The highlight of the day is a potting of a stray fern from next to the drain; it has been there for 6 months. I moved it from one place, I can't remember where to here. It has been neglected for this whole time, and is still thriving, so I reward it with a home.
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| another highlight of the day is the game with our architect friends, we have not played together for 6 months - it is good to see everyone again. let's see if they continue playing every Sunday. |
Today marks the 4th or 5th day of waking up early to write in this blog, I like this routine - an fresh recalling and recording of yesterday's thoughts and happenings. Setting up an office in Sean's room is a smart move, I use it to make sketch-books and note-pads from old drawings. Pages of old magazines are used for their covers, they are not very thick about 20 sheets and can be held together using staplers.
Making things is good therapy; the repeated movements, the familiar results, the sound of the paper when I run a thumbnail along a fold and the satisfying lining up of the straight edges. I found myself doing this while waiting to come on an on-line meeting. While GW and FL were chatting about lobbies and mezzanines I found myself folding the A1 sheet into sketchbook size.
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| A1 submission dwgs are folded and cut, folded and cut, and folded to become A4 size |
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| the edges are trimmed, the spine is formed by leaving one edge wider to create a 'foldover' |
The campus mall is accepted as a concept to develop into the next stage; the two young ones present while FL and I sit and provide support when needed. EJ is pleased, he is excited about the steel framed buildings on a concrete plinth next to a pond.
The young men continue their good work into lunch so I ask Sean to buy us lunch downstairs; the air is thick with haze. I won't swim today. Laurance shows up for our K2 coordination meeting No. 1, which is good to see. He picks up some engineering issues for the Springvale Hotel - he is a good reference for the young people in the room.
The next highlight is an invitation to play pickleball this Sunday by the architects' group; I find myself accepting quite automatically. I am looking forward to that. And finally, the Fukadas come over for dinner, Jowie is buzzing with travel excitement, and Yoshi has some questions about job applications; Sean helps explain.
My application to be a PAM Fellow is going on smoothly, with JC's help.
In 2013, Louise* from Friends Of Sarawak Museum approached us with an idea for an exhibition on Alfred Russell Wallace (8 Jan 1823 - 7 Nov 1913), the renowned English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and illustrator. Wallace was a contemporary of Charles Darwin, who independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection, and the creation of the Wallace Line; a distinct zoogeographical boundary dividing Asian and Australasian species. Notably for us in Borneo, Wallace spent some time in Sarawak (1854-56) where he wrote his seminal paper 'Sarawak Law' about species distribution.
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| The former Sarawak Museum building (photo from Wikipedia) |
The gallery would be located in one wing of the Sarawak Museum and is intended to be temporary lasting 2 – 3 years, targeting the general public, especially children. Our aim is to explore a different way of exhibiting the artifacts while considering educational intent, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.
In line of the intrepid character of Wallace's work, we proposed the idea that the exhibition can be a 'traveling' exhibition; relocating from one place to another, and perhaps reaching the smaller towns in Sarawak.
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The gallery in the museum is a tall open space. We propose to create a prolonged journey through the exhibition space by constructing a series of rooms using his ‘moth nets.’ The displays will then be printed or mounted on the ‘walls, of these rooms. The walls are hung from a ceiling grid and would have display information printed on them. Underfoot we proposed a layer of crushed fabric that would rustle and shift as visitors move through the rooms, mimicking the leaves in the jungle's undergrowth.
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* Dr Louise M. Macul is a prominent museulogist, widely recognized for her extensive work and research on the Orang Ulu murals.
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.
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| such a lovely letter, and so prompt in his reply; one working day |
I arrive by bike, and get some targets for the day - the first of which is HP and her canopies and screen for the Springvale project. Freddie texts just in time for a coffee and a chat, he thinks that I have got two new projects over the weekend. 'Proposals' - I remind him, but I understands what he means. Opportunities are good ways to retain connections and practice our craft. We use this to train our young ones; Sean and George sit in at our meeting with EJ, who wants a two-storey lifestyle hub next to a university - just the type of project we enjoy doing; in a group and quickly with a short deadline.
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| Sam and I have a new strategy for our doubles game; she stays back and drives - I try to attack at the net. It works, we took three games off them. |
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