heh.
then it's back to sch and indiv work, or so i thought. forgot that 1st week is the primer which is grp work. for this project P2 i'm in an urban studio. which essentially meant that the week was crazy. cos the urban primer is a comprehensive site analysis plus presentaion plus model, all in 1 week. but the grp has 18 pple - half of each of the 3 studios joined tog. there were 2 sites - Ann Siang Hill & Kampong Glam. each of the 3 urban studios were splilt into 2 and all the pple in the same site formed the grp. but it wasnt nec a good thing... coordination was not good cos its diff to work across studios. and after drawing lots my studio some how got the most heavy stuff to do. haha or maybe cos we were too comprehensive. we had to do landuse patterns which entails going to all the shophouses in the site (there are many i assure u) and note down their use. we did vehicular and pedestrian counts at 4 time slots at diff spots in the site. we walked ard the site (which is big i assure u) to note down all the traffic elements - parking,zebra etc. we drew site sections at the potential sites for building. we took panoramic vistas at those sites. And that was just the data collection. then came photoshop and analysis. and the model. which we happily agreed to make the shophouses. let's just say it aint recommendable at all. particularly since there were so many. in the end the other studios had to come over to help & rightly so too since theirs was much lighter. and guess what? in the end we still couldnt finish. it's still lying there in studio but we are all too sleep-deprived to care.
ooh but last week that we spent around Ann Siang was real interesting though ultra tiring. one good thing is that the site has good food around =) maxwell market, amoy food centre, chinatown nearby etc was real good man, and cheap too =) that was the consolation. haha i think the well-heeled yuppies there think we're crazy pple. standing there counting traffic & pple, walking to every shophouse with maps and papers and cams to jot down info. haha good thing i got the telok ayer side which is like more old-fashioned and chinesy. but i really like the area. esp the scarlett hotel part and floritecture =) once again we bump into fiona xie, this time at ann siang filming or something, with vincent ng. anyhow it was real interesting to observe the place nad walking ard means that we know the area quite well by now. and more visits to come i suppose as we all move into our own design projects. the brief is to design a culinary or craft school. ooh we had this visit to shatec during the break too and man the thing i rem most abt the place was the pastry kitchen. just breathe in and u wont wanna leave =) and we had a visit to the dragon kiln next to NTU last thurs which was interesting. the kiln was so big we could walk into it. ard 10 pple at a time. and the whole place was built kinda like a treehouse. it was like seeing our treehouse for P1 come to life.
close up of one of the treehouses
left: the real treehouse at the kiln place
top: our huge P1 model of the treehouses with the panels behind
then we went to bollywood veggies which is this organic showfarm by ivy singh-lim & husband. she was real entertaining. and i felt like i was in a hot version of some aussie farm. real cute to see the actual veggies and fruits being grown like corn, brinjals, papayas etc. it;s meant for the pple who wanna have culinary sch using organic foods. anyhow the site visits were all real interesting, all part of the architect's diverse education =) like i said b4, life in aki sch is nv boring =)
so there... now its finally individual work. kinda odd cos the last indiv design was way back in april b4 the long hols. hope it'll be fun and good. and that i'll still have time to write. heh actually i'm glad i didnt go on exchange this sem cos it's been real interesting so far though exchange is far slacker though. ahem considering the nicely photoshopped panels of pics on zy's blog. got lotsa time. ahem. haha. oh plus frank gehry is coming next mond to give a lecture!!! thank God we managed to get tics... erm... sorry for those who are on the waiting list really hope u guys can get it.
ok gotta go soon to pay the sleep debt. good nite & God bless u folks =)
in the last 3 weeks lots have happened... since the last entry we had the Tropical Architecture Workshop, the mid-sem break and the recently concluded primer for P2 (the second design project for the year)
Tropical Architecture Workshop is like some year 3 thingy they have every year. previous years they did crazy stuff like build a dwelling in east coast with stuff ard the site & having to live there overnites for a few days. and i heard that year it rained. Thank God this year it was more humane =) we were supposed to design and make the life-size model of something (can be a product or a dwelling which of cos no one was foolish enough to attempt) but the main point is that it must be tropical - that is, it responds to the particular climate of Singapore in terms of sun, water and wind. There were several requirements though. and they were what made the workshop interesting. best encapsulated in the concluding 2 sentences of the project brief.
"It will contain the highest degree of sophistication and consideration in detail and selection of material in its making. And it will have to be constructed entirely out of garbage. "
C= no kidding man. we did exactly that and it was kinda fun cept for the periods we had no idea what to do. but it was hilarious man, laughing at each other's ugly projects. oh btw the workshop leader was Kevin Low. studio1 pple wd rem him from the year 1 aki trip... safari roof house yeah. he's real good man, in terms of ideas and details. ok for my grp we did this 'tropical chair' which makes use of trees whereby it is backless, foldable and doesnt collect rainwater much. It essentially uses tree trunks as the source of support.
ok on the left is the chair posing as a pseudo-designer specimen.
on the right is the chair in its rightful tropical context.
Ok it's time to stop sniggering. heh btw it works ok ... unbelievable huh? by God's grace it held all the tutors who sat and even bounced on it on the final crit =) and its real shiok sitting in it... u dun wanna get up after that. seriously. its only just b4 u sit that u feel kinda insecure but once u're in it, it feels feel comfortable. btw the supposed 'garbarge' it's made out of are - the hoops from those huge sieves pple use to dry food and we cut out the sieve part (cos the wooden hoolas were too ex), badminton net, elastic band, string, velcro and anti-slip mat compliments of the other half of my studio which did this picnic mat-cum-bag thingy. hmm but b4 we came up with this we had this real ugly looking hammock seat thingy which was frightfully awful in terms of colour haha. but thank God the final product was satisfying =) and our video which was part of the deliverables was real funny thanks to our diva Nassar who did a solo =)
ok other than our chair, there were other real interesting stuff too. like the sandal-shoe convertible, the wearable umbrella that doesnt flip up and is hands free & folds in 5 secs, the picnic mat that folds into a bag, the chair that doesnt trap rain water (essentially it was with scrubs but amazingly it aint painful sitting on it erm supposing u were wearing jeans that is =) etc etc. so we had a roti prata cum pappadum party courtesy of the tutors to mark the close of the workshop. it was real fun in a way haha. hai possibly the last fun thing in aki sch. 1st sem of sch is usually more exciting with projects like this. only thing is they dun count for much. but i've always liked building life-size stuff that works so stuff like that is always fun for me.
then after that it was time for the mid-sem break. the 1st sem we have a full 1 week break ever since i entered NUS. finally they came to their senses heh. it was quite an interesting week. went for the singapore biennale rite after the tropical aki crit with studio1! plus some others. astee worked for the firm that did place for the biennale. went for the exotic more or less exhibition by WOHA and W architects now on at URA - one of the 2 most sought after firms to work for. then we went to the opera gallery in Ngee Ann city to see the Salvador Dali exhibition. ooh i love the 'Alice in Wonderland' sculpture. have yet to see the huge one on orchard though. oh we had this real interesting aki yr 3 bbq at some highly ahem 'exotic' location in robertson quay - the site for the urban studios in P1. Let's just say it was a higly bizarre place to have a bbq. we had to use tealight candles for light cos it was real dark. and a real scary thing happened to me. i was walking and suddenly a spray of some liquid hit my face and right eye. I thought i could no longer see. it was so surreal. Thank God and i say again I really thank God for so graciously protecting me, cos that liquid was warm wax from the candles that had gone out. had I been wearing contacts... well i wont wanna think what cd have happened. yups so that was a real close shave. thank God with all my heart =) so, other than the exhibitions and grp work stuff i think the hols weren't that productive heh.
then it's back to sch and indiv work, or so i thought. forgot that 1st week is the primer which is grp work. for this project P2 i'm in an urban studio. which essentially meant that the week was crazy. cos the urban primer is a comprehensive site analysis plus presentaion plus model, all in 1 week. but the grp has 18 pple - half of each of the 3 studios joined tog. there were 2 sites - Ann Siang Hill & Kampong Glam. each of the 3 urban studios were splilt into 2 and all the pple in the same site formed the grp. but it wasnt nec a good thing... coordination was not good cos its diff to work across studios. and after drawing lots my studio some how got the most heavy stuff to do. haha or maybe cos we were too comprehensive. we had to do landuse patterns which entails going to all the shophouses in the site (there are many i assure u) and note down their use. we did vehicular and pedestrian counts at 4 time slots at diff spots in the site. we walked ard the site (which is big i assure u) to note down all the traffic elements - parking,zebra etc. we drew site sections at the potential sites for building. we took panoramic vistas at those sites. And that was just the data collection. then came photoshop and analysis. and the model. which we happily agreed to make the shophouses. let's just say it aint recommendable at all. particularly since there were so many. in the end the other studios had to come over to help & rightly so too since theirs was much lighter. and guess what? in the end we still couldnt finish. it's still lying there in studio but we are all too sleep-deprived to care.
ooh but last week that we spent around Ann Siang was real interesting though ultra tiring. one good thing is that the site has good food around =) maxwell market, amoy food centre, chinatown nearby etc was real good man, and cheap too =) that was the consolation. haha i think the well-heeled yuppies there think we're crazy pple. standing there counting traffic & pple, walking to every shophouse with maps and papers and cams to jot down info. haha good thing i got the telok ayer side which is like more old-fashioned and chinesy. but i really like the area. esp the scarlett hotel part and floritecture =) once again we bump into fiona xie, this time at ann siang filming or something, with vincent ng. anyhow it was real interesting to observe the place nad walking ard means that we know the area quite well by now. and more visits to come i suppose as we all move into our own design projects. the brief is to design a culinary or craft school. ooh we had this visit to shatec during the break too and man the thing i rem most abt the place was the pastry kitchen. just breathe in and u wont wanna leave =) and we had a visit to the dragon kiln next to NTU last thurs which was interesting. the kiln was so big we could walk into it. ard 10 pple at a time. and the whole place was built kinda like a treehouse. it was like seeing our treehouse for P1 come to life.
close up of one of the treehouses
left: the real treehouse at the kiln place
top: our huge P1 model of the treehouses with the panels behind
then we went to bollywood veggies which is this organic showfarm by ivy singh-lim & husband. she was real entertaining. and i felt like i was in a hot version of some aussie farm. real cute to see the actual veggies and fruits being grown like corn, brinjals, papayas etc. it;s meant for the pple who wanna have culinary sch using organic foods. anyhow the site visits were all real interesting, all part of the architect's diverse education =) like i said b4, life in aki sch is nv boring =)
so there... now its finally individual work. kinda odd cos the last indiv design was way back in april b4 the long hols. hope it'll be fun and good. and that i'll still have time to write. heh actually i'm glad i didnt go on exchange this sem cos it's been real interesting so far though exchange is far slacker though. ahem considering the nicely photoshopped panels of pics on zy's blog. got lotsa time. ahem. haha. oh plus frank gehry is coming next mond to give a lecture!!! thank God we managed to get tics... erm... sorry for those who are on the waiting list really hope u guys can get it.
ok gotta go soon to pay the sleep debt. good nite & God bless u folks =)
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