Design Affinity

In Memory of Che Wan

2011-10-17T01:13:00.000-07:00

A teacher of unconventional talents. The Godfather of Niat-Laku-Hasil and without it, The Architecture School of HBP would be lifeless and barren. Without boundaries, his provocateurs drove his students breaking boundaries, all the way to the Dean's office. Almost a maverick and well lived his golden days of Hippies, John Lennon's music and baby boom, his selfless dedication to live on with Bamboos and Mushrooms, not forgetting teaching architecture in a Neo-Bauhaus traditions of Bucky-Balls, Confrontations of the COLUMNS, Mask-ed!, Play and all sorts of Jingles that can only be the brainchild of a reluctant genius.

Early encounter of him would be puzzled for he is draped in the defunct Al-Aqam's Jubah smoking his beloved Gudang Garam with his Teh Tarik in a lecture hall which proudly displayed the Non-Smoking sign. Who cares, as he lectured and criticized the inconsistency of translating Architecture from English to Bahasa-Whatever... and 2/3 of the Lecture Hall dose off to sleep. Yup, that is HIM!

Before long, he stood before me as the Studio Master with another maverick, Encik Haidar, as his assistant, in his most up-kept beard and GUCCI to ARMANI from head to toe, the Gelugor way of course. Local-U paycheck would not entitle you to dress liked Karl Lagerfeld. The entire year was a Blessing in-disguise. Instead of drawings liked all Architecture school does, we toyed with Fire. Almost got the Studio burnt down while shouting Nodus dan Laluan. Just a leap away from being Obsolesces, we did what others view as Anti-Establisment. That is way before, Namewee made his debut with his Negaraku-Ku, the Architectural Prodigee would have already transformed donated Tees, Boxers and all the discarded fabrics into the Malaysian Flag and hung it in the Foyer for Merdeka Celebration, although we already knew that we had never been Colonized.

There would not be another CheWan in HBP, for sure. Although we had all grownup out of his MOLD, somehow there is always a fraction of him that lived within us.

A fond memory of him as a teacher and a companion of our architectural upbringing.

May he rest in peace.

Introducing Interstices Amok : A Chronology

2010-06-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

A compendium of thoughts and ideas that has gone beyond the boundary of the Studio. Unconsciously, while I indulge in the model of productions during my Graduation years in the Faculty, there is a conscious attempt to break the boundaries and acceptable norms of the schools which unconsciously left a legacy for the future students to embark and to continue on, if not to break it. There is no precedent at that time, that the body of lecturers, whom are trained in the model of modernist Frank Loyd Wright styles, would accept the approach beyond water colors and pencil renderings to the much embraced model of deconstructions and blobs. Yet, it was proven that the yielding and desperate need to break the current paradigm goes beyond the needs to secure enough grades for graduation. That is why it is a RADICAL attempt which had paid off but yet was put aside as just another thoughts and ideations.

First we grace upon the Politics of knowledge. Next, we dwelt in the Anarchy where ideas are no longer on the drawing boards but the stage. Then, as the plot unfolds, we equipped with Arsenals, as our daily milk. Proceed on to be indoctrinated with Apostolic Architecture from the people of the Books. Not enough? We spread the gospel through the Workshop. Thereupon, a declaration is made to transform our current context into Gelugorium, a piece of Utopia made out of industrial waste. Just to match the existing Tapestry of Georgetown. Yet, we look beyond the sister historical context in Malacca and found the Radical approach that has yet to materialize into the Univers City. Such declarations are the pretext of our intellectual Revolutions. A platform for the Meeting of liked minded people is called. Yet, some appeared to be Innocent and stick to the old paradigm. Just that in the all embracing world of ideas, we start from Scratch. To embrace Stylism at its most infancy stage. That is capable to be translated in the Now Showing – Amok: A Chronology.

Click HERE to enter.

Introducing FengShui QuanYuan

2010-03-10T02:38:00.000-08:00

Seek no further, this is the place where proven applications of Chinese Metaphysics are practiced, by the group of dedicated practitioners that goes beyond the boundary of lineages, fengshui families, to the crux of Dao. Here the emphasis of the Greater SanYuan inclusive of Heaven (FengShui for the tombs), Earth (FengShui for the living abode) and Man (Holistic Supplements) are practiced.

Click Here To Enter...

Introducing The Ideation Model

2009-09-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

There is no idea too small, nor no idea too big. There is only Big Idea for a small planet. Yes indeed. When we built, it meant to last. So we are calling for new ideas of what to built. This is just a blog, calling designers out there of new ideas for what to build?

Look out for, http://www.modelofideation.blogspot.com/

Introducing A Project Solution Company

2009-08-27T03:10:00.001-07:00

Rebranded in 2009, Project Affinity Consultancy is ear marked as a multi-disciplinary design-led consultancy company in the business of fast tracked design, construction and purpose built for multinational and Malaysia based companies.

Our track records include high level lobbying, design and construction for mainly upper market residential and commercial properties in the Klang Valleys for companies listed in the Bursa Saham Malaysia.

What We Do ...

We are established one stop consultancy group with design, construct and development capabilities. Anchored with a reputable property company, we are able to raise private capital and with its strategic partnership with financial institution and property groups such as Magna Prima Bhd, Kuwait Finance House, HongLeong Bank and amongst others.

We are specialized in providing integration of designs to include state of the art M&E, IT, structural components into the built-environment. We also provide a critical one stop solution to both local and multinational firm in making their base in Malaysia with regards to design and built facilities.

Introducing Case Studies

2009-07-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

Metaphysics are among others exsoteric in nature in terms of knowledge and applications. Jiang Da Hong has been instrumental in saying that the heaven wills shall not be disclosed. Similarly with the art of metaphysics. Unfortunately, with such myopic worldview, 6 of his closest disciples began to part their ways, not able to even allowing their followers to learn from each other schools. One school splits to 6 and these schools never come together. It sparks what the westerner called schisms, each trying to interpret their own way through the knowledge of Jiang Da Hong making most only half truths and half fictions. What is witnessed today is the bastardising of this art at its pinnacle. We hope that our forefathers will return to show us the path and it is with this spirit this blog is made available for seamless sharings.

We often speak about results. The bottom line of all FengShui boils down to results. No matter what method used, results must be obtained, be it good or bad. If it is good, why was the result good? Did the good results materialised as predicted and in timing? Did the good results are able to be quantify and be traced back to the method deploy? Even if the results are bad, the question is how bad? Is there blessings in disguise? Are the results taking too long to materialise? Why is such? What need to be done to put things together?

So, this blogs are meant to be a record of cases both successful and unsuccessful case study. The lessons are to note, why such success were achieved rather then ought to have achieved. If it fails to materialise the desire results, again more investigation needs to be looked at. So the blog is for serious practitioners of this art at an invitation basis for the moment.

So please contributes your case study as much as possible for a fruitful discussion.

Warmest Regards,

YiFengshui

Introducing Destiny Reading

2009-07-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

I take this opportunity to introduce to all the following blogs: -

http://www.yibazi.blogspot.com

When I started blogging in 2007 via YiFengshui, it was just a response to another blog which instigates a lot of negativity in the art of metaphysics. Surprisingly, this blog has met its natural death with its blog owner and his team of crappy personalities being carted away for some strings of litigation matters and injunctions. With such silence, aggressive respondents and commentators to my blog have reduced significantly and I can only make a simple conclusion as to such a phenomenon. So the reason for YiFengshui to exist is no longer valid.

However, along these years of blogging, new reasons for its existence such as a platform to communicate with experts and seekers of this field have grown, friendships have developed, lessons had learnt and bitter experiences of knowing the heart of the complex human beings are priceless. I owed much of these to two men, first, who is a master in Chinese Metaphysics of his own rights and a seeker of truth in Buddhism similarly second, to my teacher whom is a master in Design Theories and a seeker of truth in Islam, whom I had trusted. Same as with the numbers of people, especially the trinity who led me to a path less travelled in the wake of science and modernity, if misunderstood it is called hocus plus pocus. I must admit it is a good source to find out the hidden agendas in the many layers of human beings through the ethereal. So are the many psychics whom I had the opportunity to be associated with. I take this opportunity to thanks the many for a good lesson learnt and seek forgiveness from whom I had involuntarily offended by my writings and my thoughts. Saying thus, I had voluntarily removed permanently the columns called gossips from the internet, so much so that I believed, people deserved a second chance.

To err is humane, to forgive is divine. As a new chapter, to reinvent the objectives of this blog, I shall only continue to dedicate trivial matters about KanYu that I find interesting for sharing. I heed note that only through sharing will we grow in the art of Chinese Metaphysics and to avoid unnecessary troublemakers, the important notes and serious case study will only be made available through invitation only. So, to the serious researcher kindly drop me a personal mail should you wish to be included in this circle of fellowship, with just some simple non-monetary conditions to apply.

As my limited skills in blogging have improved, I had dedicated another blog for the art of BaZi, realizing that not many practitioners are interested in KanYu. At the same time, I am exploring other blog to be called design affinity, which is dedicated to consolidates all my thoughts which are in fragments into a collective whole just liked a tapestry of ideas blending metaphysics, travels, architecture and experiment in visual arts in a collective whole. This may not be a grand design of the Almighty but is significantly called a small TaiQi within a larger one.

Feel free to explore…

Introducing Method Of Production

2009-07-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

The programme is nothing new. It has its genesis from the Bauhaus and via the migration of the MODERNIST GURUS to the US; the same sort of programme has been implanted into the curriculum of the MIT, School of Architecture. Through the generosity of the Malaysian Government, JPA to be specific, at one time, to send the crème de la crème of the MARA scholar to the US, some of these scholars had the opportunity to dip into the these ex-Bauhaus programme and surface upward to be brought back to the Malaysian School of Architecture particularly the misnamed School of Housing Building and Planning, University Science Malaysia through the undying spirit of the avant garde ‘Guru’ of individual of this sort, En. Wan Burhanuddin (on the rim of retiring into the business of HOLISTIC HEALTH CARE then architecture); to be installed into the naive minds of the 2^nd year freshies of whom, at the material time, the author was one of them. The curriculum was rigid for the sake that there are more old garde existed since the inception of the programme and the birth of the phrase “if you want a degree, go to the school and if you want architecture, go to the club”, takes form as a manifestation of the sort of suffering and loneliness one of this sort of avant garde has to bear in the mainstream school of Architecture in Malaysia. The seed of seeing beyond the four walls of the formalized curriculum has been sowed to create an undercurrent of movements in the students club which co-incidentally shared by all schools of Architecture including the AA which has manifested in the forms of publication named ACROSS ARCHITECTURE as compared to the official publication of AA FILES, Picking on this premise, the Architecture Club of USM has initiated a series of publication raging from INTERSTICES to AMOK at the students’ own pocket money without subsidy and aligned with the manifestos of the Architectural Workshops, at the time has managed to put forth a declaration to be further crystallized in the more current workshops in UM and UIA and to be met with a pre-mature DEATH of the commercial and institutional onslaught of insufficient funds and the lack of momentum and commitment.

Unlike the local scenarios, the neighboring school of Architecture across the Straight of Tebrau, namely NUS has a better luck due to its fame and the fact that it is the only school of Architecture in Singapore. This school hires experts from all over the globe. The ex-Bauhaus programme was infused in an Atelier Concept of Master-Pupil of which the author has the opportunities to experience from the credits of SIF-ASEAN Student Fellowship Funding which meets it natural death somewhere in 2004, from the prominent Dr. Edward Ng, now lecturing in HKU. The emphasis on Urban Design in the Singapore experience is prominent and it is not surprising to note that the UM curriculum, from the perspective of Prof. Wood, has a very strong grounding on Urbanism for which along side with the accreditation process from LAM has been criticized as being too urban scale inclined rather then building scale inclined. Again, the paradoxes of what is Architecture, an urban matter or just a building tech-tonic has been raised similar to the age old question of who is the planner for which LAM-PAM itself has a difficulty to qualify and just don’t mentioned what Housing, Building and Planning stands for as for that the genetic make up of architectural strand has been mutated and transformed into new species like COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE, totally beyond the scope of this discussion. The disgrace of lack of regard to urban design issues has led to the many embarrassments within the built environment fraternities some of which has been highlighted in the PAM-Discourse in the 80’s with the participation of Mega Stars liked Kisho Kurokawa, Dr. Ken Yeang (now, a Dato’), En. Hijjas Kasturi, Datuk Lim Chong Keat and the prominent educator from the AA the late Alvin Boyarsky. The shed of dirty linens are obvious and until today, not much improvement has been recorded unlike otherwise the revival of new classicism via the Putrajaya Master plan in accordance to the Middle East Model, of which spark another debate on its socio-cultural contextual relevance.

In the college things are different. Firstly, with the concern of legitimacy as a recognized school, the school of Architecture should not have existed. The author with many others would have probably out of jobs following strictly by a matter of recognition of the programme by LAM. Only with the virtue of LAN that the programme has been made legitimate but to an extend that, all of those in the system know too well, the graduates are not recognize as Pt I in the career path of an Architect. Secondly, college is not a drafting school either for the Diploma that is offered was tagged with the title Architecture for which the school serves as feeding platforms for overseas universities. In view of the paradox of such nature, with the lack of both direction and niche architectural education model or philosophy, again the ex-Bauhaus programme has been modified incorporating the 3 scale of artifact, building and urban in the modus operandi of discourses, implementation and documentation within the scope of master, project manager and crews has been implemented and tested and this time around the subject is DESIGN STUDIO 4. Presenting herewith are the accounts of such experimentation with the overview of the Brief and the products brought to you from the People who believes there is still tomorrow for Architecture.

Introducing The Practice

2009-06-25T23:53:00.000-07:00

We are Architects by profession, Designers by career. We aim at instigating design at every levels from the smallest of the furniture to the largest of urban design. In between we dwell in the realm of design management, ultimately leading to the role of managing problems, from inception to execution. Sometimes, we wish that we could provide all possible artistic solutions, but reality bites as we will have to address the financial portions of the scheme as well. So, the collective works are somewhat compromised. However, we do keep the spirit burning of pure design, now available from our alter ego site: yiarchitechtonic.blogspot.com Take a dip, when you have the interest and time to explore more. As metaphysical as we would liked to be, we also provide authentic Chinese FengShui (KanYu) services ranging from astrological readings, site audits, site selection, date selection and finally, incorporating FengShui in our Design Management. We had bitter experiences with various Masters, resulting in gross butchering of our design process beyond recognition. We ultimately strive to excel in this area, by venturing into it. Next time around, designing memorial park or residential enclave is no longer a constraint. At the same time, we take the trouble to debunk fallacies and to advise potential client on the use of FengShui via our blog: yifengshui.blogspot.com

As with all services, we do accommodate reasonable revisions and with an appropriate professional fee, currently modeled on LAM scale of minimum fee rule.

Visit us at: The Practice

Introducing The Path of Metaphysics

2009-06-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

YI has been my surname or the Clan name. In Cantonese pronunciation, it is called YEK. Among others, it brings forth the notion of change. As in YI JING, the Classic of Change. This classic has been the fundamental of the Chinese 5 arts, inclusive the science and art of recognizing the surface formation of earthly matters. The earliest form of the YI is recognize by the emblematic graphs containing a distinct compositions of the binary of YING and YANG. Further metamorphosis of these binaries resulted in a series of permutations called HEXAGRAM. These are sometimes called, YI without words, or the original YI, ZHOU YI. It is read as an emblematic YI, the fundamental of XUAN KONG. It reads as the following: -

Dragon is divided into TWO,
Trigram is derived into THREE portions,
The WAY is natural,
The MYSTERIOUS is within XUAN KONG.

The notion of XUAN KONG has been mentioned as a phrase in Grand Master Yang's Text, probable the most eminent master in the Art of KANYU. However, liken to any arts of Chinese Metaphysics, it was left undefined. Some notable definitions are by Grand Master Jiang in his commentaries liked DI LI BIAN ZHEN, although with much invited debate from the SANHE purist school.

In token, this Blog is dedicated to the FENGSHUI studies as an integrated subject with Architecture, Built-Environment and the Antropo-Cosmo. Hopefully it will accumulate enough substances to be taken seriously by the western liked models of Scientific Inquisition, based on the ancient wisdom of YI.

Introducing Experimentation In Architecture

2009-06-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

This is an experimental portal for Architecture from the smallest of a shed to the biggest of a City. Naturally, we find ourself dealing with S, M, L and XL. It is from these scales of artifacts, buildings and urban that we find our soul in design. Most of the products are either too avant-garde to be materialized or simply mind boggling in nature, so this is the place we shelf our seed of creativity for future use.

Here, we serve design raw as our breakfast, lunch and dinner, occasionally supper. There is no superstar here but just a smear of art, models, icon, poems, essays, frustration, commitment and rejection. Meanings there is a place called home for un-built works.

Occasionally it will serve as a domain for self reflection and self criticism, let alone as a document for an action and inaction in reflective of a thought in monologue. Feel free to explore...

Experimentation In Architecture

Introducing Exploration Of Life

2009-06-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

It took me a while to understand as so much had been spent to travel and yet we are overly busy to snap shot our existence in every backdrops of scenery captured in the travel photos. Do we really need to proof we had indeed arrived at the destination?

Do we need to proof our existence? If not, why do we dwell in the dilemma of proof, given the beauty of a place, enjoying its spirit in form, smell, sound and essence of senses. Some times, simply difficult to even put into writings, let alone words of wisdom. Indeed life as we traveled, is the scenery of existence that most had taken for granted.

Perhaps we need to snap shot such proof of life in the photo of our existence consciously reminding myself as I had lived to see the world and I had lived long to tell a tale, but yet not long enough to behold its changes. Yes, from the generation of now to the others. Perhaps the sky no longer blue, sea no longer blue and the grass no longer green.

Until such a time, I knew for sure, I had lived to proof my existence. That the photo is no longer my tool of remembrance. Perhaps, memory itself is the very proof of the existence I had been bestowed upon. Yet, vividly be my companion of sorrow and happiness.

Perhaps all I need is drinking tea, living LIFE...