A VISIT TO GARAGE 51, BANDAR SUNWAY

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, a cup of nice coffee and sinful breakfast was so necessary. Garage 51 is easily spotted by its unique graffiti wall and color. It was located at one of the shops in front of Sunway University.

As you can see finding parking was a quite a pain in the xxx, people tend to double park around the cafe ( not a pleasant thing). We got a little luck that day in getting ourselves a parking spot while we got there.

A waiter opened the door for us and we were welcomed. It was packed with other customers, everyone was enjoying their food. We got ourselves a table on top of the container, which was being designed into a kitchen below.

 Food wise, they serve variety of English breakfast, the usual. I ordered the one listed in brunch's special, chicken piccata with couscous. It was my first time trying couscous, a type of North African semolina in granules made from curshed durum wheat. It was served with Avocado and a fried poached egg. It was delicious.

Up to trend huh? Well it's world cup, everybody loves it. This is the outdoor dining area, as you can see some of their furniture are garage-inspired.

A view from where we were sitting. Since the cafe is seated at one of the shophouses, I believe it was designed into a double volume space by taking out the upper floor area. It totally helped in giving a better sense of soothe to the customers.

They have a brunch at Solaris Dutamas too, namely Coffee Societe.

Garage 51
51, Jalan PJS 11/9,
Bandar Sunway,
46150 Selangor

11am-11pm daily
(closed on monday)

Ratings:

Price: 3/5 Average (imposes 16%tax) Customer Service: 4/5
Food: 3/5
Environment: 4/5

HE WAS JUST A KID WHEN I KNOW HIM

As I was passing by the housing area of jalan kampar, I went to pay a visit to a house that I was once involved designing while working in Kuee architects. It doesn't take me long to look for the house. 

this is how it looks like in Feb 2012

pool view

I still remember while doing the 3D rendering, we struggled on getting design approval from our client. This usually happened when the client doesn't know what they really want. When we come to this design, it was already 3-4 proposal before it. Well, sometimes after your client went travelling outside the country, they saw buildings they love and tend to give inputs into theirs when they come back. Sometimes the ideas may work, but most of the time they don't.

he is all grown-up in 2014

I think there must be a lot of decision making moments during construction period, as you can see it doesn't came out as proposed. Money-Time-Quality, the usual. This final design looks decent, just that I think it somehow loses an identity. The car porch roof is definitely a spoiler :(

Less is more??


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BEING AN ARCHITECTURAL INVIGILATOR

It was my pleasure being invited as one of the invigilators for my degree school's student final presentation. Many of my previous lecturers were there to invigilate the students, not to mention Huat Lim, a few seniors and other architects from elsewhere. It was like a small reunion to me.

Semester 6 student's works that I have seen were up to expectation, where visual presentation is good, technical drawings are satisfactory, and one most impressive work  from them is the site analysis video. It was fantastic, I would say, very informative and creative, a successful piece of work that expresses key things about the site. Huat Lim mentioned that the video can sell a couple of dollars to developers in Sentul lol!

After everyone has presented their work, the tutor, us and the students had a sharing session to wrap-up the day. 

This studio focuses on the goal in 'rehabilitate', the design should implement a program that could possibly solving the social issue on site at a minor scale. It was challenging to the students as well, in arguments where the building they design should provide substantial employment, opportunity and independence. We highlighted that, students tend not to spend time in planing, It is the most crucial issue for any projects in practice that the planing of your project requires effectiveness. For instance, the accessible road from the main driveway to your building should be effectively routed. Your client wouldn't spend unnecessary money to build something that is abundant.

Tectonics of the student's design was not highlighted in the assessment. However, some architects pointed out that students should have in mind on how to manage their building at all time. Yes, it has an impact on your site and your building. Sustaining the building is a concern, not in terms of monetary but occupancy. It will be under-utilized if the building serves only a certain period of season or time, despite having a nice program for its user group. Other than that, is also has to do with things like security, location of management office, number of employees in the building, and so on.

As their seniors, i noticed that most of the programs that were proposed by the students are identical: Urban farming, sports centers, cultural hub, and what not. I certainly understand why is this happened since I was like them during my final studio. Most probably it is because these programs are easy to tackle. As if, these programs can be placed at any sites they want as long as there is an empty land. It happened to my studio 2 years ago, and now this culture is some how self-sustaining. I hope students in the future can jump out from the box and able to propose more exciting programs, which would definitely lead them to another level in terms of thinking, planning and designing.