Measured Drawings, a module that aimed to help develop an understanding of the principle of building preservation or conservation and the methods of recording it in three documentation methods, measured drawings, written documentation and photographic documentation.
Studio 2 Final Project, Retreat House. In studio 2, the key emphasis is "User and Context", which investigate the relationship between user and natural environment.
We are to further develop the studio design project and position in architecture, to begin with considering a position/topic in architectural design that you would like to explore.
Based on that, students are required to conduct and present the following pre-design analysis:
Studies of the contextual conditions of your site
Studies on your selected user group and building types
Studies on the cultural and meaning place.
Studies on the current restrictions and proposed development on site and how it will affect the project and design.
Studies on precedents that inform the ideas/approach/strategies that can be used in developing project and programme. Based on your pre-design phase, develop a simple, brief and yet comprehensive presentation. Presentation can be in a form of video, slide and others that can capture people, place and time on the given site.
Final Design Review - Game and Recreation Center
With this theme, we are to develop out own project brief within the theme of 'sustaining humanities' architecture for people, place and time, one key aspect of this design project is to develop holistic and integrated aspects of technology, environment and cultural context in architectural design.
This project involves the application of the principles, issues and theories discussed thus far in the Project Management module, and their application into a simple construction project.
In this project, we as a ground will be act like a construction consultant team with project manager to manage a two-storey project and documenting every procedure up until planning phase. We are to design a sustainable recreation center with shipping container as material, the project involve are our choice and it needs to be able to fit 50 people at least. During the process, each of us will choose a role in consultancy and we will be documenting everything we did, meetings and decision along.
The objectives of this project are as follows:
To understand the application of management techniques in the control and direction of project resources
To appreciate the need for Project Management in a real project environment
To understand the basic stages of project management in the construction industry
To understand the basic roles of the different consultants in the construction industry
To understand the use of "Success Criteria" in evaluating a project
My role is MnE consultant, and mainly I will be documenting everything about mechanical, which include sewage, drainage, water supply, electrical and sustainable features such as rain water collection and solar energy supply panels. My job in this team are to ensure MnE to be flow freely without obstruction.
This involves the documentation of your Studio 6 Architectural Design Project, to apply the principles learned in Project 1 to your final project. Students from Design Studio 4 or 5 will use their design in Studio 4 or 5 for the study.
The students are expected to understand the following:
Define project characteristics, objectives, organizations and success
Apply Project Management tools and techniques to control and communicate to achieve a common goal
Summarize strategies for the execution of the development process in response to the client's objectives
In this project, I will be acting as a project manager to document a project planning project from beginning to closing stage. The content including, project brief, client details, project design with site analysis, stake holders, project procurement, risk analysis and mitigation strategy, maintenance strategy and construction strategies witch are Gantt Chart and Work break down system to clearly show the planning of work flow during the whole project timeline.
Project A We are required to present an in-depth and analytical research study on the designated topic. We are to explore the idea of “Life Between Buildings Using Public Space” (1986) by Jahn Gehl. The project consisted of 2 parts; the first is case study and the second part is to produce a comparative analysis essay.
Jahn Gehl in the Life Between Buildings (1971) “examined the relationship between patterns of space use, especially outdoor activities, and the spatial properties of the physical world. He introduced the concepts of necessary, optimal and social activities.
For this particular task, we are to read Jahn Gehl’s Life Between Buildings (Chapter 1). Subsequently, the students are to examine patterns of social activities in a city (foreign city to be provided by instructor*) and identify ‘contact points’. They are to classify the varying degrees of contact intensity.
Synopsis Essay Subsequent to each thematic lecture, we are required to submit a synopsis in the form of a reaction paper. Its aim is for the students to read a selected reading in relation to the theme that has been discussed in class for the week and submit a reaction paper to the text. There will be a total of 3 synopses. A reaction or response paper requires the writer to analyze a text, then develop commentary related to it. It requires thoughtful reading, research and writing. IT should identify the key points highlighted in the text and then focus on your personal perspective on text. In addition to your personal perspective, you should identify experiences or insights that have shaped your perspective.
This project, we are required to propose for potential new usage for building conservation. For our group, we choose a row of abandon houses near Jalan Raja Chulan. The reason being is based on its location at the center of KL town, previous function as a elite accommodation, and mainly it has been abandon for years. Through our investigate and servay, we found that it is best to propose a visitor centre which showcasing history of the area and act as a knowledge center museum.
This project is require to conduct a mini seminar that will discuss on issues in relation to architectural conservation, for our group its about "Urbanization buying out Petaling Street, Chinatown". We are to share our opinions on any issues pertaining to architectural conservation in Malaysia. In top of that, this task will be able to give more knowledge and raise awareness on architectural conservation mainly in Malaysia. The reason we choose Petaling Street is because it is one of the earliest street establish and has a glory historical background, but due to the urbanization, it started to lose its identity, and through this case to bring awareness to people.
An auditorium is a special room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres and music halls. For movie theatres, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditorium can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and theatres, and may be used for rehearsal, presentation,performing arts productions. Apart from entertainment, an auditorium also used for a space for speech delivery such as lecture theatres. A successful design of auditoriums muchly depend on its acoustic design which include the auditorium layout plus absorption materials used. It is essential to preserve and enhance the desired sound and to eliminate noise and undesired sound. The building we choose are Damansara Performing Art Centre (DPAC) which used as a performance centre.
This project aims to integrate students understanding of the principles of lighting design in the context their final design project of studio 5. It will encompasses on artificial and daylighting systems also will implement the PSALI design strategies. For my design, it is a semi open library which make used of the sides location to achieve maximum daylighting system while provide sufficient shade for the user inside. For the artificial lighting system, types and position and quantity will be determine by PSALI design strategies.
This is a group assignment which predominantly relates to the topics of Industrialised Building System (IBS) as well as the materials’ embodied energy. Before embarking on this project students will be exposed to different types and methods of the IBS system and the calculation of embodied energy of different building materials in the classroom. First, the group has to design a 3-storey apartment block using mainly IBS components. Then, the group has to construct a physical model of the building to imitate the actual IBS construction process and to record all the process in a video.
The importance of learning IBS construction is critical in this course because the technology is constantly improving and this IBS does helps a lot in improving the quality of construction in any categories. We also get introduce to many type of construction and construction method with this project.
Project 2: Construction Solutions
This assignment is aligned with our studio 5 project which is a community library which required us to propose the construction method for our building. We are required to apply the right method into our building proposal in coordination with proper technical studies and development of our design. It also required the integration of more unique technical method into our building design proposal.
Architecture Design Studio V focuses on the theme of place-making for the urban community. It aims to explore urban condition pertaining to movement, events and spaces within urban street context and to provide appropriate solutions in designing a community library for the city's inhabitants.
The site context is Jalan TAR, KL. There is a real life scenario to establish the possibilities for a community library to connect to the urban community, the young adults as being the user-group.
This community library is connected to Jalan TAR as it capture the habits around it, user and its movement with spaces and translate it into this community library. Creating a deep connection between what is new built to the community.
During the preliminary stage of this assignment, me and my teams decided to choose Metro Prima as our objective and we are to create something like a furniture to make up of that that area are lacking, any kind of furniture. First of all, we conducted several visitations to Metro Prima at Kepong. At the site, the maintenance on cleanliness is poor, informal spaces and activities such as hawker stalls and illegal parking can be found everywhere, and this is very common in our country as it had become a habit to the local here, so there is not much issues to be complain about this. At the commercial area, it is a mixed used commercial containing offices, shops, restaurant and other businesses and there is not much issues. The issues that raise my attention is that the residential area, there is a few apartments and a large housing area nearby, I found out that the dwelling segregation is obvious between different residential buildings. Lack of interaction between buildings and resident is obvious, there is a limitation on activities, this is one of the reason causing less occupants.
We have conducted a few interviews with the resident who live there, and the result is pretty stunning. Most of the resident feel that they don’t need any improvement as they are being positively contented with what they have now. But for me that is not what it looks like, I feel the lack of interaction between people, those intangible feelings between the connection of people. They do what a tiny community hall over at the apartment, well-furnished and sheltered, but the lack of variety of activities, gaps between different age group also an obvious issue over the site.
Based on all those analysis and data we have, we as a team agreed on designing a piece of furniture for the community. The reason being is that to overcome the interaction problem through this piece of furniture where it allowing different activities, children able to play on it, adult able to rest on it, celebration able to take place on it. It is more like a multifunction architecture. The final outcome is that we decide to create a pavilion while create a small plaza area for the community. The challenge is on the structural safety, we have to consider the children play space and the elderly comfort of using our pavilion. My team have changed the idea of using different material several times due to the safety issues, and we finalized with by using pvc pipe for our structure.
After the submission, we found that there are alot of issues with the pipe structure, as stability and safety are concern, and we decided to change the structure itself to wooden pallets but the concept will be maintain as a modular conbination structure.
We went back to the side with our proposal printed out for interview to get feedback from the community, and the feedback is mixed, some agreed with our proposal, which helps enlarge their variety of activities and also space, something new also create a point of attraction. The other comment was about how unsafe our proposal is, cause most of them were talking about wood’s structure problem, may cause rot and beetles due to over expose to outdoor. These issues are talking into consideration on the next design stage. Other than that, there is no negative feedback to our proposal.
On the second stage of designing, we further explore any other possibility that can make out of just a pavilion. Then we came out with this modular design, which is having different type of modular instead of just one structure, when combining it together it creates different outcome, different arrangement affects activities, programs, vision connection, circulation and views. This idea was taken from the site which is based on different age group appear during different hours. Morning there will be more elderly, evening is where children come out to play and night is mix of both. So, with different arrangement can have different interaction between community. Total we have explore 9 arrangements out of it, including integrate, interconnect, intermingle, segregation, contrast, conform, harmonize, independent and solidarity. Each and everyone have its own unique arrangement and representing different meaning, example like arranging in a circle to increase interaction representing integration; arranging piece by piece separately giving more space while allowing different activities to be happen on the same time representing segregation. These arrangements are proposed by us, but the final arrangement can be decided by the community based on what they need, based on this able to achieve a total freedom of arranging and easy to use structure. The other issues such as safety and rot will be fix by smoothen the surface and edge of the structure and a layer of paint coat will be applied for weather resistant.
Finalizing our design, we decide to create a series of chair with actual scale for the community to try out, a few modular so it can achieve the different arrangement. The material we using is second hand used wooden pallet. To smooth the wooden pallet, first we have to saw off the edges and sand it off the uneven surface and edge, to achieve a smooth surface for better seating. After that we start nailing them together piece by piece, by stacking four pallets together to reach the seating height, and another upright for the backrest. And lastly is coating, the stain paint helps give the pallet a rich colour and also helps prevent rot and beetles. With great teamwork, we manage to get this work done in very short time, its efficiency to share work together with team and help out with each other, great teamwork we have here.
After finishing, the furniture is being moved to the site and for the community to experience it out. This is surely a great experience for me since I have never done something like this as hands on doing a furniture, it felt accomplishment. The community also make used of the furniture, they drew a chest layout on the table and play chest on it. But in the end, there is still some issues with it, the table height is not enough to reach, and the chairs is a little bit too solid for the elderly. But overall, it’s a good piece of furniture. Having done this assignment, I felt that how important is it to reach out to the community to understand what they need, as an architect this is very important cause we are not design for other thing, architect are to design for the people, and this is how it relate to the philosophy of an architecture.
Internship in Arkitek Simon Heng, an architect consultant firm. With a number of not over 10 staff working here and considered as a relatively small architect firm, the projects here majority are residential landed houses some even come with shop lot. Besides that, there are also a few high-rise apartment projects evolved in.
After this ten week of practical in Arkitek Simon Heng, I get to involve in almost every stage of project from the beginning until the end. Most importantly not the design, but the way to handle projects and how to deal with client and local authority, more towards managing projects and procedures.
