STUDIO 100 I NBYOND
Year-One was a Mass Studio without specialization. The semester-01 was modeled as an Arts and Crafts School. The undergrads were “taught” painting, drawings (usually technical), perspective and the artistic subjects that will distill the non-artistic undergrads into doing something else like, planning and calculation cost accounting. By the end of the semester, the undergrads will roughly know which direction one would be aligned to. As the mass studio was a melting bowl among different undergrads of different backgrounds such as HSC, Polytechnics and Matriculation, obviously the undergrads from Polytechnics stand a better chance to excel. The semester-02 witnessed a Studio Brief that covers the entire 5 disciplines of the School. The Brief called for:
No doubt lacking in depths, the undergrads were exposed to the entire process of deliveries of the built environment from Planning to Project Implementation. By this time, the undergrads were able to choose for themselves their own inclination towards a specific specialization, that the School called, Major. At that point in time, I was personally inclined to the works of Dr. Ar. Ken Yeang through his visual provoking house, the Roof-roof House was just at the beginning of his full blown concept in Bio-Climatic. If it can be utilized for a house, it too can be utilized in a walk up apartment. Precisely that I recycled a workable apartment layout, connected them to a core and upgraded its roof, alas, a Roof-roof Apartment.
- The Site Analysis – leading to the Production of the Physical Masterplan of a given vicinity complete with the Planning Report. The undergrads were “forced” to team up among themselves to complete the task with the deliverables of Site Analysis Drawings and a Mass Model of the given vicinity.
- The Architectural and Interior Design – leading to the Production of the complete Architectural Plans, Elevations and Sections with Perspectives and or Architectural Model and Interior Design. The undergrads were individually assigned to pick a cluster of buildings within the Masterplan drawn up earlier, to be further refined as Architectural Design.
- The Costing and Implementation Schedule – Based on the Architectural Design, the undergrads ought to produce a report comprising the Costing of the entire development including the building that has been designed for. The report also comprises of the implementation scheduling including critical paths, financial analysis and manpower cum machinery forecasting.
No doubt lacking in depths, the undergrads were exposed to the entire process of deliveries of the built environment from Planning to Project Implementation. By this time, the undergrads were able to choose for themselves their own inclination towards a specific specialization, that the School called, Major. At that point in time, I was personally inclined to the works of Dr. Ar. Ken Yeang through his visual provoking house, the Roof-roof House was just at the beginning of his full blown concept in Bio-Climatic. If it can be utilized for a house, it too can be utilized in a walk up apartment. Precisely that I recycled a workable apartment layout, connected them to a core and upgraded its roof, alas, a Roof-roof Apartment.
Year-Two was a year where the undergrads were streamed into 2 streams of specialization namely, the Design Studio and the Planning Studio. The Design Studio covered the disciplines of Architecture and Design while the Planning Studio covered the disciplines of Planning, Project Management and Building Maintenance. In the account of the Design Studio, the Studio Master at that time, the late Wan Burhanuddin Wan Abidin or fondly known as Che’Wan, took the theme of Design and the City as the vehicle for the entire Studio. The city in question was Georgetown Penang. The entire semester-03 deliverables were intense covering major and minor projects. Alongside with the publication of the fortnight studio’s newsletter. The onset of the studio was set by a minor project allowing the undergrad to categorically define who am “I” and to define their very own egos and personas through their groupings. This is the first taste to the philosophical discourse in the studio on existentialism. Brought forward, the next major project was to read Georgetown in the Urban Design vocabulary and structure. The studio’s discourse was slanted to Lynch’s Image of the City emphasizing among others the very notion of Nodes and Paths. At the very end, each team was responsible to present their findings as to what Nodes and Paths meant in the city of Georgetown. Taking a page from the AA, a gathering of undergrads from burning of the bon fire to projection of slides onto the building created yet another memorable night never to be forgotten. Such impact has caused the studio to the Dean’s office for an explanation.
COMPETITION ENTRY : UIA BARCELONA
HOUSING AND PUBLIC SPACE IN THE HISTORICAL CENTRE OF BARCELONA
STUDENT PROJECTS CONFRONTATION - UNESCO PRIZE 1996 The international Confrontation of architecture student projects, traditionally organized as part of the UIA Congress, leads to the awarding of the UNESCO Prize and various prizes offered by the UIA Member Sections.
PROGRAMME The historical centre of Barcelona is the object of a far-reaching transformation process stretching back to the mid-eighties with the aim of reassessing some of the most run-down sectors of the city. The transformation involves major reorganization of its fabric, building cultural facilities and rehabilitation of a considerable number of homes.
The competition theme is on the construction of two adjacent blocks of houses in the centre, public spaces and connecting areas. New housing models adapted to the changes taking place in family structures and lifestyles, the use and impact of new technologies and definition of public spaces are questions which merit particular attention.
JURY AND ADJUDICATION The jury met in Barcelona from 26-30 May 1996 and examined 1118 projects. Presided by Adèle Naudé Santos (San Diego - Argentina), it was composed of Wolfgang Tochterman, Director of UNESCO Human Settlements Unit, Rifat Chadirji, (Kingston upon Tyne - United Kingdom), Manuel Gallero, (Aachen - Germany) and Dietmar Steiner (Vienna - Austria); and deputy members Sabine Kraft (Aachen, Germany) and Victor Perez Escolano (Seville - Spain). After analysing the conclusions of the technical commission, the jury identified a series of criteria for evaluating the projects:
STUDENT PROJECTS CONFRONTATION - UNESCO PRIZE 1996 The international Confrontation of architecture student projects, traditionally organized as part of the UIA Congress, leads to the awarding of the UNESCO Prize and various prizes offered by the UIA Member Sections.
PROGRAMME The historical centre of Barcelona is the object of a far-reaching transformation process stretching back to the mid-eighties with the aim of reassessing some of the most run-down sectors of the city. The transformation involves major reorganization of its fabric, building cultural facilities and rehabilitation of a considerable number of homes.
The competition theme is on the construction of two adjacent blocks of houses in the centre, public spaces and connecting areas. New housing models adapted to the changes taking place in family structures and lifestyles, the use and impact of new technologies and definition of public spaces are questions which merit particular attention.
JURY AND ADJUDICATION The jury met in Barcelona from 26-30 May 1996 and examined 1118 projects. Presided by Adèle Naudé Santos (San Diego - Argentina), it was composed of Wolfgang Tochterman, Director of UNESCO Human Settlements Unit, Rifat Chadirji, (Kingston upon Tyne - United Kingdom), Manuel Gallero, (Aachen - Germany) and Dietmar Steiner (Vienna - Austria); and deputy members Sabine Kraft (Aachen, Germany) and Victor Perez Escolano (Seville - Spain). After analysing the conclusions of the technical commission, the jury identified a series of criteria for evaluating the projects:
- scale of the intervention;
- compatibility with environment and in particular with the immediate buildings and open spaces;
- organization and interrelation of spaces;
- planning of residential units
- clear presentation of ideas or statement made by student
- aesthetic quality of proposed architecture
- novelty of ideas
URBAN INTERVENTION
The after-party of the workshop brought the undergrads back to their sanities as to how shall they engage the city? This brought upon them after underlying Design and the City to Intervention of the City. Falling back to the Production Model of Intention – Action – Product trinity, the undergrads foiled the Stage – Scrip – Play as an alternate reality to the intervention of Georgetown. The studio geared towards the making and building of 1:1 scale of children playground as the “Stage”, the making and design of individual Apparels, Masks and a Single Liner as the “Script” and finally, the entire coming together in a real life Performance as the “Play” in any part of the City of Georgetown without any permit whatsoever. Another memorable event never to be forgotten with such impact that has caused the studio to the Dean’s office for an explanation, again. These two events drawn the curtain down for semester-03.
Alongside of the formal curriculum, involvement into Architectural Workshop was also taken into account as a studio participation. The undergrads were hoarded to UTM for a workshop where the discourse of the then eco-Architect Tay KhengSoon from Singapore had sparked interest within the undergrads on the philosophical discourse of Jungian Psychology of Egos and Personas into Architecture. This set a theoretical framework within the context of the Production Model, spearheaded by the Studio Master himself that he often called, Intention – Action – Product trinity.
Semester-04 brought yet another twist to the Design Studio. An international competition for Housing in Barcelona. The underprivileged studio were tasked to actually participating and going to Barcelona for site visit. The visit did not materialized due to insufficient funding. The morale of the studio were low. As a last ditch to salvage what has left, the studio master, taken over by the late Haidar Kassim, embarked on the notion of obsolesces. Built in obsolesces to be précised. The studio eventually lost its momentum, while others were looking for some other directions, I salvaged what had been overlooked in the past Design and the City with the Intervention of the City theme. A drastic realization the carcass of the past could be salvaged, in the Design and the City, I had trail blazed a series of networked nodes and paths that I was able to interject with “Follie”, an idea of Parc-de-la-Villette that was borrowed from Bernard Tschumi. I had the concept crystallized into a series of proposal but yet to have been carried out real-life in Georgetown, if my proposal was failed to be included in our submission for the Barcelona’s competition. Neither both came into realization. Just before the curtain of Year-Two semester-04 was closed, I had the same proposal beefed up, generally refining the “Follie” into some kind of a usable solar voltaic generator that could power the entire network of the cities now being able to be plug in and out of “buildings” that operated as the concept of “Lego”, not forgetting my initial Roof-roof apartment, being at that time, morph into something more complex. The Year-Two modus operandi (MO) has been absolutely exhausting, adventurous, thrilling at times taking the cue from the Bauhaus movement of “Living-Architecture”.
DESIGN N D'CITY
SOPHORMORES
Year-One was a Mass Studio without specialization. The semester-01 was modeled as an Arts and Crafts School. The undergrads were “taught” painting, drawings (usually technical), perspective and the artistic subjects that will distill the non-artistic undergrads into doing something else like, planning and calculation cost accounting. By the end of the semester, the undergrads will roughly know which direction one would be aligned to. As the mass studio was a melting bowl among different undergrads of different backgrounds such as HSC, Polytechnics and Matriculation, obviously the undergrads from Polytechnics stand a better chance to excel.
The semester-02 witnessed a Studio Brief that covers the entire 5 disciplines of the School. The Brief called for:
No doubt lacking in depths, the undergrads were exposed to the entire process of deliveries of the built environment from Planning to Project Implementation. By this time, the undergrads were able to choose for themselves their own inclination towards a specific specialization, that the School called, Major. At that point in time, I was personally inclined to the works of Dr. Ar. Ken Yeang through his visual provoking house, the Roof-roof House was just at the beginning of his full blown concept in Bio-Climatic. If it can be utilized for a house, it too can be utilized in a walk up apartment. Precisely that I recycled a workable apartment layout, connected them to a core and upgraded its roof, alas, a Roof-roof Apartment.
- The Site Analysis – leading to the Production of the Physical Masterplan of a given vicinity complete with the Planning Report. The undergrads were “forced” to team up among themselves to complete the task with the deliverables of Site Analysis Drawings and a Mass Model of the given vicinity.
- The Architectural and Interior Design – leading to the Production of the complete Architectural Plans, Elevations and Sections with Perspectives and or Architectural Model and Interior Design. The undergrads were individually assigned to pick a cluster of buildings within the Masterplan drawn up earlier, to be further refined as Architectural Design.
- The Costing and Implementation Schedule – Based on the Architectural Design, the undergrads ought to produce a report comprising the Costing of the entire development including the building that has been designed for. The report also comprises of the implementation scheduling including critical paths, financial analysis and manpower cum machinery forecasting.
No doubt lacking in depths, the undergrads were exposed to the entire process of deliveries of the built environment from Planning to Project Implementation. By this time, the undergrads were able to choose for themselves their own inclination towards a specific specialization, that the School called, Major. At that point in time, I was personally inclined to the works of Dr. Ar. Ken Yeang through his visual provoking house, the Roof-roof House was just at the beginning of his full blown concept in Bio-Climatic. If it can be utilized for a house, it too can be utilized in a walk up apartment. Precisely that I recycled a workable apartment layout, connected them to a core and upgraded its roof, alas, a Roof-roof Apartment.
