ARCHITECTURE DESIGN PROJECT

From this 17 weeks time I learned a lot from my tutor, Mr. Eric and also from my Lecturer Mr. Prince. Throughout the project, my tutor Mr. Eric encourage and motivates me a lot during my design process and helps me so I can look at my design more critically and practically. Lastly I also like to thank for having bunch of awesome friends and course mate that encourage me a lot throughout the journey which really help me a lot brushing up my design as well not giving up myself.

17 weeks of immersive exploration and study in to the site that I was given had truly been a blizzard and amazing adventure. It came across a lot of self questioning inside myself influenced by the conflicting site of having a mosque and a temple adjacent together, and I really dont want to get myself designing a multifaith center which i wasnt really familiar nor understood.

The question of “what can I do” continued a long time in my mind ever since the day I step my foot on the site, I came across a lot of weird ideas such as a “funeral/ cemetry”, a “slaughter house” a “stamping” center? which all started with the ego and intention of designing something crazy for the final time in my degree and the continuous re-think and revise the analysis done in earlier project tend to ask another question now... Memory seems to be a strong element but “what is the true memory identity that is needed by my site? ” There are various answers I heard of from my tutorial mates such as transportation in the past, the road names, the traditional crafting and more but the puzzle still missing when it is relate back to the mosque and temple...(as they say, “how your building is specific to site but cant be build in anywhere else”)

The missing piece that I have been looking for took a while to show up only after I was back from my second visit back to site, which inspires from the migration story of the people adjacent to my site, which I’m looking in to the Muslims and Chinese. Diving deep into the history and old third place does the move and I have finally found the solid concept that anchors heavily into my site, as in “A place for people to pick up the storytelling performances culture of the Chinese namely Chinese Opera and Malay namely the Bangsawan Performance and learn about how this place tend to evolve from past.” ......

Okay if I were to say it, it wasn’t entirely easy getting used with my tutor Mr Eric at the start transiting from my previous semesters with more flexiblity and freedom and slightly lesser practical on certain design senses, which I’m really glad to have him as well correcting me and guide us through the basement design and I cant imagine the whole design of basement is actually so back and forth that im guessing I did like almost 10 variations of basement only throughout the semester....but it was fun as the design is being developed, rationalized and improved, so I’m not complaining here, don’t get me wrong....I did learn a lot from this.

Speaking of Tutor, I think not just me but we all were the first time taught by Mr Eric throughout the 6 semesters and I would say it was a really enjoyable and precious experience with him. He is fun, full of humours, stickers and stories to tell and I really enjoyed every single tutorial like attending a Comedy Talk show with no stress at all XD which parts of it contributed by my fellow tutorial mates as well. Truly speaking this whole semester meant a lot for me, and the whole process is really different and I barely feel the stress part of architecture (Also known as Archi-torture) but I tend to feel like being sparken and finds back the Joyful part of this journey back in foundation.

Semester 6 really tends to train us to be more sensitive with the community and context and I do find these as challenge but slowly it gets resolve as it goes on which tend to makes me enjoy that my building is getting more and more relevant. It feels like the complete mash up of what we have been practicing the past few semesters with Site since semester 2, to Poetics in semester 3, green and sustainable designs in semester 4 and Urban design theories in semester 5 all at once now.

Ending the semester now writing this reflection tend to feel like an end of a big milestone of my life and it felt anxiety and exciting with a bit of sadness at the same time, to farewell with the batch mates that gets along for so long and as well all the wonderful tutors and lecturer i have met for the past 6 semester, but guess life goes on.... I do hope that I can always keep the ego and empathy in balance as an Architect in future, not to lost myself while designing, being sensitive of the client and community needs, constantly trying to improve and retries, be passion , be bold, but still humble and respectful of the site, be brave but not blindly, and lastly love all the decisions that is made. Thank you for everyone who help me out throughout the journey, and we all shall stand still for the next chapter to come in future! Goodbye (and well done for myself to make through this hahahahah)