studio cultural exchange

Studio is such a geat place, it's the place to work, eat, sleep, talk cock and even to foster cultural exchange. Here we see Kelly telling Stefan about the great traditional Chinese game of Mahjong. What better thing to do than to have a game of mahjong to celebrate the renewed 5-year validation of the NUS architecture school by RIBA.

breaking the box

RIBA (the Royal Institute of British Architects, if you didn't know) are in school this week for a visit to decide whether to continue accreditting the NUS architecture degree for another 5 years. It's a remnant of Singapore colonial past but it's really not such a bad thing for us as we will be able to get acreditted by an instituion with a worldwide benchmark. And for this the school planned a series of staged school activities.

One of the acitivites was the opening of the pavillion designed by the 2nd year studios. Well, there is nothing wrong with that , in fact I am very much in favour of student design being built with the support of the school. The thing about this is that it was technically not built by the students. The school had hired a construction company to build the pavillion. The students merely marked out where the pavillion should be and (so I was told) had cut some of the wood used. I had little objections to the things happening up till this point. The project had to be completed in time for RIBA's visit and the students could not have finished in time. So hiring workers could be justified. But the whole thing became somewhat nauseating when the students started claiming to have built the pavillion, first in the email invitation for the opening and then in a loud proclaimation during the opening ceremony. It was just revolting. And the awful "hip-hop" dance that followed after the official opening. It was reminiscent of the mass dance that many of us had to go through during our JC years. Mildly juvenile and inherently meaningless.And Don't get me started on the cringe-inducing name given to the whole project,"breaking the box". *shudders* Why did they have to choose something that sounds like some cliche management terms and does not fit the project literally or figuratively.


People along the buffet table watching the show.

AR5321 fund raiser

We had a really fun technolgy lecture today. Usually, tech lectures would be dry and boring with an attendence of about 30%. But the attendence was unusually high for today's class which was the first of 3 tech seminar wrap-ups. The first reason is that the fantastic structural models done by those in the structures group will be displayed and appraised by the 2 structures tutors, which you can see in the picture (on the far left is Joseph Lim, the no.2 guy of the architecture department and to his right is Brendan McNiven from Arup). The second reason is that the models are going to be loaded to test their strength. Boring, you may say but Joseph, at the start of the lecture, asked to borrow a few laptops from the class ;seeing how nicely he asked and thinking that he was having some technical problems with the computer, a couple of students handed over their precious babies. However, to the horror of the laptop owners and the amusement of the others, Joseph then made known his intention to use the laptops as the load to test the models. One by one, the laptops were loaded with everyone keeping their ears open to detect the first cracking sound to appear from the model. Luckily,the various have used very good glue to build their models (oh yah, and also using sound structural principles). Most of the models survived unscathed with only a couple of minor casualties. All the action really made for an entetaining lecture, which is somewhat rare in our architecture school. This could be an idea for a performance at the next NKF charity show.

shophouselet

Who lives here? Really, I would like to meet the person. This is some kind of architecture freak rarely seen in Singapore. It is as tjhough the two shophouses on the ends (obviously constructed seperately) started growing towards each other to fill up the void between them, and in the process creating this amalgamated hybrid of the parent shophouses. Although it is reasonable to think that it is probably connected on the inside to green one on the left, the seperate doorway suggests that it was or still is autonomous from the shophouses on both sides. An Autonomous Shophouse , Kheng Soon, you might want to come and take a look.

The shophouselet can be found along Niven Road. I chanced upon it yesterday when I was exploring the Mount Sophia area while waiting for my prints to come out at Peace Centre. Before this, the whole area just did not exist in my mental construction of Singapore. The notion of exploring the area came to me because Selegie Complex fronting Selegie Road was demolished and the whole area behind theComplex became visible from the main road and I found it intriguing that a whole district of shophouses has always been lurking there and unknown to me. It's incredible that despite the city centre being so small, there are still places that I have no idea of.

exploded envelope

Half a day's worth of clicking, pretty dry stuff but weirdly satisfying. Drawn in 3D autocad and rendered in 3Dmax, this is a partially exploded 3D view of the operable envelope system that my group has developed for our technology module. The idea is to create a modules of operable fins which gives the user greater control in the natural lighting and passive cooling of the interiror space. The idea is hardly original but it was technically challenging enough for technology idiots like us. The rendering turned out pretty decent although some parts did not come out right. The guide lines for the exploded part are barely noticeable and the texture for the metal spandrel panel was too even. I wanted to try using Vray to render but was too lazy to do so. Maybe next time.

utopia

Children are the builders of the future, visionaries of tomorrow. I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of what lies ahead for the city, perhaps an URA masterplan in the making.

seperation 40

What if Singapore did not seperate from Malaysia in 1965? Are Singapore and Malaysia two seperate and immutable entities? These are just some of the questions that the play Seperation 40 tries to answer in a series of 4 short plays. Through lighthearted protrayals of interactions between Singaporeans and Malaysians in various scenarios, the plays explore the dynamics between the two nations while playing on national stereotypes and refernces to our shared history and politics. The result is an entertaining piece without the seriousness the theme might suggest, although the issues brought up are not by any means new. It also suffers from the overacting of Chua Enlai and the homosexual undertone at the end, which felt somewhat out of place.

On the whole, I would say it's quite worth the ticket price. The 4 shows in Singapore are sold out, but if you still want to catch it, there will be 3 shows at the end of the month in Kuala Lumpur.


After the play, Stefan demonstrates the latest craze from Germany.

Geochelone Hairi-chilensis

Spotted on one of the studio windows, a rendition of the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare... NO wait...look at the tortoise... could it be the Geochelone Hairi-chilensis, the legendary hairy leg tortoise from the depths of the Great Rift Valley, long thought to be extinct? oh no, it's not.... it's just a tortoise with some cancerous growth, according to a certain Mr Schäfer.

eat your spinach

Helmut is a big strong boy! Having some exercise time in the midst of a site visit.

joined the Apple club

I have joined the Apple club!

After months of trying to look for a new pair of jeans, I decided that I did not need another pair of jeans because I already own a good pair of Helmut Langs that was still holding up very well in its 4th year of wear. So in my typical fickle-minded manner, I decided to channel my hard-earned internship salary to the new Ipod Nano. I was already seduced by the sleekness when I saw the picture on the Apple website but I didn't really decide to get it until Friday evening when I chanced upon the launch day of the Ipod Nano at the Orchard Applestore. Walking in feeling hesitant, I was handed a display set to try out. My heart melted immediately when I held it in my hand, and at that point, I knew that I would not leave the store without getting one.

Nike SB moron

Either clothing companies are getting more persuasive or people are becoming easier to fleece. I was surfing the net and came across this pair of Nike SBs and my first thought was "This is freaking ugly" and when I saw the price, I almost threw up my dinner. The listed price is 2000GBP which is roughly S$6000 and it is stated as being produced in a limited run of 24. Don't get me wrong, I not against people charging a premium for limited edition products that are well designed, but this really crosses the line of human decency. It is made from the same cookie cutter nike shoe pattern and is hardly more exquisite than the generic SBs. They should have at least chosen a more visually pleasing colourway. Perhaps they have already exhausted all the possible nice colour combinations in the millionss of editions produced over the years. But honestly, I think that they really couldn't care less about producing a beautiful product, because they know that people would buy anything just because it is a limited edition. They even have the cheek to show the made in Vietnam size tag. It is ironic that one of the marks of authenticity of the shoe reveals how hugely inflated the price of the shoes is. The person who sewn the shoe probably got a negligible percentage from the sale of each shoe.

As much as I'm disgusted with it, I'm sure some moron would gladly chuck out wads of cash to add the shoes to his (or her, although unlikely; just think of the pairs of Blahniks and Jimmy Choos the money can buy) massive collection of Nikes. But if your pockets are overflowing and don't mind being a moron, please visit www.camohood.com .

CRIT!

It's crit time again! And for once I had a relatively unstressed pre-crit period, an unprecedented first. Perhaps a reward for the past four weekends spent in school. And seeing all our work pinned up on the boards, it was really satisfying.


Minutes before crit began at 3.30pm, the last session for the day. I usually hate late crits but today, I was quite glad to have the whole morning to put everything together, given that chronically late architecture students would be unable to turn up early to put things together for the earlier sessions.


Hann being caught in the discussion between David Robson (authority on Geoffrey Bawa) and Tay Kheng Soon (radical first generation Singapore architect). Hilarious situation.


The exchange students in my studio. The one on the left, Stefan (pronounce SCHteFan) and the other one is Kim from Paris (but is originally from Tahiti and is half Chinese half Tahitian and whose full name has six words in all).


Kelly presenting our "99 Red Balloons" masterplan proposal. A light-hearted and whimsical scheme and, I personally feel, the most fun out of the four schemes presented. Just to talk about it briefly, it involves the creation of this 2km boardwalk with a continous stream flowing through and there will be giant red balloons littered along the paths to created visual continuity and interaction with the outside. Tay Kheng Soon liked the humour but he thought that we should make it even more humourous and tongue-in-cheek.