I remember feeling so embarrassed when my tutor noted that our architectural scheme in response to the Sharing Economy resembled the lifestyle of Domestic Workers in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, etc.). My friend and I were determined to give a bleak and dystopic scenario marketed almost like a sunny paradise: the more you work for the family, the better your living conditions will be.
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Architecture for the Homesick 101: Are You Sure You Need A Kitchen or a Laundry?
in Social
Last year. during our studio class (Studio Shared) - our group’s assignment challenged the ownership of a house - how much one should have or want to possess. Essentially, it was very much like an IKEA catalogue of pick and choose the elements for your house considering that your necessities such as a bathroom, communal kitchen, toilet or laundry were highly accessible as it was a foreseeable trend of the future. Albeit, despite having these facilities available publicly, our house still retained the nuclear house: a kitchen, a sink, a bed and plenty of storage. It was also very reminiscent of my other studio project I did during first year with my partner, where we also designed another IKEA flat pack type design that offered residents to build cells of what they would like to have in their own home should their area become flooded.
Read MoreExpectation vs. Reality III: When the Love Letter Becomes Unwanted
Over tacos and being miserable with the realisation how lacking we were in trivial knowledge from Trivial Pursuit, my friends and I were discussing about taking aesthetic photos for dating apps. While the idea was a mere banter, the ideas that kept sprouting were evidently inspired from our constant scrolling down the square images that constantly pop up on Instagram. These photos were often captured through a process of dreamy filters, correct ‘candid’ poses and exceptional cropping that gives us the final aesthetic. However, we must also remember that it is the kind of backdrop and setup that allows us to achieve the ‘Instagram Worthy’ photo – and these backdrops that are often discovered accidentally and later becoming the popular backdrop for others can become a love letter to our surroundings.
Read More“Unless we’re looking at the cartesian plane, there is no such thing as Linear my dear...”
During my stay in Hong Kong, a family friend invited me to attend a debate organised by RIBA HK Chapter. The topic: “Linear Design Process = Efficient Design Process”.
Guiltily, I admit that I didn’t give the topic much of a thought initially, as my mind initially jumped to the literal thought of a straightforward process: narrow-minded, rigid and unforgiving in alternatives. Needless to say, I was rather perplexed by the argument itself considering that design processes (at least from my design experience at university) requires various hoops to jump through and elaborate conversations in order to successfully reach our destination.
Read MoreBut... Are You Happy? Chapter II
Last week, my friend and I were polishing off our pancakes on our long overdue catch up when he asked me the question. Our conversation has reached a point where our doubts and wariness for our future has us questioning about the choices we have made in our lives so far. The amount of studying and measures taken to achieve our ambitions was evidently wearing us down. "I guess it's because we know that we may not get the opportunity to design something like the way we do again - in a practice at least..."
Read MoreBut... Are You Happy? Chapter I
After fours years of studying architecture, it was the first time a tutor challenged my architectural beliefs. At that point I never really thought of the implications honestly, I used to believe that as an architecture student, so long as we have good contextual and background knowledge and attention to detail, we should be able to produce an infrastructure that would serve a good purpose.
Read MoreThe Hero Phenomena IV : When Will You Be Good Enough?
Words are an extremely powerful weapon. Whether it'd be vocal or written, whatever comments made directed to you can always have an overwhelming impact. It's a common thing to talk about among my group of friends (whether they're from Architecture school or high school) about the comments that really places us on the edge - which in turn has catalysed extremely cautious personalities within.
Read MoreAdventures on Studio Shared 2.0 Part IV (Conclusion)
We’ve reached the semi end goal.
Penultimate that is. And believe me – it was pretty fun trying to present ourselves like a commercial, albeit – it was quite cringe worthy when I was listening to my own voice on the television (after all, nobody likes to hear their recorded voice). There were a lot of discussion about our project on whether it was viable in comparison to just simply building a house in your own yard and renting it out, and it made us really consider our arguments on the reason why our project would be more successful in comparison to others, let alone be better than others.
Adventures on Studio Shared 2.0 Part III
Up until this point – everyone started to evolve their opinion towards the sharing economy however, we were unable to articulate it in our designs or at least, in our presentation.
Which brought us to the fateful night in Fitzroy, hangry and nervous for our debate.
Being someone who hasn’t debated (or even dare I say properly debated) for more than five years I didn’t know how I would react or respond as a second speaker – let alone, being on the negative team I didn’t know whether I would come up with any rebuttals against the second speaker on the affirmative team.
Read MoreAdventures on Studio Shared 2.0 Part II
Week 4 and we are diving deeper into our project. We began to focus on the issue of rising house prices. It’s so defeating to just think that our future will be bombarded with high buying prices when the job that we decided to do will not be suffice to guarantee me to accomplish owning something. On the other hand, there’s that gnawing tension between different classes, and also the loopholes of house ownership – overseas investors buying things up and the amount of investment properties accumulating overtime is terrifying.
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