18.8.2026 Tuesday - another good day

I had something on my mind about the campus mall as I went to sleep last night, so I arrive early to draw some ideas up for Sean and George to follow up with. By the time they arrive, I had fleshed out an scheme for them to carry out; it is so nice to speak to them as a team. Both had thoughts about separate concerns - George about the design and framing, Sean about questions that the client would raise about the feasibility of our scheme when compared to more conventional usage. We make plans to brief the client together on Thursday before George flies home. How I wish I can have them both together at the same place.

I have a break at the kopitiam and speaks to JC; to help me with my fellowship application* and to take over the management of our company website. I then ask a few 'parenting' questions - how is the money situation? lodgings? studies? I end up offering JC our apartment in KL as temporary lodgings until the SHIFT conference when I go there to stay. I sense that the offer is timely and much needed - I feel good for helping and inform Sam. 

GW and I try to defer the landscape presentation tomorrow, but as we chat, we start to frame some questions about the masterplan, and some solutions for them (this often happens). Soon, we have a semblance of a 'conversation' to talk to client during our lunch the next day. How fortunate to have this type of discourse. With a sense of accomplishment, I knock off at 4pm and cycle to the PD gym for a row and weight, finish with a swim before cycling home for dinner.

After dinner, we realised we have just been paid for a part-payment owed since last year. I was upset about the delay at first, and about us not following up closely. But almost immediately, decide that since we did not 'miss' having this sum of money we must have done alright until now. So, this is a windfall, and perhaps I should ring up and thank the client, and remind him to pay the recent claims soon. 

such a lovely letter, and so prompt in his reply; one working day

*I have been invited to apply for the PAM Fellow Membership, and need to submit documentation for review and approval by PAM

21st September 2023 Thursday - sleepy and rainy

partly scolding, partly grumbling and partly rationalising the plans, to my surprise we ended with a viable scheme after 15 minutes.

 Someone has been sleepy in the office, and not being very productive - I have spoken to him earlier this month but not much improvement. He hides behind his screen too much. Today he came in late, 'phone died and the alarm did not go off' - then waited for his mom to drive him here. Last straw - I decide to switch him to manual drawing, and making cardboard models each day to describe his ideas. If he does not improve his design skill, at least the hand skills will improve by the time he returns to uni next year.

Someone else is returning to university soon, to do her Masters - she has asked if she can continue with her work projects and use the office as her studio. I encouraged her to do that, and agreed to continue paying her for part time work provided she keep university ass her first priority. 

18th September 2023 Monday - on the job training

Our of my clients has a strange habit of sending me google earth images of plots of land, for me to carry out design feasibility studies. He sends them at odd hours; late at night, on weekends - without an accompanying text message or brief. On the following day, I 'll contact him and he tells me the background and I set about working out a schematic design - some of these are land he intends to buy, others are owned by him already while others still are joint-venture opportunities for development with the land owners.

Some of my friends think that he is taking advantage of us, I see this differently. 

I see this as an opportunity to have an on-going conversation (and relationship) with my clients, and also a way to hone our design skills, to be quicker to see a solution, and a way to train the young ones in the office (so that we have an on-going conversation about design in the office). And get paid for it. True, some of these projects remain as 'lines on paper' - they do not proceed for a number of reasons; commercial viability, JV partners cannot conclude the deal, planning restrictions, and so forth. These go to our website as a part of our portfolio. 

And I enjoy doing these feasibility studies. 

Architectural concept drawings

 

I recently found these sketches from 2015, and was quite pleasantly surprised that the key idea is easy to understand, it made use of the existing space and tied in neatly with the existing structure. These were conveyed with simple architectural sections and plans, accompanied with several perspective views and images from magazines to describe the intended mood. The project did not make shape, we never really found out why - perhaps it was the wife's pregnancy and imminent birth of their first born, perhaps the client's father did not agree with intervention to the family home. 

In any case, I recall enjoying working on this design and conversations with Sam, who was a good intermediary between the client and us. 

Fast forward 6 years - and another set of schematic sketches this time of a larger project and with another design partner sketching over CAD drawings. The process is similar but I noticed that I did not spend the same amount of time/care in the line work of the sketches - probably because I was talking to Fiona as I drew, trying to record, to confirm what we were agreeing about. These are more like #talkingdrawings, but I want to pay more attention on my drawings - there is more to worry about nowadays, and I have less time. But those are feeble excuses which I can overcome by prioritizing what I spend my time on.

Sketch of the Day 27/1/14

I am designing a house for my uncle.