BHS STORE, THE MOOR, SHEFFIELD

Constructing buildings is a process of evolution. Completion of building construction doesn't mark the end of its process instead the completion triggers its evolution. Through out its life span it will evolve thus change its character. The changes may include its function (ie. from house to office), size (ie having an extension), its material (ie from traditional bricks to new cladding) and maybe evolve into a new building itself.

The current retail outlet for this project has started to evolve in its uses. In order to justify these changes to its current use, it will need a transformation to its facade. The existing facade could fit well if it were to be used as an antique outlet or a bank, but as the building will serve the purpose as a fashion retailer, keeping the facade in trend would be a major factor.

The first option is to add glazed panels over retained window openings that would follow the same horizontal and vertical proportion. A row of glass canopy is also applied to enhance the entrance. A ceramic rain screen cladding is introduced as well in order to match it with the existing stone colour. This approach of simplicity however doesn't seem to create much difference from the existing facade which makes it blend together with the rest of the surrounding buildings.

On the second option the glazed panels height is reduced in proportions and replaced by a band of glazed panels along the top wall of the building. This changes could give more contemporary look. It also creates an illusion to the height of the building to look as if it has the same height as the rest of its neighbouring buildings. However the rigidness of the proportion give an impression of an office block.
On this third option we introduce a more trendy solution for the retailer. The dynamic position and size of glazed panels give a more exciting feature to the building. The "interestingness" of the features also make it standout than any other building around it thus attracting and drawing for more potential customers.

If the planner required the development to be strictly blended with the surrounding they would agree with the first option. And if they are trying to bring the area to a more business-like district they would probably go with option 2. Hopefully they will agree with option 3, which would bring forth a surrounding environment filled with excitement.

Though option 3 may likely look trendy and up-to-date, it will never stop from evolving in the future. The problem with trend is very similar to keeping up with the latest fashion; it easily wears out over the season. A good design would have a vision ahead of its time with pure genuinity which does not only influence future trend but also be seen as a divine piece of art.

http://www.rgp.uk.com/ RGP have an innovative approach to architectural design. We have no dogma, no standard answers and we are spirited and fun to work with.

BURY UNITARIAN CHURCH

Day View

I have been asked to add a simple signage to an existing church in our local town in Bury. Previously we had done some renovation works to its toilets and kitchen.LINK

Knowing the fact that this church was initially built and design by my chairman himself back in 1970's, it's a great honour and rare opportunity to look at the original hand-drawn drawings given to me as the main reference for this work. The drawing is still well-preserved on its tracing paper. I felt a refreshing joy looking at this piece of art. To be honest, it feels like looking at an authentic drawing by Frank Llyod Wright. I keep wondering if in the future we'd have the same emotion looking at archived CAD drawing. Can our vast customised digitalised printed works survive as a piece of art or would they be treated as another ordinary paper without any special meaning to it?

The original hand-drawn drawing

Although is just a small work, the impact is quite huge to the community. This is a voluntary and charitable contribution from the Chairman to its local church. Despite knowing that this work would not contribute monetary profit to the company, my director in-charge still insisted me to go to the site and take photographs of the site. Since I've been given two conditions; (1) it is charity work and (2) it is definitely an important contribution, I take serious care on the quality of output and at the same time optimising the man-hour on the job.

The effort that my chairman tries to contribute to his local community has brought me thinking of how little we as the architectural practitioners have done to our local area. Maybe because most of architect firms would rather reside in the city centre or elite places where the rich and famous live that made us abandon our own neighbours and villages that are sometimes more in need. To survive in the competitive business do we really have to sacrifice our social liability as architects?

Night View

http://www.rgp.uk.com/ RGP have an innovative approach to architectural design. We have no dogma, no standard answers and we are spirited and fun to work with.

SPECIAL GIFT

14 June 2008
Too much to learn so much to discover about who we are. If I'm gifted with creative artistic hand which could turn things into beautiful items, how much do I really know about my gift ? If there were few people with similar gift, would I get the opportunity of getting to know them? How much have I celebrated the gift?

Sometimes we forget that each of us have been created with special gifts. Maybe there is always a gift that has yet to be discovered. So, go ahead and seek for it!

SECURED BY DESIGN

"Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes." Confucius Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC - 479 BC)

I’ve attended the monthly CPD again. This time seminar is entitled “Secured by Design”. The seminar explained how certain aspects of design work against crime. Even though the crime consideration sounds familiar for most planners but it is rarely being put into consideration by most architects in their designs. It would usually come as the last thing to be considered. I once learned about this aspect during my urban semester.

This seminar further explains certain building design that would make a lot of difference in avoiding crime from happening. I learnt about the triangle of crime which consists of Motivated Offender, Opportunity and Suitable Target. The aspect that we as designers should strive on to reduce crime is by removing the Opportunity component from the crime triangle.

There are aspects of design that would create a sense of ownership, defining the public and private space with a good transitional space, getting the right landscape and even in the material selection that could eventually reduce crime.

There are several legislation and acts that architects need to consider as part of their design. Currently, architects would consult their local police about the development of the project they are working at the final stage of planning application. However, it is now more advisable for us to seek for the police consultation at the early stage of design process.

Fighting crime is apparently the responsibility of everyone in the community. For designers and architects, this design against crime would be our best contribution to the safety of society. Sadly though, the society sometimes doesn’t seem to appreciate the role of architects and planners in fighting crime at least not until serious crime ends fatally.

LABUHAN DAGANG - tourism terminus

This is my design project which was done during diploma 08. The site is in Tasik Timah Tasoh, Perlis. We were assigned to design a Small Medium Industries (SMI) exhibition centre for our traditional product. The centre should not just be a place to display our traditional product (Batik, Songket, Tembaga, Anyaman etc) but also as a centre for SMI training.

At first the site was analysed in groups. We had to make the site model and site analysis for our reference. Then, in the next stage would be a study on various SMI which was related to our project. Both studies were then being referred to formulate our own individual design brief. I chose to create a centre for learning Batik, Songket, Tembaga and Kompang.

These series of studies on the traditional equipment had enlightened my knowledge on my own Malay culture. It would have needed a great deal of lectures to put these cultural seeds in our architectural learning. The understanding of our own culture was then incorporated into our design could be a journey to understand who we are. Someday when we get drown in the latest modern designs we would stand firm on our cultural roots and create our own unique design identity in the future.

There was a lot of design idea being thrown into the project. I didn’t have enough time to make further design development. My old Pentium 2 PC took ages to generate drawing, visuals or even to print. To over come these difficulties I had to cut-and-paste various ideas onto the final board. And to maximise the time I had left, I had to dump all the design that I had done during my part-time office to formulate a new design. This would reduce the amount of time needed to think of the toilet layout, lift lobby, staircase design, roof detail and many other typical design and focus on the main design idea.

But I got carried away with making a complete detailed 3d model. Then when it got completed I fell like taking all the angles on the model to show how much design input that I had applied on it. That was a mistake that I learnt. I should have gotten a priority list on my design. I had so much idea that I felt like presenting it all.

Now when I re-visited this work I could see a lot of design idea that have the potential to be re-used in real projects. Ideas that I wish I could further develop. My excitement grows even more wildly when I could import the old 3d model into the current 3d software and explore it in real-time. Being able to feel the adventurous elements in this design gives satisfactions that I hardly get in real practice. It makes me realised that only imagination is the boundary.

LABUHAN DAGANG-tourism terminus Diploma Architecture 08, UiTM
original write-up

IDEA:
A newly wed couple went to 'nat', pekan sehari - a one-day market just to buy mangos. This 'nat' offers a variety of mangos, from imported mangos to local mangos. The loving couple moved from one stall to the other looking for the best and cheapest mangos. While dropping by other stalls, the wife had a glimpse of 'rebana'. She was thinking, "Is that a 'rebana' that I've just seen? Or it was just my imagination". Interested in the existence of a 'rebana' in the middle of 'nat', she pulled her husband's hand and headed for the place where she saw the 'rebana' just to proof that she was not dreaming. Once they got there, they saw a man demonstrating the making of a 'rebana'.

Sounds familiar ha? I'm confidently sure that most typical type of Malaysians experiences this when they go to certain places. A typical Malaysian has a common habit known as 'singgah sat' which means dropping by a place for a while just to look around with no purpose at all.

This concept is applied to Labuhan Dagang to buy local people's attention as it places different types of things at its so called 'nat', varying from food to furniture which are mainly originated from the northern region of peninsular Malaysia.

Traditional design applied in ancient building constructions, is a heritance that no money can buy. These ancient heritages had never spoken arrogantly like the modern buildings that we have today; instead they spoke and behaved in the most polite manners - using the humble language, revealing them as down to earth type of building. Today's modern construction stands and acts alone, being isolated from other building population.

Labuhan Dagang, is an industrial tourism terminus which had been generally designed to promote tourism through small and medium scale industrial activities throughout Malaysia. Located in Timah Tasoh, Perlis, Labuhan Dagang will be one of the main tourism attractions as it locks together all the traditionally woven industries such as songket, batik, traditional music instruments and 'tembaga' - a brass metal, in order to exploit these industries. Hopefully, the exploitation of these industries will enhance the preservation of all the characteristics that belongs to a historical, traditional building by applying these qualities to all the buildings constructed in Labuhan Dagang.

DESIGN ANALYSIS:

Some scanned sketches that being able to documented.

PRESENTATION BOARD:Conceptual Board'Nat' Market SMI Board Generator SMI board Batik and Songket SMI BoardTembaga Handicraft and Music Instrument SMI BoardAdministration and Facilities BoardElevation - PENAMBANG TIMURSection - PENAMBANG TIMURElevation - PENAMBANG BARATSection - PENAMBANG BARATSection 'Nat' - Admint (perspective) Section 'Nat' - Admint (To Scale)

Being able to feel the adventurous elements in this
design gives satisfactions that I hardly get in real practice. It makes me
realised that only imagination is the boundary.

LABUHAN DAGANG - tourism terminus by Fadzlan Rizan Johani is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.