Horizon Hill

by ~Julie Kiing@馨媛~ | 1:32 AM in | comments (5)

Horizon hill
The trip to this newly developed housing area is definitely an eye opener for all of us.

Feel it with your eyes on this photos.



Horizon hills house is designed in the middle of the golf field. Thus, the houses built here are luxurious in the middle of nature. beautifully maintained golf fi

The golf centre is one of the facility provided in this housing area. The residents here can play golf here as it is a high-class sport.

The way they turn natural lighting in a room where they softened the direct sunlight by using a layer of embossed glass. This create a very comfortable natural lighting for a room. A short stop at the toilet. Well, Its a bit too comfortable that we spend too much time in this toilet...XD

-A group photo is a must fro all trip-
Too bad...I'm not inside the photo because I'm holding the camera..


Tall shaded walkway with fans installed along the way.
I remembered someone says that this is very "sketchup"py...

The garden is carefully designed according to the contour. How I wish to own a house there. Too Bad, not the correct timing yet.


Nice pathway... But I doubt the grass can stay for a long time without maintenance. The concrete can absorb heat.


I wondered if the plastic bag we spotted that day had stuck all the way below the stairs. Other than that, I would love to walk through this stairs.

The walkway along the side of the housing area. Watching sun set here will be very romantic, I guess.


This housing developer promotes a new way of living when they provide a better place where a home is where we can have privacy, security as well as relaxation.

See it with your own eyes and you will love it.
-You might also like to have a look at some photos that I upload HERE.

-have a nice day-
~Juliekiing~


Since 1800, Sungai Segget has been the source of Jalan Wong Ah Fook and Johor Bahru city development. When Temenggong Ibrahim arrive in Johor Bahru, his followers settled down by the river making it the source of their living. The river plays an important role to supply water to their home for washing, cooking and basic life needs. This settlement was Kampung Wong Ah Fook.

As the village grew, the residents of the village took the opportunity to trade due to the passing by trading ships from west to east using Selat Tebrau. Stopping by Tanjung Puteri (Johor Bahru old name), these traders reload their supplies before leaving towards their destination. Once again, the river known as Sungai Segget nowadays plays a role for small boats (sampan) from the ships to paddle towards the village and interact with the residents. These activities are the key development of Tanjung Puteri. One of the most significance growth is the establishment of Johor Market which is very popular during the early 1900's. Thus, once a village now evolved into a traders hub. Hence this event marks the beginning of the development of Johor Bahru city.

For decades, the growth of the city damages the river. Floods got worse till the need of flood gate at the mouth of the river. Thus the river is called Sea-Gate River but corrupted by locals becoming Segget River. Furthermore, pollutions becoming a major issue towards the river making it one of the most stinky and dirtiest river in Malaysia by 2005. An easy solution by the government (as always) is to cover up the river, buried the reminisce of Johor Bahru main history.

As a responsible architect, Sungai Segget is not supposed to be closed down. The river is the source of Johor Bahru city development. It was once the source of Johor Bahru golden age. Doing a project that revolves around revivalism, it is incomplete to ignore the existence of Sungai Segget. Thus, it need to be considered to be open again. With the technology available nowadays, it is not hard and very possible to revive the river into a stable state.

"Tanah Air - A Land with Water. Jalan Wong Ah Fook lives with this phrase. Without it, Jalan Wong Ah Fook would not exist." Quoted by Sanip Lasman (senior citizen, artist - painter)

Every city has a river source of their development:

London - River Thames
Egypt - River of Nile
Osaka - Osaka River
Kuala Lumpur - Klang River
Johor Bahru - Segget River???

So, are we going to ignore the existence of Sungai Segget now buried and being stomp by people walking over it? It is a debate that can go on forever...



A great talk by 2005 Prizker winner Thom Mayne in UCLS. Thom Mayne shared his thoughts in some of his works, his philosophy and the process of his works.

Rotating Tower, Dubai

by szelingc | 12:39 AM in | comments (2)

A successful parametric architecture is how workable the parametric building is and its contribution to the environment, for example in terms of energy efficient building itself.

I've always been amazed with the Rotating Tower in Dubai as how its rotating motion grabs the attention especially after the seminar presentation by the 4th year, talking about wind energy harvesting.







Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgtX20FTdoM




Opportunity

by ~Julie Kiing@馨媛~ | 7:49 PM in , , , | comments (0)

International Islamic University Malaysia had been organizing a competition.

Musawah-Sharing the World

The theme of the competition is
"Universal Product for Disabled, Aged, and Children."

For more info, please visit my blog post HERE...

Activity Tablet

by lim gim huang | 1:24 PM in , | comments (0)

Possibility


This simple method provides an opportunity to visualize more possibilities of human pattern flow when variety of human activities take place in a particular place which consists of different spaces. In so doing different spatial articulation is taken into consideration and more interesting solution in space-bonding can be done.

How to go about it?

For example,
1. Let say a 4X4 table is formed.










2. Activities filled in horizontally or vertically are conceived from the perspective of different category of human like, elders, couple, people who exercises, tourist etc.

3. Despite visualizing the set of activity in a horizontally manner which is conceived in the 2nd stage,
vertical manner can be perceived as well, even we can perceive it from bottom to top! so as in a incline manner. These are the set of human activities which probably would be happened spontaneously even without our consideration and planning.

CONCLUSION
With this method, a better and variety of articulation of space and spatial continuity can be taken into consideration and achieved.


conceived by GimHuang

Short Walk Trip (Part 1)

by 傅馨仪 Poh Xin Yi | 8:42 PM in | comments (1)

Venue: Guo Guang Primary School bus stop

In primary school, one of the main issues is always how to tackle the dispersion of students so that it does not create jam or chaos. Therefore, the arrangement of the waiting point becomes the key so that the hectic situations will be reduced and students are more comfortable waiting after school dismissed.

So, in this first photo, what you will notice is the comparison between the existing waiting area and the new waiting area at the rear. The old waiting area, constructed using corrugated metal roofing, is a sunken area with low roof. Whereas the newly built waiting area is a daring construction of having a stretch of supporting columns at the centre, polycarbonate (slightly curved) roof, with double volume at one’s side, and another side, lower (still higher compare to the old one). You can see the difference evidently in the subsequent photos.

Here comes all the differences.

By having a higher roof, what we experience directly from the space is the difference in the temperature. The heat can be easily felt in the old bus stop. Stuffy, I would say. However, in the new bus stop, it is quite windy. The new bus stop encourages ventilation i.e. flow of air. Old bus stop, poorly designed in that aspect.

Of course, the issue will rise saying that when there’s rain, students might get wet in the double volume part of the new bus stop. But, they can always have the alternative to walk over to the rear where the roof is lower or even back to the old bus stop, isn’t it?

Echo would be another interesting difference at the space. Xinyi did stupidly shouted “aaa~~~~” at both low and high roof of the new bus stop and the reflected volume is undoubtedly different. At higher roof area, the speaker’s volume tends to be louder to be hearable. Oppositely, at the lower roof form, maybe whispering can be clearly heard from a distance. The echo is more at the lower roof form.




As mentioned earlier about the daring placement of the column structure, will the walking patterns change? Students walk in wavy line instead of straight line?

Maybe we should imagine when the crowds are there, how would they feel, how would we feel by then.

Relate the discovery back to the Wong Ah Fook Spine, we often complains that the journey from one point to another is not comfy. So how can we promote more walking culture there? Maybe this is what we can do? Add shelters to the journey?

A humanize designed journey. Then we can add a lot of the story line to the journey. The connectivity can be established.

For more photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=99755&id=583564670&ref=mf

Experience it and you will have your own discovery. ^.^











p.s. Thanks Ar Hong for the car ride and lunch =)

Here is some mathematical formula to be shared, taken from “Five-minute mathematics” by Ehrhard Behrends. I found it quite useful in estimating the number of customers or visitors.


One of the chapters talks about the Queuing Theory, which is the branch of probability theory
.

Have you ever had the feeling that the other lines at the post office or supermarket always move faster than the one you are standing in? Imagine there are 5 lines in post office, every line has approximately the same length and you have to pick one to queue. The probability that you will randomly choose the one that can move fastest is ⅕, which is 20%. Oppositely, you have 80% to wait at the slower line.

This concept of waiting in lines has been under investigation for a long time, “queuing theory” is one of the classical subfields of probability theory. Once you can understand completely about the theory, that understanding can be applied to describe a typical result. Imagine a business that serves the general public: customers arrive, are served, and then leave, it can be a restaurant, shop, we can even think of the visitors to a museum or tourists spot that attract tourists.


(Lots of us in this project in are dealing with customers and visitors, so I think the theory might be helpful in designing the space according to number of customers.)

Few assumptions have been made:
1.The customers arrive at random and individually.
The “random” means that one will not know when the next customer will arrive precisely, only there is a certain average interval between arrivals (technical terminology= exponentially distributed arrival times). The “individually” means no customer arrived in group. So, we assume, on average, a customer arrives every K seconds.

2.When a customer enters the “store”, he or she will be served immediately.

The customer will be served immediately so we can deduct t
he queuing time of customer. So, the time that the customer spends in the store, we can denote here by L= the average number of seconds that it takes to serve a customer.

The parameters K and L can be change, depend on the situation.
For example, an exhibition hall, we can denote

K= the numbers of visitors

L= the time that visitors spend on average viewing the exhibition
(can also be a measure of the attractiveness of the site)


The problem is to predict the number of customers present at any one time. A large K and small L indicate that on the average there will be a few customers present at any given time.

“How many seats for waiting customers should the locksmith provide?”
“How many waiters should the restaurant engage? “

Such predictions are possible using probability theory.

Let

K = the average time for customer arrives in seconds
L = the time customer stay at the store

λ = L/K
= the number of customers present in the store on average at any given time.


The probability that at a particular moment exactly n number of customers is present is given by the number where n! = the abbreviation for the product 1, 2 … n, n factorial
e = 2.718…, Euler’s number

Example:
Suppose on average, a customer arrives every 60seconds and stay an average of 2 minutes.

K = 60
L = 120
λ = 120/60 = 2

We can calculate the probability that at any given time there will be exactly n customers in the store, as the table follow:



The probability of at most 4 customers is 0.135+0.271+0.271+0.180+0.090= 0.947, or m
ore than 94%. And so the probability of 5 or more is 1-0.947= 0.053, or over 5%.

Through the calculation, we can estimate that there will be four customers stay in the store most of the time. If the store can provide seating for four customers, then it will seldom happen that a customer has to stand.



(actually i don't know whether this important or not, useful or lebih.. i am glad if it helps..^^)




edited from Chapter 27:” Why Am I Always Standing in the Wrong Line?”; Five-Minute Mathematics by Ehrhard Behrends


Integrated environmental solution (IES) which is the developer of software-based building performance analysis tools is releasing a free plug-in to Google’s SketchUp.

It is the same type of plug-in existed for AutoDesk Revit Architecture. But since most of us are familiar with using Google SketchUp to produce 3D buildings/model, it is a bonus point for us to learn about this new building simulation plug-in, when sustainability is best addressed.

This software helps users to run sustainability performance simulations and analyses on building designs. Also, it help designers to determine which building properties achieve the best results when they run performance simulations on different design iterations.

For highly detailed analysis, even the thermal comfort, airflow, daylighting, solar and even lifecycle cost simulations can be obtained.

This software is also suitable to those who wanted to experience and achieve sustainable building design.

Here I would like to provide the link to the article:
http://www.residentialarchitect.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=275&articleID=764071

Positive policies

by Cheok | 12:54 AM in , | comments (1)

Taken from The Star featuring our very own Prof Taj...


Sunday August 16, 2009

Positive policies

ARCHITECTURE INSIDE OUT
By MOHAMAD TAJUDDIN MOHAMAD RASDI


The correct design policies can help create harmony and unity.

FROM the time I began my career as an academic in the field of architecture I have had three visions.

One is to produce policies that would help produce housing and community architecture for a united Malaysia – or, as the latest catch phrase puts it, “1Malaysia”.

Another is to produce mosque and Islamic architecture that transcends racial lines and architectural gimmickry, that would reflect the values inherent in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad by using as a framework early Western modernist moral values and environment behavioural studies.

The third is to provide what I call democratic architecture in the design of administration buildings and institutions such as universities and in the planning of cities.

Architecture and planning practitioners today rely too much on the quick formulas of typological designs and sensationalised solutions to please clients. And they forget the needs of the users of the buildings, institutions, and cities. They forget also the responsibilities of being democratic citizens as well as the guardians of religions such as Islam.

Because of these flaws, Malaysia’s architecture, housing areas, and administrative complexes, along with the cities, are difficult to use, cause massive environmental problems, and give people the wrong perceptions of Islam and democracy.

In this and other columns in the future, I will try to articulate how policy can ensure that, first of all, housing in Malaysia fulfils basic human, cultural, political, and social needs. What about the environment and green architecture? Don’t worry. Once these basic needs are fulfilled, I would venture that 70% of green architecture issues will be dealt with.

We need to move away from this type of impersonal housing estate if we are to create harmonious communities. – File photo

Avoiding privacy violations

In a multi-racial country like Malaysia, it is important to understand and respect each other’s customs, rituals, and belief systems. Unfortunately, the design of flats and high rises as well as terrace housing in Malaysia shows a total lack of consideration for avoiding privacy violations pertaining to rituals and cultural values.

The most obvious violation is the visual violation that results from back-to-back windows in the rear alley. The 6m (20 foot) distance between windows allows violations of sight as well as smell. Placing blocks of flats adjacent to each other with a mere 15m (50 feet) separating them also allows sight violations.

Muslims who must observe the “aurat rule” (covering certain areas of the body) would have much difficulty in this case. Also, the smell of cooking would spread from houses opposite or adjacent, and this has the potential to cause racial tensions.

The burning of incense by Indians or joss sticks by Chinese would also cause smell violations as the smoke would spread to neighbouring houses. Idling cars would also cause unwanted fumes – in the case, toxic ones – to spread to adjacent houses with covered porch areas.

Below are some policies that could mitigate these types of violations:

·Change terrace housing layout to cluster type housing to avoid back alleys. If back alleys are unavoidable, then fenestration (the design and placement of windows in a building) must be such that there is no visual intrusion but lighting remains adequate.

·Chimney stacks should be incorporated into ceiling designs to draw off smoke from cooking and ritual burning of incense or joss sticks.

·Proper places for the Chinese Qing Ming (All Souls Day) ritual must be designed in strategic locations according to their beliefs.

·For flats and high rises, the use of cluster apartments over a stair core should be replaced with an external corridor with access directly from the stair core. No occupant should be made to pass by another apartment in order to get to his or her own.

Designing 1Malaysia

Building racial harmony and encouraging community interaction through planning and design is important for any country but particularly so in this multi-racial, multi-religious one. By encouraging community interaction, mutual understanding and tolerance of rituals and belief systems will materialise.

The problem with Malaysian housing is that, firstly, there is limited outside spaces to linger and sit, and, secondly, community buildings are not designed to be public- and people-oriented.

In most housing estates, it is obvious that no plans were made at the design stage for public furniture like benches on which children could wait for school buses, no park furniture, pavilions, or wakaf (small huts) and shady trees to encourage people to leave their houses and come out into the open. Usually, there is hardly a side walk and very few if any places to stop and snack or rest.

Community buildings, such as the mosque and Dewan Serbaguna (Multipurpose Hall) are usually fenced up in an unfriendly manner. There are hardly any other community related facilities.

The obvious policy requirements would be as follows:

·Ensure there is enough public seating for 10% of the neighbourhood’s on side walks and in parks, playgrounds, and open air cafes.

Provide safe vehicular free environment for walking, jogging and aerobic dancing.

·Encourage the setting up of kiosks or other forms of mini architecture around which people could congregate.

·Provide various community buildings like temples, churches, and mosques, and design these buildings so that people of any faith would be encouraged to access them not put off by unfriendly facades and fenced off approaches.

·Design community halls, branch libraries, and market places in an open and friendly manner while encouraging other facilities to be set up, like club houses, Rukun Tetangga (neighbourhood watch) offices, family restaurants, etc.

·Plan houses in U-shaped configurations with no more than 30 units per cluster.

·Create terrace clusters of Muslim and non-Muslim entities in blocks of 10 units in order to avoid privacy violations and encourage interaction with common rituals and values.

·Create public spaces in shopping malls for people to linger and sit in without having to spend money. Set 20% gross area of every mall as public space.

·Schools must have proper waiting spaces where parents can wait and interact as well as a smooth system of dropping off and picking up children.

Allow for expansion

Family growth is a normal part of nurturing a community. In traditional times, the architecture of houses catered to this growth by allowing expansions and enlargements. This ensured a more stable community, as several generations of a family could live under one roof.

However, the houses in modern housing estates are designed as “finished” products – growth is never considered. The capitalistic idea is that if your family outgrows the house, you would have to vacate the premises and buy a bigger house. Although this generates income for developers, it spells disaster for creating any sort of long-lasting community. Instead, we have isolated families living in estates that are devoid of the spirit of the kampung.

State policy on housing should encourage the idea of living in a particular community for a long period of time. To do this, States should institute the following policies:

·Allow designs that can accommodate a 100% expansion (without incurring a high cost). That means if the current house is 500 sq m, then it should be allowed to :mature”, in time, into a 1,000 sq m.

·The developer should take into account that there will eventually be taller and “fatter” houses than the ones he is looking to exhibit.

·Support column calculations should include a second floor expansion.

·The roof should be designed to accommodate changes in the height of the building.

In closing, I would like to inform readers that I have experimented with most of these ideas in my university’s studio, and students have reengineered existing housing designs to obtain the desired effects. We have proved that it is possible to produce the density of housing required to make money for the developers but designed in such a was as to also engender a more harmonious connection among our races.

There are, of course, more policies that I can write about. If architects and planners put human culture first instead of turning to the quick fix typological method, however, there would be no need for these policies at all.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia lecturer Prof Dr Mohamad Tajuddin passionately believes that architectural design that respects cultural values, religious sensitivities and the ideals of democracy is vital to nation-building and harmony.

http://www.archnet.org/search/results.jsp?search_id=1172393&scope=system&module_title=Discussion+Forum

http://www.archnet.org/forum/view.jsp?message_id=94675


For those who are inspired by parametric design and seek for parametric as solution, lets explore.


1. Download Rhino from rhino website (there is open-source for student I think)
http://rhino3d.com





2. We need a plug-in as a parameter and generative tools call Grasshopper,
download plug-in from grasshopper website
http://www.grasshopper3d.com


Some guides from people's blog
http://woojsung.com














The Arts and Crafts Movement, which evolved between 1860 and 1910, was a big rebellion against much of the mass-produced, symmetrical architecture and décor. The movement brought about one of the key design and property styles of the mid to late 1800s to the early 1900s.Arts and Crafts architecture sought a spiritual connection with the surrounding environment, both natural and manmade.

It focused on high quality, hand-crafted items, textures, designs and structures, as opposed to anything machine-made and mediocre. There was much decoration and ornamentation on arts and crafts designs, and although it was meant for the masses, due to the extreme handmade nature of the goods and materials, it was often expensive for many. The Arts and Crafts approach, on the whole, was often asymmetric, sometimes with medieval influences, but its style had many similarities with Art Nouveau.

When came to 1900 to 1945,the architecture was gradually developed with the help of science and technology.Modernist movement was lead in architecture which was an attempt to create a nonhistorical architecture of Functionalism in which a new sense of space would be created with the help of modern materials.It is an adoption of the machine aesthetic whereas a rejection of ornament which means a simplification of form and elimination of "unnecessary detail". Thus,about 1920, some architects developed in simple cubical forms.Eg of architects: Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright

After World War II, modernism was moved to postmodernism. But it's not clear exactly when postmodernism begins. In fact, modernism is viewed as excessively minimalist, anonymous, monotonous, and boring. Whereas postmodernism has a sense of humor. It is combining new ideas with traditional forms, postmodernist buildings may startle, surprise, and even amuse.Some features of postmodern houses:
- Sense of "anything goes": Forms filled with humor, irony,
ambiguity, contradiction
- Juxtaposition of styles: Blend of traditional, contemporary, and newly-invented
forms

- Exaggerated or abstract traditional detailing
- Materials or decorations drawn from far away sources

Following is deconstructivism in architecture, also called deconstruction,which is development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin,non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope.

Well, how about in future?..yes..here we go..parametric..Parametricism is the great new style after modernism. Postmodernism and deconstructivism have been transitional episodes that ushered in this new, long wave of research and innovation. Modernism was founded on the concept of space. Otherwise, parametricism differentiates fields. Fields are full, as if filled with a fluid medium. Swarms have also served as paradigmatic analogues for the field concept. Late modernist architects are using parametric tools to maintain a modernist aesthetic. At Zaha Hadid Architects, our parametricist sensibility pushes in the opposite direction and aims for a maximal emphasis on conspicuous differentiation.

Discussed by cheejye, chinhsien, yinying

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