READER REVIEW 2 : OLD vs NEW

In my opinion, I personally think that old and new are two important things that should combined or blend together to recreate “the New Old “, which is something new but it actually derived from the old things.  To define New and Old, New means modern and recent. It is a breakthrough, something we never really seen before, or it’s something just come into existence recently. While for Old, it means ancient which is something dating from the remote past or something persisting from an earlier time.  As I have mentioned, based on human psychology fact, everyone loves seeing new things but still missing and reminisce about the old things. Just like everyone of us easily get attracted by beautiful creative things but are so amazed by the ancient masterpieces. So, why do we demolish old things to build new things?

“We need old buildings to make a great cities, but we need new ones too”. This phrase has become nowadays society issue and to be solved by all the new born architects. Therefore the designers nowadays came out with the concept of “adaptive reuse” which embedded in current conservation thinking. It’s an idea of finding new beneficial uses for old redundant historical building or should say, giving new life into old ruins.

Why should we creating new uses to the old ruins? The idea of it is actually more environment conservative and preservative. As the faithful son of the mother Earth, we are responsible to preserve our Earth from being severe hurt. It’s important to keep our habitat healthy, safe and clean. It the best to prevent demolition that might causes bad impact to our environment as a lot of trees might be cut down or burned off due to demolition of a new land. The animals will lost their habitats and homelands and die eventually. Demolition of a massive building might need the uses of explosive substances. Demolition of old building will gives out dusty particles that will pollute the air and affect human’s health. It will also causes noise pollution as the sound of explosion is tremendous. And also, the purpose of creating new life into old ruins is for material savings, to cut down the wastage of materials during a new building construction. Sooner in future, the ideation of “new old” might be a new trend for the city and society in it could became 21^st century architecture new style. Furthermore, some of the old buildings are too precious to be removed. They all have their historical values and needed to be remembered by all. For example, the Colosseum in Rome and the Pisa Tower in Italy (overseas), Kellie’s Castle in Perak and A Famosa Fort in Melaka (domestic).

There are actually few ways of bringing redundant historical buildings back into uses. Intervention is the best way to solve this problems. There are actually 3 ways of intervention (refer picture down there). The 1^st one is to build inside the ruin. This method tends to express ruins most fully but have the difficult in making weather-tight seal between old and new. The 2^nd one is to build on the ruin. It is the interface between the old and new can be seen both sided. The 3^rd one is to build over the ruin. This provides the simplest and least destructive solution as the ruin is being enclosed inside a building.

Where old meets new, for example the Louvre Museum in Paris is the extreme modern interventions in historical environment. It has now become the iconic building in Paris, France. The modern glass pyramid in the middle of historical monuments was once unthinkable in UK but it is now famous over the world. The Louvre Museum is where the worldwide famous painting, Mona Lisa is located.

The Blencow Hall in Cumbria is another example of old meets new. The Blencow Hall was initially a fort mansion house but it was then converted into a luxury country hotel. The south tower of the building was a roofless ruin and had sustained a large breach in its east wall, possibly as a result of ‘slighting’ in the Civil War (partial destruction designed to deny the use of fortifications to the enemy) combined with later structural settlement. The local architect called Graham Norman has redesigned the building to bring the towers back into use as part of a luxury country hotel. There will be a modern structure built inside the old hall. 

The third example will be the Kolumba Musuem in Cologne. St Kolumba Church was badly damaged during the 2nd world war and was transformed into a memorial garden during the 1950s. Due to surrounded by commercial development, the ruins gradually becoming serious and a collection of temporary roof structures protecting the delicate archaeological excavations, the Archdiocese of Cologne commissioned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to build a new museum to house its collection of religious art with the ruins of St Kolumba accommodated within it. The new structure is actually built over the old building and fused to the walls of ruined medieval church as to shelter the original.

    As conclusion, I strongly agree that old and new can be fused together to create some intervention which is unique and special. Rather than siding old or new, I prefer both of them comes together as one. 

THE IMITATION GAME

The Imitation Game. When I first heard about the title, I really had no idea what is the movie about. By looking at the posters of the movie, the first one showing the face of a man. I was actually thinking " Who is this guy ? Is he a killer? Or a psycho guy? Or a monster or ghost? Ewww " The posters gave me a kind of creepy feeling due to the dim colours theme. I seriously hope that this is not a thriller movie. So, before going for the movie. I was actually " googled" about this movie. 

The movie has actually rated 4 over 5 stars by the reviewers. Quite high review. Hmmm... It must have its' interesting story to tell. A very brief synopsis I knew about the movie before watching it : A British intelligence mathematician named Alan Turing invented a machine to crack Nazi Code during world war but he was sent to prison because the authorities revealed his secret that he is actually a gay. I was thinking "hmm... so it is a brokeback mountain movie ? "

         
After watching the movie, I finally know that the movie is based on biography about Alan Turing, the Enigma and his life. This is a true fact movie. I feel like giving a big applause to the movie after watching it. The storyline is meaningful and yet interesting. The movie really brings out the feeling of early stage of 20th century style ( since the movie is about 1930s).  The costumes, the make-up of the actors and actresses, the furniture of houses, the streets etc.  Benedict Cumberbatch played the role of Alan Turing. He truly acts out his character as a mystery geek guy that has a big heart and patience towards his invention - the Enigma Machine.

The real photo of Alan Turing

Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing
( Look alike huh )

Alan Turing actually working in a team. In his team of 5, He is the one the most difficult to work with due to his stubbornness. The Enigma Machine invented was used to crack the codes produced by German Nazi military during world war. The machine was a great machine which saved billions of lifes during the world war II. The most touching moment is the part when the machine they invented has finally worked successfully ! Tears flying out due to happiness !

The ending of the movie was not a good one for me. Alan Turing has been revealed by the authorities that he is actually homosexual.  He named his machine Christopher, which was his childhood friend from his highschool and Alan was actually deeply fallen for him. Unfortunately Christopher died in his young age and turned Alan into sadness. From the movie, I realized that homosexual was actually a criminal offense back by that time. Well, for me I couldn't accept homosexual, but every person has their own preference right ? No one is perfect in this world. I felt pity for him but outsiders cannot change his life. That was his choice in his life. To avoid prison, Alan Turing accepted hormones treatment which brought his to severe illness. In 1954, he committed suicide in his home. At the ending, we were told that Enigma was the machine we called as " COMPUTER" nowadays. Wow, Alan Turing is not just a genius inventor, he is a hero that save thousands of lives, and a man who brought new technology to the new era. He is really a great man I shall really pay my respect for him. His name should be remembered by all.

For me, I seriously hoping that Joan Clarke and Alan Turing were madly in love and living together happily ever after. They seem perfectly matching each other eventhough Alan Turing is a gay. I felt pity on him committed suicide without getting any awards and fame from his invention.
 

There is a quote from the movie that inspires me a lot in the movie. " Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine ". Means that one shall not lost their confidence in doing something or we should have trust on people who has heart on doing something. One day, we or they might get be successful, just like Alan Turing and his team.

ART vs DESIGN

     Our theories of I.A lecturer, Ms. Sharmila has given us 2 lectures, one is about Beauty in Art and the other one is about Usability of Design on the second and third week of class. On her presentation slides she has explained very well about the difference of beauty and usability. After the 2 lectures, we, students are given an assignment, which is to produce a Powerpoint slides show to talk about our own opinion and views on the topic matters - beauty or usability, which one is more important to us. But first we must find a reader or articles to support our point of view.  And after our presentation, there will be a critique session given by lecturers or the other students.

  

  Once I received the assignment brief on the first week of class, I was kind of nervous and worried because this time our class is actually a combination of Semester 3 and 4 students so is about 20 students. It’s not that big number, but for me I get nervous as I seldom present in front of so many people and I am actually not good in English. Moreover, Semester 3 students are still new to me, it’s quite embarrassing if I give an impression of lousy senior in front of them right? I started to imagine the situation that I am standing in front of my classmates and getting too nervous until forgot everything that I wanted to express. Imagine I will be like “ uhmm uhmm uhmmm…… “and my marks automatically drop to the ground. It’s terrible for me but I wanted to score for the subject. So I was trying so hard to convince myself to be brave.

  

  In my opinion, I actually think that art and design or beauty and usability are the two things that must fuse together to come out with some creation that is useful. It tooks about 3 days for me to look for a supporting readers, half day for me to do the slides, and another half day for me to rehearsal for my presentation. The author is a website designer named Steven Bradley. In his articles, he explained about the difference between art and design and how it’s similar and how important they are when comes together.

   During my presentation, first I talked about how art is not similar to design. Art is something beautiful and has its aesthetic value. Art is free to express out the feeling. Art is like what we can see and also something out of imaginary. It doesn’t mean to be logic. Meanwhile, Design is utilitarian, it’s something need to be worked and has its own function a goal to be achieved. So basically art is about everything and design is more to problem solving. Design is a process with a duration of time. And it’s a project which constrained by budget and client’s needs. It’s a solution for the problem and there’s always. But in some way, art is similar to design. It’s because both are creation and both using similar tools or techniques to produce. For example, we can paint a road sign that is useful, we can also paint an art piece. Both design and art have constrains. Art is constrained by self-imposed while design in constrained by customer’s need.  “BEAUTY” will be the target of both. No one wish to design something that is ugly and useless. Hence both creation must be creative and incredible. As conclusion “there’s nothing wrong with infusing DESIGN with some ART so long as they first and foremost meet the requirements of the design” . This phrase has strongly support my point of view. For me, everything we can see daily is the infusion of art and design, for example: Iphone 6, upholster sofa, shoes, watches etc.

My presentation gone through quite well as I was actually the 3^rd last one to present. And I am not shivering or shaking during my presentation in front of others. What I had in my mind is to settle this presentation and get back to rest. I feel so thankful that I could actually pronounced all the words correctly. Was such a big relief after my presentation. Well, no comments from Ms. Sharmila and beloved classmates. After the presentation, Ms Sharmila did said that all of us did quite well in the 1^st review. So is consider as a big success. But she did mentioned that some of us don’t really share out our point of views but our thoughts are actually follow what the readers’ about. This might be the wrong way of presenting our views as our thought has been influenced by the readers we have chosen. My classmate Yuuki and Kah Wen did quite well in their presentation as they actually shared about what they think it’s really important for them. Yuuki talked about aesthetic value, while Kah Wen talked about usability. Well, it doesn’t mean I was actually doing the wrong thing. But to be honest, I am that kind of fair seeker person so I sincerely think that both beauty and usability are important. Hence I presented that way I wanted to.  That’s all for the first reader review. Hopefully the 2^nd review will be better.

IPOH MALI FUN TRIP

4 Days 3 Nights Ipoh Fun Trip with our beloved lecturers and classmates !! This is my first time going to Ipoh. We, Semester 4 students are joining Semester 2, 3 and 5 students for the fun trip.  So we are considered as senior for the Sem 2 and 3 students haha. This time the lecturers joining are Ms. Baizura, Ms. Sharmila, Ms. Aida and Ms. Seri Intan.

Before going to the trip, we are given an assignment to do a Powerpoint Presentation Slides to introduce about Ipoh. I am actually doing the Historical part of Ipoh. After I did all the researches, I actually get to know that Ipoh is the 4th largest city in Malaysia now ( Opps, I am bad in geography) and there is a river ( Sungai Kinta) divides the city into 2 towns - Ipoh Old Town and Ipoh New Town. Ipoh Old Town basically contains all the past historical building such as government buildings, shoplots etc. A Chinese tawkey from China, Yau Tet Shin was the one who developed the New Town in Ipoh. And most IMPORTANTLY, IPOH WAS FAMOUS OF TIN MINING INDUSTRY during the British Colonial era.

Here began with our trip ~~~

On the 1st day, we depart from Cheras to Gopeng by bus. It tooks about 3 hours to reach in Ipoh.  The 1st station we reached is Gopeng Museum. It is an old historical shop displays all the  antiques and furniture. We rarely get the chances to see the ancient antiques left by the elder generations, the vases, light, old wooden furniture and typing machines. This place makes us flashback the past memory where we used to live with our ancestors. It makes us appreciate our origin and the technology nowadays more. I was quite amazed by the way the elder generations make all the antiques. The carving is finely detailed. 

The 2nd station is Clay Pottery making at Koperasi Industri Kampung, Tg. Bidara, Kg. Gajah - Labu Buluh Tiga. We are the RED TEAM of the day ! First time playing with clay and mud. We are given a fine, undone pottery, and our task is to decorate it, So we starting to roll, pinch, press the mud to come out with any kind of flower shape and decorates on it. The texture of mud is soft and wet. I feel my hand and fingers are getting dirty after playing with it. Well, hardly describe the feeling and I was getting impatience as I got no place to sit on. At the end, I just decorate a simple grapes on my pottery and done with it LOL. Looking at my friends patiently decorating their labu sayong.

The 2nd day is  for us to explore the Old Town of Ipoh. Our team have to record down the videos of the excitements and the fun activities while exploring Ipoh Old Town. But before that, we woke up early in the morning just to visit the Flea Market located nearby our hotel in new town. This is my first time going to the flea market which selling all the secondhand stuffs like cooking utensils, vintage stuff, toys, clothes, watches etc. The market was so packed and crowded even in the early morning.

Arrived in Old Town. We started our first station at Ipoh Parade field. The weather of that day was freaking Hot and Sunny. I can't even open my eyes big enough to look the surrounding. Nano bought a hipster round shades at Flea Market with the price of RM10 & she was trying to act cool in front of us xD. Coincidentally, most of us were wearing BLUE shirt on that day. The blue shirt turned out to be blending together with the blue sky and matching with the greenery field.

Exploring the mural wall arts in Ipoh ! Non-stop selfies and groupfies :D Each of the art painting has its own theme.

Walked around the streets to see the historical buildings and shoplots of Ipoh. The weird thing I realised in Ipoh is, we can cross the roads easily without getting horned by the vehicles.(of course with some safety skills)  And see NO  crossover in Ipoh. The vehicles transportation are not as crowded as the big cities and we rarely find people walking across the streets but only the gang of us.

Walking... walking... walking... we were reached in Sekeping Kong Heng. Luckily that day was Sunday, so all of the shops and stalls at there were operating as usual (Plan B cafe, souvenir shops, barber shop). Sekeping Kong Heng is the most interesting place in Ipoh! It's a fusion of heritage and modern style. There are a lot of interesting fun activities we can explore at there and it's a nice place for photoshooting too! The most awesome feeling is when you're enjoying a cool chilling ice cream at supre cheap RM1 under a hot sunny day ! 

Ms. Sharmila and Ms. Baizura have recommended us to visit a Boutique Hotel called Happy 8 which is just nearby Sekeping Kong Heng to study about the design as our case study. They sent us the location via whasapp. Hence, a group of us decided to go there and have a look ! We were reached at the location after crossing so many streets, The exterior building is the heritage building with greenery lush surrounding it. Chinese heritage style is the theme of the Boutique Hotel. Timber and mangrove wood are the main materials used for the hotel. once we entered the hotel lobby, we were amazed by the design and the furniture in it ! The interior design is remained heritage but yet modernist in some aspects. The receptionist is friendly enough to serve us and we had a short interview with her. She explained to us about the origin, the design concept, the function and the designer/artist of the hotel. She is kind enough to let us take pictures of the ground floor and surrounding but not the hotel rooms because they have guests in the rooms. But still, we have gained a lot of useful knowledge to help us in doing our design subject regarding in hotel management and design theme. 

On the night after the dinner, we went to Kinta Riverfront to have a night walk. The colourful LED trees have brighten up along the river and beautified the night view. The interesting part is, there's a booth that provide tricycles, bicycles and skooters rental sevices. To be honest, I don't even know how to cycle a bicycle because I was too afraid of falling down from the bicycle. A tricycle? I was being forced to try on it. I was screaming like hell when riding the bicycle. It took me quite some time to calm myself and get used to it >.< At the end I decided to take a rest at the sitting corner while waiting for them to have fun :( 

After a while, Nana has called up Nano. She told us that she brought along a car which she borrowed from her brother and decided to bring us around Ipoh. Yayyy such a nice and unique experience we had ! We went to have some delicious and cheap price Malay food at the stalls along a big field. After that, we decided to go to another boutique hotel - M Boutique Hotel to pay a visit and do our case study. By that time around 11pm, the hotel is closed. Lastly, we just had our supper at the Old Town Restaurant which is just below the hotel. That is the most luxurious Old Town Restaurant I have ever been to. Nice decoration and good customer services provided by the waiter and waitress. We can feel like we are that kind of high classy people enjoying fine dining inside a super luxurious dining place! Hence we have a very insane idea of acting classy in the restaurant but unfortunately we have failed to do so but turned up to be a group of "sampat" gossip ladies hahaha. 

The 3rd Day is a FUN DAY ! We are going to have lots of fun in Tambun Lost World. It is a water theme park. For me I feel excited and a little anxious. WHY ??? BECAUSE I CANNOT SWIM ! I feel like I am a coward as I don't even know how to ride a bicycle and yet I don't know how to swim. And another thing that put me into worried is... CNY is coming and I ensure that I will 100% get tan skin after today. As usual, the big sun is upright and I can feel the land is " burning". Before entering into the main gate. We actually non stop taking photos at the entrance gate. Even though on the hot sunny day, but I can see the excitement feeling of everyone's faces like they can't wait to touch the water and wet their body ! There was a naughty " potianak" mascot walking around and trying to scare us! You can actually heard a lot of screaming sound even before entering the gate HAHA ! 

We get a little disappointed as the theme park is not big as we imagined. Sunway water theme park is much better than this. There're still a lot of fun games we need to pay extra money to play with it. So the things we can actually play inside is quite limited. The lucky thing is, we came with the right gang ! Hence we still had a lot of fun and behave crazily ! I actually throw all my worries to wind once I entered to the theme park. I played most of the exciting fun games with them.

The 4th day will be our last day in Ipoh. Following the itinerary, we had our breakfast first and heading to Sekeping Kong Heng again. But this time, we are going to visit the hostel upstairs with the permission from the person-in-charged. Feeling excited as I heard that this is a very beautiful place that MUST visit in Ipoh. Get ready our camera and sketchpad to jot down every single details of the hostel.

First we entered to a hostel which is still under construction. It's actually an old building which is still being renovated into a boutique hotel.  The place seems so dusty to me. We need to be extra careful as the glass pieces, nails and woods still "freshly" on the ground. The interior inside the spaces is still unfinished. We can see wiring twinning around on the floor, wall and ceiling. The materials used for the design are raw and unique ( chipboard, raw cements, woods, exposed bricks ) but they are strong enough to support the structural elements.And they actually inserted a kind of soft cushion under the chipboards wall for sound insulation purpose.

The design of the swimming pool located on the rooftop is really out of my imaginary. It looks simple and yet cool! By standing by the pool I can feel calm and peace. It's shaded by greenery big trees.

The Reflection of Nature and Peace

The manager of the hotel, Mr David brought us to another block of hotel which is done renovation and explained to us about the project and the design concept. The famous Architect, Ng Sek San is the designer of the hotel. This is a modernist type of homestay hotel. He wisely uses the raw materials like dim dull grey colour, exposed cement floor, steel staircases, wood, exposed bricks as the design of the hotel which successfully bring out the nature and peaceful feeling of the interior. I realised that the design of the hotel has a lot of big openings ( windows) for ventilation purpose. Winds flow freely in and out of the building. The bathroom is the modernist exposed style with glass door. I like the idea of hanging bedrooms. It's space saving and yet creative!

Around 1.30pm, we were leaving Ipoh and heading to Kellie's Castle - a haunted mansion located at Batu Gajah. Hohoho. It's an ruined mansion built by William Kellie Smith in 1909. He is a Scottish planter which came to Malaya as Civil Engineer in 1890. The architecture style is Moorish Revivial and Indo-Saracenic Style with extravagant columns and arches and indian style keyhole windows. The watching tower was built high enough which can see through whole Ipoh town. I don't dare to take much pictures inside the castle as we heard about the rumors of ghost spirit living inside this mansion. I got goosebumps while entering the mansion. I feel creepiness inside while some naughty fellows keep mocking ghost sound and calling " Kellie" to scare off the others.

After visiting Kellie's Castle, we were heading to Kinta Tin Mining Museum as our last station. 

I have not much interest on tin mining story and details. But this will be a BONUS benefit for Illin as she is actually doing Tin Mining as her concept of design. From here she can gained lots of information. I totally have no idea what are the huge-sized machines used for. Inside the museum, there are a lot of pictures about tin mining and also display gallery of the antique tin mining tool appliances,  weighing machines, documents and certifications and also tin mining site model with pressing buttons.

This is consider as THE END of our Ipoh trip. On the way going back to Cheras, we were actually dropped by at an R&R on the highway to have our dinner. Sleeping mode was ON ! So we slept through the whole journey until we reached in Cheras haha.

From this trip, we actually gained a lot of useful knowledge and get a lot information, not only on our design learning but also about Ipoh lifestyle. Ipoh is a fast developing city eventhough it's still far compared to KL, Penang and Malacca, but there are actually a lot of nice places like cafes restaurants for the youngsters or family to hang out at. The food there is much much cheaper than in KL and also it taste awesome delicious ! The famous bean sprout chicken is the one I enjoyed eating and loveee the most and the Kopi peng (ice coffee) is sooooo good ! Sum up of the food I have tasted in IPOH ! HO CHIAK !!!  

Besides that, this trip has become ICE BREAKING for the Semester 2, 3, 4 and 5 students. We get to know each others during the trip, share knowledge and feelings, and having fun together :D

In conclusion, IPOH is really a nice place to have a short getaway vacation for those who loves eating cheap food and looking for heritage style of nostalgia environment. I believe in within 10 years Ipoh will continue developing into a more advanced city and be a hot spot of tourist destination. More youngsters will be working and staying in Ipoh :) I ensure I will visit to Ipoh again in future. :)

DESIGN PROJECT 1a) : INFOGRAPHIC OF LOCAL IDENTITY

Info graphic Board 

Task :    To compose info graphic board based on issues of hospitality and identify our local identity
               item through senses - sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.

Local Identity chosen : Spices ( Understand the types of spices and how it can relate to the senses &
                                                    make it as the uniqueness of the theme of Boutique Hotel)



                                   INFO GRAPHIC BOARD (without 3D) 

DESIGN FINAL PRESENTATION

DESIGN PROJECT 3 : ZOO VISITOR CENTRE

For this final project, our objective is to create programming activities to our zoo visitor centre creatively, effectively and functionally in the space given based on the 5 pillars of Zoo Negara we have researched.  For this case, the site and floor plans are given which is the current Zoo Negara Office department. It's a circular shape facade which means the floor plan will be a round shape floor plan.

Well, for me this is a quite challenging assignment project as the main purpose of the visitor center is to spread the messages of Zoo Negara 5 pillars to the visitors. So, we need to think of the programming for spaces very creatively and suitable for all-aged users. The programs inside must not be too bored or too difficult to the visitors and must be worth for the entrance fees.

For me it tooks about 1 to 2 months to complete the whole project. Starting from programming designing and approval by lecturers.  3D perspectives, model making and presentation board arranging.

A CLOSE UP TO RAPID VISUALISATION OF THE PROGRAMMING ACTIVITIES

                        

                         The title of my visitor centre is A WALK INTO FLORA AND FAUNA.

THE FINAL PRESENTATION BOARD.

Feeling grateful that I finally complete 8 A1 boards before the pin up date. A big applause to myself. Thank you for all the lecturers for the golden teaching advises and comments. IA DESIGN 03 has marked to an end. :) 

DESIGN PROJECT 2

DESIGN PROJECT 2 : THE ANIMAL PAVILION

For this assignment, the animal I have chosen for my project is PEACOCK.
The objective of this assignment is to design a pavilion based on the animal we have chosen, the location of the pavilion will be inside Zoo Negara. And the purpose of the pavilion is too maximize the viewing of animals for the visitors meanwhile the animals are not disturbed by the visitors.

PROJECT 2 PRESENTATION BOARD ( 2A1 Boards)

another assignment for the project 2 task is to design a pamphlet that introduce your animal : PEACOCK.

FRONT PAGE

BACK PAGE

                      The DIGITAL MEDIA ANIMATION of the PEACOCK PAVILION project :)

                       Eventhough is not the perfect one, but thank you Mr Kamal for directing us in                                      construct the animation video using 3dsMax :) Appreciate a lot :)