Me and Music

I love music period. When i was a kid my eldest brother who spearheaded a local band playing traditional Malay music used to invite all his band members over to our house to practice music and Malay dances every weekend. The village folks would come over for free shows and it was a big thing then. He was very good with violin with 8th grade qualification in London Music School and wrote many songs which some of it end up being played on local radio station. My other brother who was good with a Clarinet was the band member too.

Me? Well, i was around ten then, was a mere spectator impressed by the whole show and started to be interested in playing guitar. The problem was they would not let me touch the guitar cause they worried i would ruin it. Well, i touched it, played it anyway when they were out of the house. That was the start of my love affair with a guitar. I bought my first cheap guitar when i was 12 years old without telling my mother because i used my savings which was hard to come by. My daily allowance was saved in order to buy guitar strings and songbooks to improve my skills.

The biggest influence on me when i was growing up were the Shadows, Beattles and Bee Gees. Then came Eric Clapton(mr Slowhand), Mark Knofpler of Dire Straits with its clean sound and Joe Satriani who plays fast jazz/rock tunes. Mark Knofpler has the biggest influence on my picking style. At one point i was crazy about Edwward Van Halen that i marked my Stratocaster guitar with stripes just like his guitar. Of course i could not play like him...duh! I also like country music with its strumming and picking technics like John Denver and the Eagles. I am still working on my lead for Hotel California song. The other day a new friend of mine suggested that i listen to Johnny Cash songs, she is so sweet. Well, i did listen to a few Johnny Cash songs when i was growing up my dear.

Jazz? Well, that was my food every friday afternoon in the Student Union, University of Miami. There is nothing like live jazz concert, it is awesome. I went to watch Stanley Jordan live concert, wow, he can play guitar with both hands equivalent to the whole band! Wish i could play the tapping technic like that. Some people are just gifted, of course with a lot practice.

Nowadays, i diversify the music i listen to like Sarah Mclachlan, Laura Fygi, Savage Garden, Oasis, U2, but one type of music if you can call it music, that i hate the most is rap music! I think it is an anti-music which some might not agree. Well, to each his own.

Politics - World Conflicts Today

I read my papers everyday like i have been doing for so many years ever since i was a kid, and one thing has not changed since then, the world is in constant conflicts. What happened to us Homo Sapiens who are supposed to be more superior, intelligent and civilized than Home erectus or Neanderthal? Is it survival? Dominance? Power? Profit? Hatred?

Human has been killing each other ever since Adam's children fighting for thier prettier cousin, up till today and will be doing so until doomsday if nothing is done to stop it. Is it in our nature to kill? Animals only kill for survival and food. What do human kill for?

There are countries who promote peace but there are those who do not want conflicts to end or start new conflicts because it is profitable for them to do so. Their defense industries rely on conflicts to sell their weapons. Billions of dollars being spent on R & D to find lethal and more efficient way to kill other humans instead of on ways to break the barrier of mistrust, misunderstanding, disputes,and increase cooperation for the good of mankind.

It is sad that we cannot get ourselves from this rut as mankind and give a better world for future generation, my kids and your kids included.

Previous Work - Laman Suria Condominium

In 1997 during financial crisis in Malaysia, a lot of the projects were affected. Developers were concentrating on medium high cost projects to provide alternative for successful launching. This was one of such project which consists of two hundred over units of apartment in a 19 storey block, and five storey carpark with facilities on a three acres site.

My role was the Project Architect and Design Architect under Architect Habitas. The biggest challenge was how to make a medium high cost looks expensive and exclusive on a small site. The scene in Europe especially Austria, Germany, France, where castles stood up among the pines forest with their pointed roofs always impress me that i took this theme to turn this condo into castle -like building. The only thing that did not turn out the way we liked to was to make the carpark block lower than five storeys ,which was due to high carparking requirement from the DBKL planning department. In Europe the carpark requirement was lot lower.

Anyway, the project was a success and fully sold out in trying times. I did not finish supervising the construction of the whole project because i was required to work on Mont'Kiara Damai Condominium and Mont' Kiara Aman's design.

Previous Work - Australian International School, South Lake, The Mines

I was in involved in this unique project under Architect Habitas as the Design Architect in 2000-2002. The brief calls for a design of a school for Australian kids or locals who wish to enroll in schools in Australia on a six acres site complete with a swimming pool and a soccer field.

My first concept was to design the forms of the building different from a normal school with twisted cube forms interconnected with L-shape main block at various axis. Corridors were slanted and curved to provide experience to kids while the roof forms were curvy and endulating lines. But.....the Client interfeared and wanted pitch roof to blend with surrounding bungalows, straightened the corridors, and wanted a different color scheme than the original white and yellow. Well, the pay master always wins after some debate, that is the frustrating part. For what it is worth, i am still proud to have a hand in the creation of the school.

Latest Work - Solaris Dutamas

For the last 3 years i have been working as the Chief Architect for the Solaris Dutamas - a mixed development consisting service apartments, offices, shoplots, shopping mall and sevn levels basement carpark under Arkitek Habitas banner. Assisted by a team of dedicated architects,designer and CAD technicians ( Shaharin Hashim, Sean Leong, Syamsul Baharin, Norlida Yunus, KP Yap, N Chandran, Mohd Rafaie, Saiful Bachik, Poh Wan and Mustakim), we managed to come up with one of the complicated building complex ever designed by us so far on a 17 acre site. I am proud to work with this team who faced tremendous pressure to produce tons of details in various trade packages under stressfull work schedule. Our favorite features of the project are the entrance glass Rotunda, and the 227m long glass covered boulevard fully air-conditioned, which is part of the shopping mall. The works are ongoing and should be fully completed in 2009.

My Work

I have been working as an Architect for about 20 years. I have designed various building types throughout my career, some worth mentioning and some are insignificant. The best reward for an Architect like me is to see my work materialise and appreciated by the end users, and remain there long after i am gone. The sad part about my work is to have clients who are not appreciative of beauty of forms, and specific experience that can be incorporated in the design of the building. They are not adventurous enough to take risk with new forms, materials and too conscious of cost. Those who took risks stand proud of the unique buildings they own. I envy those architects who were lucky enough to get the clients who are open minded and allow their architects to explore various themes in aesthetics in order to fulfill functions.

In this blog, i will show some of my work over the years working with some of the architectural firms in Kuala Lumpur.