Time

When you are with your lover, you wish time to be stagnant. Yet, you feel the time is short for that very period.
When you are working under irritating tutor, you wish time flies. Yet, you feel one day as one year.
Therefore, you start to hate time.

If there is no time, there won't be any dimension, there is no striation either, and then things appear to be loose and meaningless. It is both pleasing and suffering that time needs to go on, and things add values... certain values.

Sign

Semiotics is formed basically by signification that involves the signifier and the signifieds. If i am the signifier, maybe the signified is Keanu Reeves. Or vice versa? This is truely the essential sign of 'craps'.

Signifier always remains, while the signifieds are transient. And that signifieds are always the signifiers for other signifieds. For example, Petronas Twin Towers is a signifier; its signified is the ambition of Malaysia frogleaps towards modernization; and the signified of the former signified may be the double gateway opening to both the modernization vision, and the dilemma of the country infancy in certain mentality and contents. Perhaps, i should go my craps elaborations with fashion nowadays to make my craps more presentable. So i chosed the hot China trend.


While the 2008 Olympics is landing in Beijing, how many people's attentions are distracted from the old grand Icon-- the Great Wall of China? The Great Wall was a continuous, long and sprawling structure that 'belt' the Northern China from foreign attacks. It also signified how determined has been China to protect and defense its integrity of every inch of land. Until today, China became cohesive in some sense, and claims timelessly that Taiwan is part of it.


Well, patina tells the story. Nowadays, the fatally decaying Great Wall (lack maintenance) reminds people of its contradictory dilemma in between preservation of its culture and foreign imposition of modernization. Like a 'firewall', can Great Wall of China keep the foreign influences at bay on the internet, or at least in their adjustable control manner? Are the Chinese (in China) going to 'frame' their lifestyle in Western's 'perspective painting'? Perhaps, the long span (rolled) 'unperspective' (or 'multi-perspectives') Chinese paintings, together with the long sprawling Great Wall, have been kept for nostalgia, to put aside when they gear up their economic boom. Low rise, wide span 'steadiness' is no more appreciated as grandeur, the people are obsessed frenziedly with the economy, modernization and urbanization, they prefer 'big jump' (like the 'jumping' unprecedented economy). 'Height is perfect'. Megaprojects (like CCTV by Koolhaas) and supernatural scaled towers in cities of China, like Shanghai and Beijing are breaking the 'walls'.
The 'walls' are being thorn down.

Housing Design in JB

My concept is "Transition". It is about my architecture (the beings) in a constant state of transition (beings thus become becomings). It is a responsive indication of time flow and human activities changes. Its original inspiration is derived from the moveable foodstall structure in Malaysia that shows the high quality of transformability and nomadism.

In relation to typical petrifying repetition of massive terrace-housing projects and non-humanistic bigness of apartment projects in Malaysia…

My architectural and urban design in this housing project is anti-mundane, anti-singular and anti-monotonous . That is why I put the programs of living, working and communal spaces together in a much more humanistic sense and scale . This is to encourage social interaction of the regional community, like what Jane Jacobs’s reminiscence—the ‘drama of life’ and the ‘ballet on street’. The design is meant to be happening . The realization of the happenings actually adds the ‘Vitality of the Place’. According to Norberg-Schulz, “Character depends on how things are made, and is therefore determined by the technical realization.” Martin Heidegger points out that the Greek word ‘techne’ meant a creative revealing of truth, which is, “making”.
Compact society [Being]

According to Heidegger, dwelling requires the establishment of not just places but of temporal situations. Laurence Robinson wrote that, architecture can investigate the concepts of temporal collage and contrast (Lynch), weathering and display of environmental change. My architecture is not the display, but the indication of environmental transition. It changes according to time, weather, cultural festivals, and public events . It is the connection with the nature and people.
Transition [Becoming]

(I can't control the Slide transition direction and focus, so there may be some failure of appropriate message delivery.)

AD 4A 2006

Sorry to put the Petronas Twin Towers II on hold... will be continued when time allows...



Just a summary after lunch conversation (for relaxing and de-stress purposes) with mates...

All of all started from the Big Child to bring in the unknown project (unknown site, unknown info, unknown whatever), then the launch of a studio group, by inviting a Perfectionist to join in and guide us with great concern and encourage by always asking us intimately:" What have you..."

So the group is formed, with interesting people. So, except of the mates who always destress by lunch conversation after session, they are interesting too. A patriot, with his accent for our study prototype and his beloved country name as part of his name. A traveller, with his stories and sights, and probably he came by cargo ship. A patterner, with her highly pure persistence of patterns for life. A capper, with his cap and just be introvert with absense as evidence. He must have his story behind.

So our conversations are always about studies of mates, and tutors too. This is really a criss-cross interrelationship that grows mutually and naturally, and funny. So we consist of a bear, a hunter, a meditator, an audience, a dancer, a machine, and a planter. Polar Bear is definitely a failed indication of weather forecast despite his smart way of working and keen participation of sports. I think Antarctic is lack of sport venues. Eyes Hunter always smiles with happiness that his big eyes can beat down any kawaii cute Japanese/ Hong Kee girl. He is propably just hunting for a girlfriend with a pair of equivalent eyes. Buddist Meditator is actually the prince of Southbank that has chosen to meditate always to really think how to store the money. His Indon skill in pronouncing "R" has actually made me-- the "R"-delayer, sound more outstanding and awkward. Maybe i just seldom speak, simply because i just watch more often. i am an audience, who is a fan of any interesting drama series. But i seldom watch Bollywood shows. So, i just found it funny whenever the Indian Dancer started to approach you by imitating Patriot's accent and with his incredibly shaking neck and shoulder. The two girls are comparatively silent a bit, maybe they whisper. You cant really guess whispering contents between a Working Machine and a Palm Planter (Palmer). One is so inhumanly functioning regardless of min-sleep-requirement; while the other one is so inherently attached to the nature.

So, I have concluded-- a weird combination is fun. What have you?

Petronas Twin Towers I

There is a heart in my body; there are twin towers in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. When being asked about the first building image that pops up in brain, a Malaysian student studying in overseas probably will answer this: Petronas Twin Towers. Why is this so? Because it is already an icon, for the country, and the nation.

However, when foreigners ask for the meanings and purposes of this giant edifice (look at the shadow stretched on the urbanscape), we can hardly answer it, if not spending a plenty of time. So, what the towers mean to you? How is it supposed to be perceived? To me, its existence is there of course, geographically hard be denied, notwithstanding its ‘empty form’ that occupying in every citizen. I said it ‘empty’ because it doesn’t really impose a concrete meaning in everyone’s heart, but everyone remains (or reserves) a particular space for it, whether with a hope that it will be enriched with meanings when time goes and the country transforms. Or, maybe the patina can tell the stories better in the future, with the climate of economy and cultural integration.


Anyway, its very first impression or result, is certainly indicating the sense of direction, both physically and mentally. In the midst of the chaotic KL city, just raise your head and find the city landmark when you are about to lose with confusing road signboards. A node tells better than those. From the viewpoint of mentality, the successfully built edifice somehow tells the nation by echoing the numbing slogan—“Malaysia Boleh”, and thus strengthen again the directionality that the nation has to catch up with the developed countries. The towers become a ‘solid’ node from a map; and a ‘void’ gateway to the modernized era. The void that framed by the towers and the sky pedestrian bridge that actually speaks better. All of these, the grandeurs, are about the view towards the towers. How about the views from the towers downwards to the cityscape?

The towers are ‘equipped’ to have some sort of magical power that stunts the visitors, especially the foreigners that are aimed to gain good impression about the country. Well, from the towers, looking outward to grasp the panorama view of real KL city, might be a fantastic cool job, However, it is rather an illusion. I have to admit that it is not 100% real, simply because you can’t perceive the real KL by doing so. The towers are actually making ‘the myth into nature’ (Barthes). When a false illusion seems to be a fact, mythology is basically established. In fact, be it beautiful or ugly, KL can only be perceived realistically, from the horizontal planes. One can only see the people, the bargain, the food, the trash… If the towers represent KL, the legibility of the city is definitely not transparent enough under the urban semiotics (Gottdiener) that the contents and the sign may contradict each other partly. So, experience it, despite the catalogues, the lime light, etc…

[note: this is not an acedemy research essay. mostly about personal thinking and experience by 'borrowing' the theories. picture source: wikipedia & google earth.]