18.8.2025 Monday - eating cheese naan while presenting a design idea

 

7.6.2025 Saturday - no running

The result of two days of talking and thinking about several of the on going projects. Still no exercise because of the sore ankle but had a good session of design chat with Sean about the Toorak House. 

Next week, he starts on the SPVL steel works.

 

25.3.2025 Tuesday - cool down

 

17.2.2025 Monday - no gym early start.

 

They are lifting again, this time the cross trusses one storey high inside which the hotel rooms are placed.

A good start to the week, I know I will work especially hard this week because we are going away on Sunday. And I am worried about going away - so many thoughts fly through my mind before I fall asleep. I am being silly of course, I tell myself that and that I deserve the holiday. My colleague are taking my absence in their stride, making plans to attend important meeting for me - there is an important one where we have been shortlisted for a housing scheme. 

I pass my work to Jenny, and Sean, and Fiona, and Freddie - instead of sitting down to an office meeting, I sit down with individuals and go through their work.

changing the structural grid proved to be the solution for the re-sizing of the apartment units

25.1.2025 Saturday - raining so no running about

I hurt my arm yesterday playing tennis, so I am feeling a bit vulnerable and sad for myself. I decide to do something about it. I visit the TCM for a bit of 'cupping' and also blood letting. Running at the gym feels harder than normal, and I go home even more tired. I should simply rest.

The highlight of the day (night) is the lifting of the final module of the Singgahsana steel frame columns. By now, the entire existing building is framed with the new red painted steel structure. 

17.1.2025 Friday - Steel-lifting Stage 2

 I finally get to work on Block 3, and this morning I have what Ricco would call a good chat with JY. We discuss the practical aspects; Fire-fighting access, circulation, land in front of the river, we also talk about the key concepts which differentiate this with our other schemes for this client - the green link connecting all levels with pauses at every floor, views of the river, architectural language. After this, she sets off to calculate the building volume to work out the extend of the fire -fighting access. 

Block 3 apartments

15.1.2025 Wednesday - plenty of site work

An early start to the day in preparation for a Pre-CPC inspection at Renna, I asked Sam to come along, jokingly saying that she is replacing her son. Sean is busy planning tonight's photo shot of the first steel frames at Singgahsana. 

Andrew has been planning the logistics for the lift; site clearances, traffic control, flood-lights, etc. He has been updating everyone prior to the lift scheduled for 8pm tonight. 

Coincidentally, Eric is in town and wishes to have dinner, I tell him I have to be near this site, and show him our drawings. He is excited and wishes to see the 'lift'. We have dinner at the Kantin, and meet new people fom Taiwan - I don't remember all their names, only that I paid for their dinner and drinks. 

I need to speak to Eric about our plans this year.

 

21.10.2024 Monday - chat with Allister, a final payment and then CPC

I arrange for an early morning meet up with Allister over breakfast (his, not mine). We chat about site possession, Practical Completion and direct vendors, we also talk about LD and defects. 

Later Leong and I visit the SPA to sort out our appeal for the condominium in Sibu. It looks like they will support our justifications. I explain the submission of 48 to Azizah.

Sam text me after lunch (broccoli, carrot and tofu omelette) and tells me our fees from 2022 is finally paid. I cannot figure out why there is such a delay in payment by this particular client. To my face he says he is happy with our work, he implies that 'management' might have different perceptions. 

Later I find out that he is the top 'management'. 

But I am relieved that it is finally over, we can move on. It was never the money, we have a healthy cash flow. It is the disappointment of having someone whom I held in high regard let us down. Since the beginning, we were watching out for his best interests and going the extra mile (to settle site issues, coordinate his direct vendors, the provide advice on technical and statutory requirements) Generally, treating him like a work partner or a friend.  

Later that evening, we receive a notice of CPC inspection - another project coming to a close. This one is physical closure while the other one was financial.

Tennis in the evening 500-630pm

1.7.2024 Monday - EXO

 

19 May 2023 Friday - Schematic Design for Exo

 

 

26th April 2023 Wednesday - meeting new people

18th of April - Teck texted a image of a familiar house and told me that the house and land was for sale. We designed this house for a wealthy family more than a dozen years ago, it was well designed, it was well built, by the owner himself who now had to sell it because upkeep was too big a chore, because the daughter in law does not get on with his wife. Many reasons. I was interested only in one thing - to retain the house and make it part of the new development. 

To do this, I knew that we have to put together a package to illustrate this. And to have a good engineer willing to go the extra mile - and as luck would have it, I had arranged for Kamal to meet Teck.

The two of them got on really well when they found out that they had something in common - that the land that the Sematan resort stands on had belonged to the Fozdar family. Later, we had a good discussion about two projects, this current one where we had designed apartments straddled over the existing house and another where an exo-skeleton is built over an existing building to add new floors above. 

I have taken to starting the day even earlier, walking into the conference/dining room and starting work at 630 am - ignoring the meowing Fish and Dory and drawing. Ideas come to me then; how to proceed with a client, what to do with an awkward corner, who to make a model. I like that feeling that I have done so much by the time the others arrive at the office. 

Today, I got Sara to start a cardboard model and to finish it in a day. It was not very good, but it is ok we will make another one tomorrow. Hui Phing finished the Desa Apartment scheme, she did well ( I told her) Sean working hard to complete the condo drawings, tomorrow I will suggest a break and a site visit and an escape to the gym earlier.

Sam made an appointment for me at the Physio, and I got hammered with a Swiss device - I hope to recover from this ankle/heel injury. It has been about 2 weeks of me eating only one meal a day. I feel better, and even have enough energy to play sports in the evening.

 

23 Aug 2022 Tuesday Singgahsana