Photo monday returns!

I was with my girlfriend at Darling harbour and we sat down to look at the children playing at the big spiral water feature. It seemed so serene watching little children, most of them barefoot, walking towards the central sphere interacting with one another.

Come to think of it, there really wasn't much to play with, except with each other. After about 10 minutes or so, it started to get a bit disturbing. One after another (several minutes apart) children were slipping and falling, followed by the disturbing crying and wailing.

I started to think, this is a public health and safety liability! Who designed this terrible thing! I could imagine bloody injuries due to this seemingly innocent water feature.

Oh well... at least the view was breathtaking...

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Sydney travelogue:
Atelier Bow-Wow's Manga-pod
Dinosaur Designs

Time truly waits for no man (or woman). Sometimes, we all need a time freeze.

It doesn't matter if students are having exams the next day and may need that extra hour of study time.

It doesn't matter if you have tight deadlines and may need that extra hour of rest.

Good luck to all my friends who are having submissions and exams now. (This may sound a bit cliche, but) May the force be with you.

One month from today, first year at the office I'm at now. What a fantastic year at the office. I have learnt so much and feel indebted to so many different people. I'm really happy with the environment at work and the opportunities I have received at my level. It has been a varied and exciting experience and I'm really happy with the bridges that I have been able to build with the office. The bosses have agreed that I would be able to come in on a casual basis next year which would be very helpful to me, in terms of my future career, help for my studies and my finances as well. Having a job would definitely lighten the burden on my family back in KL.

One and a half months from now, I will be in Japan for my first real holiday - from money I have personally saved. I'm pleased with how my budgeting and goal-setting turned out and look forward to soaking in a foreign culture, deepening my spirituality and visiting the many fantastic Japanese buildings (contemporary and traditional) which I have seen only in the pages of books.

In 4 months, I will be returning to Melbourne University after completing my year out. It is an exciting feeling but sometimes the thought of it scares me as well. How will I perform when I return? How will I balance m work and studies?

Anticipation. I can't wait for it all to begin.

I first heard about this from one of the students working at the office. How do game engines do what takes us so long to do with VIZ or 3DsMax? Will Fong posts a link to the YouTube content published by Digitally Distributed Environments.

Using the Half-Life engine, the video takes you on a walkthrough of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

Digitally Distributed Environments has more examples of using gaming engines in architectural visualisation. Check it out. Really kewl stuff.

I blogged about the movie's existence back in May, and it opened in Melbourne Cinemas last week. Starting out poetically with Gehry describing how he begins each design, the music and narrative takes one through his sketches- comparing them with his built work.

The movie touches a bit on Gehry's life and struggle in his early career and takes the viewer into his design modelling workshop where young architects work on his models at different scales, while others digitally map the models with the CATIA system and other software developed by Gehry Technologies, transferring them to a construction document builders use to piece his buildings together.

Gone are the archaic 2D plans, sections and elevations on paper. Gehry revolutionised the way architecture is communicated - through Building Information Modelling which will eventually come to replace the many sheets of large format documents used for construction.

While uncovering the process behind his work, Pollack attempts to understand the Gehry phenomenon. Interviewing former clients, artists, musicians, architects, architecture critics and even Gehry's therapist one gets a broad idea behind what makes Frank Gehry tick, albeit touching on the surface without real depth.

A must see movie for every architect and aspiriing architects - for inspiration and a lighthearted perspective of this challenging profession we are in. Two thumbs way up!

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My other Gehry blogposts:
Frank Gehry in the Simpsons
The Sketches of Frank Gehry

There are a number of factors which contributed to my blog's steady decline in the past few months - I experienced a major change in lifestyle. I was suddenly earning my own living, whilst adapting to a very positive work culture. Amidst all that, something really unexpected happened. Finding equilibrium amidst all this lead to my blogging frequency decreasing.

Its tough restarting after such a prolonged hiatus. Its like building stamina all over again. Its not easy to write fluently while trying to have substance, but I'm trying. Please help support me with some words of encouragement. Thank you.

Today the temperature shot up to a high of 36.5 C.

Its time to sweat! Today I went out for a jog, after not doing so for over a month. I want to work up a sweat as often as possible in this bearable heat. But soon this supposedly mild season will pass to give way for summer, but summer seems to have come much earlier. Are we in for an extremely hot summer with the strictest restrictions on water?

Thankfully, while Melbourne sizzles in summer, I will be in colder climates in Japan -yet, at the back of my head I am vaguely concerned about the state of our environment. Aren't we all pollutiing too much but doing absolutely nothing about it?

I didn't intentionally want to check it out, but while taking a drive one day enroute to the Great Ocean Road, I happened to stop at Geelong for a stretch and as luck would have it, I was at the car park right outside the university campus building.

The Geelong Campus was formerly a wool factory and the building is a really good example of adaptive reuse. The fusion of the old wool factory and its current use as an education facility creates very interesting spaces within.

The atrium space with its skylights above and the earthy colour and material pallate on the walls and floors creates a warmth which is often lacking in most squeeky clean modern institutional buildings.

The skylight unique in form due to the warehouse/factory roof profile hints the building's former use. I thought that the structure of the roof was rather interesting.

Remnants of the old wool factory add the the aesthetics of the recycled space. The existing structure being a large, tall container, such spaces are rather interesting. It is rare to find such a large volume enclosed.

I heard the studio spaces were really good at Deakin. But I was taken by surprise when I actually stepped foot in the general studio area. I was told that people from all levels use this common space with large tables and fairly new furniture all the time. I would imagine that Deakin has a very good studio culture, and its probably due to how the school was designed. Design drives culture.

At the library and certain corridor/exhibition spaces, one would have this panoramic view of the sea beyond. I would really love to study in such an environment. It would be sad to be boxed up without any awareness of the outside and of nature in general.

I had applied to Deakin a few years ago and decided against it when I discovered that the Architecture school was in Geelong and that they required me to take an IELTS exam. So I decided on Melbourne University instead, which I am happy to be a part of currently. I would however strongly recommend Deakin to those intending to study architecture nonetheless.

Check out their School of Architecture + Building website. Deakin a+b.

Find out more about Geelong as well. Apparently, (according to the billboards) 'its the best place to live'.

While telephone conversations and the occasional text message keep friends together in this digital age, I would argue that a good number of people I know have lost the skill of composing a letter, or its modern day equivalent - an email.

An email or letter is essentially different from an IM conversation on MSN Messenger, because it is essentially the writer reaching out to another person thinking hard about how his/her message will be received by the other party. Composing a serious email to a friend may take at least 20 minutes and a lot of thought before the writing even begins. That is where it transcends an IM conversation which is akin to talking on the phone.

While IM has its merits in keeping people more connected, we have lost sight of the profundaties in friendship and how we interact with others. Communication, it it happens at all, has been reduced to mostly shallow banter.

If I had a dollar for everytime I received an email invitation requesting me to join some photo sharing service or another service akin to friendster, I would be very rich by now. Have we lost the human touch by giving in to these commercial internet entities that bank on our common need for friendship and understanding? Would joining 101 different websites make one more connected to others?

Humankind owes a great debt to nature and Steve played the part of conservationist, educator and naturalist in his lifetime. His many television programs gave us a fresh insight to our natural world and he was truly passionate and loved all of God's creatures in this great Earth.

Stephen Robert Irwin
22 February 1962 - 4 September 2006
May his soul rest in peace.
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Image source
http://www.freddynietzsche.com/images/pic_steve_irwin.jpg

What does it mean to be Malaysian?

We, citizens of Malaysia, pledge all our energy and effort to attain these ends guided by the following principles:

1. Belief in God
2. Loyalty to King and Country
3. Supremacy of the Constitution.
4. The Rule of Law
5. Mutual respect and good social behaviour.

I had actually written a very long post about how disgusted I feel about recent political developments in Malaysia, yet i chucked it all away and decided that Malaysia is a beautiful land and we have a lot to be grateful for. So as a therapeutic tool, I shall try to list 49 things I am grateful for.

I am grateful that

1. Malaysia is peaceful - no war.
2. Malaysia seldom faces natural disasters
3. Malaysia is a fairly rich country
4. Malaysians (at least my immediate family and my friends) do not live in poverty
5. Malaysia is still a land of opportunity as compared to our neighbours
6. I got a very good Primary education
7. I got a decent Secondary education
8. I got a fairly cheap pre-tertiary education
9. I don't have to spend a lot of money to live in Malaysia
10. Most of my friends are Malaysians
11. We have a large variety of food from various ethnic groups
12. We have so many natural wonders to visit
13. We have more freedom compared to most other countries in the world
14. We have very good shopping malls (in KL only I think)
15. We can find food anywhere at any time of th day or night
16. In my neighbourhood I don't have a fear of walking out at night
17. Our police force is very good at crime solving (but not crime prevention tho')
18. We are not oppressed religiously
19. We have a broad choice for higher education (this means we know we all can't get into the local unis)
20. Mobile rates are cheap
21. We have broadband internet (I'm not sure about the quality now)
22. We can buy cheap DVDs on the streets
23. Movie tickets are relatively cheap as well
24. We have very nice highways to drive on (when there is no jam)
25. Ability to speak good english leads to better job opportunities due to the poor education system
26. It doesn't take much to impress Malaysians, just be courteous and gracious.
27. We have the most prison cells per capita in the world! Malaysia boleh! (but they are still over crowded)
28. We have Nicol David!
29. We had an outstanding father of the Nation who had a clear idea of a secular Malaysia and pioneered beautiful buildings such as the National Mosque and Parliament.
30. We had a leader who worked himself to death sacrificing his own health for the betterment of the country (Tun Razak). He also gave us the five principles.
31. We had an honest leader who did not care about petty politics but who upheld the rule of law when threatened by thugs within his own party. (Tun Hussein)
32. We had a bold and wise leader who found many different ways to speed up development, and created a rich autonomous country that doesn't kowtow to the west. Tun Dr Mahathir is a far better orator in English than most western leaders in English speaking countries.
33. There is no censorship of the internet! Thank you Dr M!
34. When you protest the FRU doesn't shoot you with real bullets. (haha!) Some countries do!
35. Oh.. how could I forget ... MALAYSIA HAS SO MANY FRUITS!
36. Our intercity train service is cheap and good. Have you tried the Senandung Malam to Singapore?
37. We have cheap flights via AirAsia - now everyone oso can fly!
38. Labour is cheap man! If you want to fix anything - you don't have to burn a hole in your pocket.
39. A standard house has more than 2 toilets man! I lived in 2 houses in Australia both had just one toilet.
40. Our weather is predictable. If its hot - it will rain a little later.
41. We have so many public holidays. Some I have no clue what they are for. What is Nuzul al-Quran??
42. We have a King but they don't force us to learn his name.
43. Our national anthem is easy to remember. (but our flag is difficult to draw)
44. We got the tallest twin towers in the world!
45. The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra is World Class! Tickets are cheap for students like me =D
46. The National Registry is kind enough to ban stupid names = future Malaysians have better self esteem.
47. Our Immigration/Customs officers not so anal = chinchai scan and go la. Do I look like a terrorist?
48. We have VERY interesting news on a daily basis. (Australian news quite boring la)
49. We have real water to drink - and we don't have to recycle our own piss! (haha!)

Happy merdeka day.

I walked out of my office during lunchtime yesterday and I saw what I would expect as all the cabs in Melbourne parked outside Federation Square. They had gone on strike! Didn't want to miss the photo opportunity and caught some shots with my Motorolla V3X.

The taxi drivers went on strike to demand for better safeguards between the taxi driver and potentially abusive passengers. Last Tuesday a taxi driver Rajneesh Joga was killed after a man fleeing police hijacked his cab and pushed him out forcefully.

You may read more about it here.