26.5.2025 Monday - a rewarding day

A productive day full of design discussions with Fiona to resolve the hotel lobby, office roof with JY and Sean, prayer hall location with Leong and roof profiles with Khaliq. 

4.4.2025 Friday - Don and Da drop by for lunch

We forget to take photos, but that is a good thing - it is simply a lunch and chat with people whom I enjoy the company of. Sam was saying how our kids do not seem to have more close friends from school. I remind her that I do not have many friends (from school or any where else) Friends whom I was close to then are now not in touch, I have not made the effort and neither have they. We have moved on, and apart. 

There is tennis in the evening, though no gym in the morning. 

Showing design intent to Laurance, who is in Xi'an

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

13.2.2025 Thursday - candid conversations

Today is one of those days when everything happens all at the same time, making me a little tense and anxious (but in a good way). AS wanted to chat so I go and listen to his concerns (which are getting fewer now) one of which is a cat who goes into the main lobby lounge to poo on the sofa. How to block off the vent block wall without resorting to the wire screen - I show him this photo and recommend artistically placing stones into the holes. Melvin thinks that the stones have to be mortared down or else the cat can move them aside. 

 830 a.m. - I sit down with PH's family for breakfast; I wanted to give my CASIO watch to one of the boys. It was Sean's birthday present for me a few years back - Oliver gladly accepted it. I see his mischievous side when we talked about him staying in Kuching during his school holidays. Fiona and Freddie come and sit for a while before we head off to Teck's meeting - I feel it important to do this once in a while, like the Mafia.

10:00 a.m. - good meeting with the client, things are going to site in April. We are given a new brief for the apartment; breaking the large units into smaller ones which are easier to sell. After the formal meeting, we have a good chat with the client who seems happy and candid in his conversations about future projects (not all ours). It is good that he can be candid with us, he knows we will offer an opinion, and that we can keep our mouths shut. 

3:30 p.m. - someone who should not keep his mouth shut is Sean who needs to communicate more, with colleagues, consultants, etc. In any case, things are cleared up - and we agree to meet more often.

9.9.2024 Monday - stress and relief

The item of stress today is the issuance of the SPVL construction set; which Sean promises by noon but release at 5pm. After which, the builder sends a confused text about completeness of drawings - he has not even seen them yet. I put it down to a panicked stage of the huge task in front of him, and verbally promise to see him if needed. 

I start the morning really earlier to place the lakeside reception building on HP's desktop - I am happier with this building's language. And seeing the blood pressure monitor on the table, I take my own reading; all is good. 

Another item of stress is the current state of our project reporting, finances, etc which Freddie suggests an admin girl might help with. I am reluctant to have another person in the office, esp if I have to manage her, and it seems that she will little to do in between fee claims and pay roll. And I say so to the two directors at dinner time. The moment of relief comes when all decide to try out Sam's method of reporting for two months and we re-evaluate. Everyone is taking on extra responsibility, which is good because it is about collecting money they have a share of. Timely entrance of TY signaled the end of our directors' meeting and start of dinner and drinks. 

I remark at dinner that his boss seems to not stress him as much as his predecessors - he agrees. I am happy for him. 

I thought that this language would sit better with the lakeside bridge and also the outlook structure at the temple. 

4.8.2024 Sunday - run to squash

1.8.2024 Thursday - another CCM, good outcome

 Today is the second client-consultants meeting for the TSSB folks, Sean has been chairing and he does so again today. He is getting better at it, with some help from Freddie they are able to brief well, and ask pertinent questions. More importantly for me, they are able to switch to topics outside the agenda which one should expect when Teck is at the meeting (he had earlier declined but attended - which was good because we confirmed that way forward on the Tasik Project). 

We also got an affirmation from the client that we will be working on the Satok project as the land purchase has gone through and he asks for a re-briefing of the scheme at the meeting. 

I take an earlier afternoon off to have a nap, then off to squash buzzing. 

15.5.20224 Wednesday - back at work

After this trip and observing how some of my friends in Taiwan work - I am determined to be more focused in my work and do more. More detailing, more detailed work, more face to face reviews with colleagues, more site walks to see progress and quality of work. 

I start the day back at the gym; running on the new slippers and feeling good about myself, and worrying about Sam's shoulder ( I hope it is only a pinched nerve).

At the office, I start with phone-calls; to Aziz about septic tanks and appointment of the right engineer, to Pui about job scope, to PH about status of his projects, to Kamal about rain water harvesting, Rewi about submission dwgs and so forth. Texting is fine, but sometimes it takes a chat over the phone. 

I play squash with Kheng (1-1), and Patrick (5-1) who complains about not playing for a week and poor form. I think to myself, I have not been playing either. I think his problem is consistency, not just fitness - he tries too many low percentage shots. Fitness is both cardio vascular and muscle; if you are both out of breath and your muscles are tired; many things go wrong. Anyway, I am glad to be back in the courts.

we find out the Teck is considering using a China contractor to build the hotel complex

8.3.2024 Friday - sitting quietly and drawing

The highlight of my day is sitting down drawing out hotel room options, listening to Jackie Cheung while eavesdropping on Sean at the end of the room going through structural framing and levels with the engineers Wong and Edberg. 

I am not the only one solving design problems. 

 

24th November 2023 Friday - quite an eventful day

 We receive news that 2 of our projects have obtained planning approval; both are hotels, one of which is by a lake. The team has been working constantly on them, so we are in good stead - potentially more work on ground next year.

Today is also JC's birthday, so Sam and I make her an offer. I explain to JC - this is good for her and it makes us feel good about the situation. And she deserves it - she says she will sign it. We cook lunch for her and the office - Korean army stew, my version is not as good as Peggy's but it goes down well amidst lots of chit chat. 

I continue yesterday's good design discussion with Sean and Freddie by drawing out options and ideas on the yellow trace Sam bought for me. 

The day ends with drinks and dinner with the PDF2023 team, SY suggests that I make a speech. I do - specifically thanking the young ones; the Sims for accepting my request to undertake the graduate event for PDF, and carrying out the design competition so diligently and carefully (perhaps they were a little too obedient, but they will grow out of it), the Laus for the no-fuss execution of all the catering and behind-the-scenes logistics. And lastly, Johann for being a champion in accepting my request to be the event Emcee (after 2 tries), he was calm and collected, and good at the tasks. 

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. 

2 Mar 2023 Thursday - lost and found

Yesterday we were summoned to Bau for a site meeting with the Tasik Biru team; two architects one on each side of the lake, engineers, surveyors and numerous sub contractors. 

On the way, Freddie suggested dropping by the see Suzen whom I have not seen since she graduated with her Part 2 degree. That was almost 8 years ago. She had since got married and moved to Bau to set up 'shop' with her husband; Mr Liew. They run several businesses, one of which is a coffee shop/restaurant specialising in roast pork. I made an excuse to myself and ate the pork with the noodles. She treated us to lunch and we chatted for a while about the 'good old days' and her thesis which was fun. But in a sense, we have all moved on, she is content in her married life, she turns 40 this year and architecture will not feature greatly in her life anymore.

We promised to drop by each time we have site meetings in Bau. Let's see. 

We spent an hour at the site - good news is that we will have another project on site this year, and more good news we have Kenneth as our builder, he is an excellent coordinator. There was no bad news. Our team is ready and quite looking forward to this; Fiona offered to attend the site meeting with me, Melvin thought it was a good idea in case some of the council people were there (to meet them).

 

27 Feb 2023 Monday - setting new targets

Monday morning is when we usually have a short office meeting to plan the work in the next 2 weeks. We tried one week, but I found that some of the targets are quite long and require a fortnight to complete. In any case, the team is quite independent and usually go about their roles without prompting from me. 

We zoomed to talk about the new hotel project and also the design development of the hospital - I wanted to hand the task to George for a while for him to see it with fresh eyes, and for SL to have a short break to think about something different for a while. 

Design strategies should be simple, I like to think that they should be simple enough for everyone in the construction team to understand. 'So we are going to throw everything at George and leave him alone for a few days. And then on Friday, we can have a short meeting to see what he comes up with - he might come up with nothing (but that's ok, because it is only a few days), or he come up with several options (and we select one), or he might say everything works quite well already (and he simply tweaks a few minor elements). 

And with that I leave the meeting. So that they can start talking about me...