The Last..

Everything has a beginning and an end. Life and drama so, the career is also true. Of course, this semester has no exception. Soon, this semester is coming to an end. As usual, I took 6 subjects for this semester. Before I did the course selection, I realized that in the list there is a subject named “Theories of Architecture” which sounds not quite familiar to me. Soon I got inform from my senior that the Sem 4 seniors will be having this subject with Sem 3 students. Honestly, I wonder what this subject is before the semester starts. But somehow, I can’t really get what it is. So I gave up finding the answer due to laziness. Hehe…

For this subject “Theories of Architecture”, it is hard to tell that what I had learnt in this class because what I learned and earned is too abstract which I can hardly describe it in words. The word “feeling” will definitely express my gain.

From the first blog which is introducing myself, I didn’t feel any unfamiliar because I am a blogger and I like to blog. Just like what Tun Dr. Mahathir said, blog is to unblock. I can write anything in a blog to express myself. This is the reason why I like to blog. By the way, it is one of the ways to destress myself too. So I think I had done my best to express myself to introduce myself to lecturer in that post entry.

In the second blog, it was a film review for the movie “Minority Report”. For me, I am quite interested in movies and writing reviews but I used to write it in chinese and this is the first time using English to write the review. Somehow I will feel some not get used to it. However, I had tried my best to write the film review based on what I feel from that movie. Hope that it will fully convey the feeling I had.

The third blog about understands the place which confused me a lot. The article has couple of pages which drove me to crazy. I can hardly understand even though I read for few times. I know that philosophy is a wide field which it can have any thoughts or idea without limitation but the way of the author wrote that article really makes me confused n keep on Huh? huH? HuH? Maybe my English standard is still abit low. Somehow, I did my best to interpret and show my understanding about the article. The extra is I start to think of what is a place and space? How these two words define? Yaya, philosophy makes people to think, so I think I get something from there.

Heidegger’s thinking on architecture taught me a lesson on reasons. The existence of an object has its own reasons which mean the same to our design. Everything we design need to have a proper reason which makes sense. This will absolutely lead to do a mature design or even handling problems in the future. Although I did not quite understand the article, I roughly know what its mean and how it goes.

“The home that makes MIES” is a article which I can understand more than 50%. Quite happy to do that. Through this, I studied myself deeper and discovered what changes me and what shapes me. it is true that there is a saying “Father of the man”. What I experienced during childhood will shape the adult me. and who does this? The environment and mainly the home and family did it.

The sixth blog is the Monuments, Testimony and Memory, it taught me a lesson about the purpose of the particular design and the ways of expression due to the intention. Together with that, it also needs to show out the feeling of the purpose. For an example, the purpose of shading devices is to give shape to the building. And how the devices form is based to the design purpose, needs and criteria.

The seven senses of architecture really brought me deeper to architecture field. Commonly it is only five senses, but in this article, it introduced the two extra senses which is new to me. By using these seven senses, I can feel the architecture concretely and more thoroughly. At the same time, I also applied these senses in my design which I can feel inside the space in my design and makes my design more mature.

About the Kellie’s Castle, it is a waste that I didn’t travel with course mates to there. But somehow I got a different experience during the personal trip with two of my friends. The building actually surprised me and impressed me although the maintenance and management is abit lousy. The lessons I got from the trip is the designer was so wise in making decision through the design of the castle which is the appreciation of the site and the climate in Malaysia. It means a lot to me because in design projects, the first thing I had to do is to appreciate the site and make use of them which is a nice to play with.

For the last blog about Desire, it actually shows the charm of architecture. It showed that how architecture attracts people and how architecture impresses people. On the other hand, it also expresses how people are willing to experience the architecture and how enjoy the people do in the architecture. All this things told me that people appreciate the architecture and architecture appreciates people too. Maybe my words of using in the blog is kind of weird, but all of that are my real feeling and thoughts when I read that article. Hope my lecturer won’t laugh at me.

Start of semester 3, I had fully experienced how a proper design process is going on. How important is the little small thing that will affect to the overall design, how big is the responsibility of an architect to a building design, how much knowledge an architect should have in mind to produce a good design due to the construction and etc. before that, I had already know an architect should have the big responsibility on his shoulders but till now I only realized how heavy it is. Although it is tough and sleepless nights going on, I have the confidence to put in on my shoulder as I know clearly what is in my mind. For me, the best moment is this as I gain for what I had paid for. It is true for that saying “No pain, no gain.”

And yet, throughout this semester, there are a lot of things that makes me to be more mature. The original human nature can be so realistic, or I would say the word “horrible” can describe it alternatively. I am not taking this as my worst moment but somehow it woke me up that wonderland doesn’t exist in reality. As our aging, the more we will discover and realize, I won’t complain this as my worst moment too but I will take it as my personal experience. However, the time will tell the truth and the fact as well because I believe there is fair mind in this world. It is not a big deal because my aim is clear. It is just right in front of me and I m the one who is going to succeed my aim.

My personal philosophy is to do things above board, be an open and aboveboard man, and the last is look forward to the future in everything. So that others will respect as u respect them too at the same time. It applied the same to architectural life as an architecture student has. Respect the architecture so that the architecture will respect you as what you did to them. For me, respect is an important element in my whole life. There is a Chinese phrase which used to be my philosophy that interprets well, “敬人者，得人敬之；尊人者，得人尊之。”As a to-be-architect, I have to have wise vision to the future architecture which benefits the world, the people and the environment.

As a conclusion, I would like to thank to Ms. Sukhjit Kaur Sidhu and Ms. Hajjah Shahrianne Mohamad Shah who lead me to think philosophically in a different way that inspires me a lot. With this kind of thinking, I can push myself up to another level so that I can be nearer to my aim. Thanks a lot to my dearest lecturer. Yet, I sincerely apologized to my lecturers about the disturbance I caused.

Thank you.

DeSiRe...

Once again, I have to re-emphasize that I don’t really fully understand what this article wants to tell. From my understandings, it is about desire and eroticism which can be a 18++ topic, but it is just written in a more philosophy way.

From what I got after reading the article, architecture is about desire, seduction and eroticism which is quite sensitive to some of us. According to the article, architecture is full of desire from its representation, seducing through the design of facades and details, and eroticism due to the concepts and space.

In an easier way to understanding, architecture is just like a beautiful, gorgeous and hot lady which is so attractive to the guys. Every posture and movement she does will attract the guys’ sight and get their attention on her. The posture and movement is the representation of architecture which provides desire to people. It encourages people to get in it and to experience.

And yet the façade and details of the architecture can be well-showed by the clothes and accessories put on the lady. Short and tight clothes will fully show the nice body proportion of the lady and the accessories will bring out the taste of the lady too. It goes the same to the architecture. Those façade and details will show up the taste of the buildings and how pleased it is too.

On the other hand, the eroticism is the most sensitive and subjective part. It is hard to define. Somehow it depends on how people think. It really can’t satisfy everyone but just for majority. For an example, the pretty young gorgeous Mexico lady is the Miss Universe now. However, there may be a crowd of people not agree with the results, but the lady convinces the judges and majority of people to get the champion. The same application goes to architecture. The concepts and spaces may not satisfy everyone but it succeeds for majority. For an example, the Birdnest in China is so impressive for most of the people around the world but some of the local people just don’t appreciate it.

Why do certain spaces appear to prohibit sexual desire while other spaces encourage desire?

For my understanding, the world is full of contradictions. There is something obviously that we can’t do, but some people make it happens. For example, a football competition should provide fun to audients who are watching it. But somehow the result may disappoint them. So there comes out with different extreme feeling in a simple thing. It goes the same to architecture spaces. For examples, toilets, hostels or even mosques providing male and female division due to privacy and prohibit sexual desire, but somehow the red light district means the opposite way. These are the contradictions exist on our world.

Is this a property of space itself or an order superimposed upon buildings?

Desire means a lot in everything. For design, it has its importance too. When a designer designs a space or a building, he/she will firstly consider what the feeling he wants and the client want and what he want his client to experience in the space. For an example, disco should be having the dimmed lighting rather than a bright lighting system which doesn’t make sense. And for a hospital, dark colours are not suitable for the design too. For this field, desire means feeling and the sense of taste of the building or architecture. Or another way of saying, it could be the experience in the space.

What is the relationship between sex, place, and the bodily libido?

In my mind, functions derive the relationship between sex, place and bodily libido. Generally, some goods are designed for male whereas some are for female. And some are for everyone. Agree, right? In architecturally, spaces have the same aim too. There are some spaces for someone with some specific function as well. For an example, a male toilet is mainly designed for a male to piss. It goes the same to other spaces, such as surau (mosques), hostels, fitting room and others. Besides, there are some spaces designed for public which sex are not the main consideration but to attract the crowd to that space. For examples, shopping malls, gardens, vacation destinations and etc.

Kellie’s Castle

Kellie’s Castle? I felt like it should be a somewhere around the world..but not in Malaysia..n the most SURPRISED is I came to in front of it!! Due to the “thinklab” event, I went there with Jayz n Stephy on our own. Along the journey, I was thinking how the Kellie’s Castle looks like…n since stephy is from Perak..so she told us some of the rumors that her grandma n mom told her. According to her..Kellie’s Castle is a haunted house which owned by a rich foreign guy. That time I was thinking like..how will I react if I see “something” or hear “something”? All those strange thoughts fulfilled my mind at that time…

After 4 hours journey, we finally reached there. The first word from my mouth was “WOW!”. There is such a great building in Malaysia which I didn’t know before this. Its outlook was so impressive. The feel of grand and elegant really impressed me a lot! After got our ticket for RM3, then I just can’t wait to take out my camera to capture it.

According to the information I got, the main purpose of having this Kellie’s Castle built is William Kellie Smith (the owner) wanted to gift his wife or a home for his son. And yet, he got a son after praying a Hindu Goddess, so to pay a debt of gratitude, he built a Hindu temple. Moreover, he got fascinated with Hindu religion and culture, so he decided to build a castle similar to Madras architecture, so he hired Indian workers to work for him.

Since the building Kellie’s Castle is not finish built, but it is still restored to its original state due to considerations of reasons…the main consideration is the origin of William Kellie Smith’s essence and spirit. Once they finished the construction without the Kellie Smith’s guide, it will totally lose its own spirit n origin of Smith’s purpose. However, Malaysia government plans to have it as one of the tourist destinations. The main aim is let the people to feel the essence and spirit of the castle.

This elevation looks simple but complicated too. It shows the contradiction and made me feel it. From the basic rectangular shapes, it creates such a composition of complicated openings. And from the openings, it has some art decoration which is just created from bricks. Obviously, the workmanship has a standard skills.

The very first place that impressed me is the wine cellar. That moment is almost 1.45pm and it was so hot outside there..BUT..it was so cool in the wine cellar…without artificial air-conditioning, it provides such a low temperature condition for wine..which really surprise me! Coz I was just thinking of is there any “Thing” there? Haha…finally I get my answer from Mr. Teoh, he told me that the plaster material on the wall gives the specification. Only that I feel “…Fui~~…”

The grid beams arrangement causes my curiosity..at first I thought it was just a decoration or anything, which doesn’t related to the purpose of any function…but then Mr. Teoh told me that the main purpose is for putting on the lighting devices. This is because during the olden days, they don’t have electronic driller…so to make the work easier, they placed a block of wood for that purpose. It really sounds the people have such a WISE vision.

In that building, there are many holes, some are for ventilation, and some are for the decoration purposes, and this is for ventilation purpose mainly but also gives the aesthetic feel. What makes me like this is that, during that time, they don’t have any high technology for cutting these bricks…their workmanship is just similar to the workmanship right now which have more high-tech machines. See how much effort they put into it?

The building is mainly built by bricks which is imported from india by Kellie Smith himself. The brickwork does show the aesthetic value and yet it provides a better workout for the workers to construct. And the openings they create were so well…non of it has the mistake of the sizes nor the shapes…at that time, they don’t have calculator…still can have such accurate measurement! But why nowadays, calculation mistaken still occurs for structural failure?

Corridors usually created at outside from the interior in South East Asia country due to the sun orientation and sunlight gaining. And yet the openings not only gives sunshade, natural lighting and provides ventilation too...so that the corridor will always be windy all the time and keep ventilated.

Try imagine that guy inside the image is William Kellie Smith...Hahaha..Our lecturer Mr Faiz is such aTall guy..butoni can see 1/3 of his body through the window...so basically the window has 2 functions..first is to keep the interior part ventilated and the second is to provide shading to the interior.

The strange and weird thought came to my mind…How good if I can take it back to kl and own it at my place? Hahaha…