David holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Housing, Building and Planning (With Honors) and the Bachelor of Architecture Professional Degree from the University Science Malaysia where he was the winner of the Annual Prize, Institute of Architect Student Funds Award for Excellent Graduate, Malaysia. He also holds a Double Distinctions in Design and unpublished Dissertation entitled, the Investigation into the Visual Arts as An Urban Revitalization Tool for the Historical City of Malacca, Malaysia, with external readers of the renowned Ar. Hijjas Kasturi, an Architectural Icon of Malaysia.
David may have been homegrown but his vision has brought him a Fellowship Award to the National University of Singapore, School of Architecture, under the auspice of Singapore International Foundation (SIF) as an Southeast Asian Academic Laureate for duration of a year, where he is exposed to the way of lives in City State of Singapore with the group of Asian Fellows. Although he likes the livelihood in Singapore, owing to his commitment back home, he decided to complete his study in Malaysia.
Upon graduation, David has been involved with the Development of Putrajaya while engaging design with Hijjas Kasturi Associates (HKA), an International Architectural Firm by its standard. Later, he moves to smaller establishment to hone his skill in traditional “bread and butter” practices, owing to the needs for him to pass the Practical Professional Experience Examination, commonly known as Part 3 of the Board of Architect Malaysia Professional Examination. Having completed multiple mass housing projects, he is promoted to be Senior Project Architect, overlooking several luxury high rises in the Klang Valley and by then he is attached to another mid size Architectural and Town Planning firm in style of Garis Architect Sdn Bhd. It is this untiring labor that has earned him the recognition as a full-fledged Professional Architect from the Board of Architect Malaysia, in a single sitting, enabling him to be the submitting and qualifies person for Building Submissions within Malaysia. He is elected as a corporate member to the Institute of Architects (PAM) and Interior Design Malaysia (IPDM).
With the range of experiences under his sleeve, he started off with his own Architectural practice, initially specialized in residential designs and project management. Given the interest in the Management of Design (MoD), he has work in collaborations with other established practices such as SN Low Architects (SNLA), Surbana International, formerly HDB of Singapore and serves as Consultants to various established property developers such as TA International, Lowyat Groups and Magna Prima Bhd for the delivery of luxury residential high rises within the Klang Valley. His hands on involvement with these projects, sees him join forces with other collaborative parties and finally with the set up of Project Affinity Consultancy, he is able to take up larger scale projects in and out of Malaysia.
To fuel his inspiration in Design, he occasionally lectures Design in the local Architectural Colleges as visiting lecturer and critique. He was also tasked to lead the graduating class design studio at Taylor’s College. As the result of his involvement, his studio has managed to break unprecedented achievement in the model of productions from within and beyond the studio wall.
David has a lasting encounter with Chinese Metaphysics Practitioner in his early years of practice, namely collaborating with the established Grandmaster Yap ChengHai. As he succumbs to various inconsistent requirements of the FengShui practices, instead of following blindly, he opted to pick up the skill as well by initially studying formally from the Academy of Chinese Metaphysics, led by Joey Yap to a level of achievement and awarded a Diploma to that effect. His thirst for the esoteric knowledge has brought him beyond such formal accolades that he seeks tutelage from other masters beyond Singapore, HongKong and Taiwan. His interest has finally brought him to another level that enable him to practice professionally, thus he is one of the founding partners of FengShui QuanYuan, an establishment of traditional FengShui practitioners which emphasized on results consistency and no nonsense policy. He classifies his approach as ZhongHe or the combinations of the two mainstream schools of thoughts of SanHe and SanYuan. However, his main pet method is still SanHe.
With a diverse knowledge and experience in the Built Environment, as a professional Architect and a fellow practitioner of the esoteric arts of Chinese Metaphysics, he continues to investigate the successes and failures of buildings, urban and cultural references in his daily work while submerging himself in the intricacies of human relations in project management while delivering and carving the urban spaces.
