One North Heaven

Yeap, I was at One North, just off Buona Vista.

Oh my, was it heaven. If Sentosa Cove was the place to live, One North is definitely the place to work. Just look at the roads around that place. The attention to detail is just, awesome.

Yes, that's the ROAD! Just picture the amount of human labor that had been invested into paving the roads.

The road, then leads to the buildings, which is nothing less then spectacular.

And, ONE NORTH PARK did not disappoint. The park is filled with smooth ribbons of uninterrupted cycling paths. It was a climb, but the summit is worth every single paddle.

And of course, being a Singapore Park, it is clean, inundated with tress, and there's always an OG box to spoil that Kodak moment.

I think the pictures can just make any words I say seem meaningless and shallow. But really, the whole attention to detail around the area, is just, I don't know, words escape me. I don't think there is a single word that is capable of describing it.

Wow right? Notice the timber deckings, the way they are laid out, must have required a lot of effort. And look at the treatment on the edges of the timber decking, just shows that someone actually bothered huh? And the railings, offset-ed from the edge,. No idea what that is for though, but again, just shows the effort doesn't it?

Cool, so anyway, it's really a good place to hang out. It was empty when I went there, and it's really different, it was like West Coast Park before WCP became popular. It's what a park should be like, quiet and peaceful.

Wet.

Yea, so, was at BT for the trails.
Yea, damn, it's quite wet, and urgh, couldn't climb some of the hills.

A section of BT is also closed off, due to landslides.
And, bonus feature! Look at the size of that spider!

Model's Up!

YAY! Done the physical model. Now just waiting for school to plonk it on the site.

Haiz, still a lot to do man. Air con system, sustainability, structure, facade system, roof system and on top of all that, it has to come together into one presentation. This would never end would it?

Back to Work

Yeap, as the title says.

Anyway, wanted to show what I've done so far. Just a snippet of it actually.

Yeap, that's the section and elevations. I actually submitted the colored copies in to Yy and she wasn't very pleased. But again, in my defense, I really thought Part II of the submission was going to be a hell lot more comprehensive. In addition to that, Part I of the submission stated that plans had to be colored, just that they could be submitted in black and white. So yes, that's what I thought.

And that, is a preview of the up coming 3D model. Only took a few hours to come up with that, 3D max ladies and gentleman, is not as slow as you think. And 3DSMax 2010 can match up with the lighting levels of revit. The "photometric" lights are just, imba.

Yeap, end of post I guess. 2nd September is submission, so yeap, I really want to nail this one.

Hello Marina!

YES. I'm excited. (:

Really want to share this, I finished coloring my plans, sections and elevations for JC3. Why is that such a big deal? BECAUSE, that's it. After JC3, it's the END of semester one!

AND! I can't seem to upload the pics, but if you do want to see it, remember to come down for my crit. LOL.

Moving on. Ahem, of course, as usual, I had a mini celebration, got on my bike, and cycled to my heart's content.

Alright, the bikes. That's KT's Carbon Fibre SCOTT Road Bike on the right, my GIANT Yukon Disc in the centre and Mr Ng's full sus WHEELER. Our first stop was a gas station on Dunearn Road, we discussed the route and then proceeded towards the Marina Barrage.

The view from my bike. Of course in the real world we were drafting a lot closer, but I had to put some distance when taking the picture in the event something happens.

That SCOTT really makes a superb sound. And I was more then happy to sit behind it at 35km/h.

And soon of course, we have reached our destination. The Marina Barrage. To be honest, I was just a tad bit disappointed, I was really expecting some utopia up there, but it wasn't. The view from the barrage however, compensated for the disappointment it caused.

Yup. What a view from the barrage at 2.27am in the morning. It was quite lively up there, with people flying kites and couples taking full advantage of the dim setting of that place. Next, we speared down towards Marina Bay Sands, and oh my, was it majestic.

That, would be Mr Ng on the full sus WHEELER heading right for the Sands. I think I should just stop typing and let the pictures do all the elaborating.

What a place right? View's great, it's clean and I was out there with a perfect ride. Sometimes I can't wait to grow up and bring my family down to places like this and just enjoy our city state. Really.

Anyway, on a final note. KT is dead. He tried riding my GIANT down a flight of steps, and, it didn't end so well.

Yup, that's him, dead, lying on the ground. And my bike obviously tried it's best to prevent that accident. I think I'll just leave him there and that, would conclude this post. (:

A new beginning

Alright, let's start off with me announcing something big.

I've lost my toe nail!

First, it could bend 90 degree straight up, then it could turn 360, then, it came off! YAY! Now I don't have a toe nail on my right big toe! I'm not going to go into details since some of you might find it just a tad bit disgusting.

Moving on, I've gotten myself a GIANT!

Alright, and so, of course, I've take in out for a ride. And god it's smooth. I picked it up at Sengkang by the way, and rode it all the way back to Clementi, and yeap, very very smooth ride. No complains so far except for the shifts. A little slow if you ask me. But maybe it's just me, because I'm quite used to dual shifters, which shifts in a blink of an eye. But yea, seriously no complains. The ride is smooth, the braking is good and it comes with an awesome soundtrack at 17km/h. I pushed it to 57.5km/h on a downhill and it still got a lot more speed to give, one day I'll really push that, just not soon I guess. So yea, generally happy with the performance.

And, things are really looking good for school as well. Plans are all in the bag, only left with the first story circulation to settle, then after that I can cut the section and start playing with the elevation.

Yeap. That's it so far. Will update if anything else comes up.

I've been gone for a long time

Yeap, I've been gone for a quite a while huh?

So anyway, updates!

Let's see, school started, and it was straight to JC1, we had to do a case study, and my group consisted of Iman, Bryan and Oscar. Well, good job guys, all of you, honestly. Now that I have time to reflect, I think it was job well done. We had a 3D walkthrough, we had numerous powerpoints, our work was not the best documented but at least we tried. Again, thanks Iman, Bryan and Oscar. Although we did just get a B+, that's not that bad now is it? Judging by how the other group only got B. I think it was hard for us to find the structure, and we could not get the point across that efficiently during the presentation because we ran out of time. But anyway, enough of words, here's what we did for JC1!

And yes, I was very impressed with the clay model. I don't even have a picture of it, but really, great job to Bryan, Iman and Oscar. I had nothing to do with the model, and you guys did a great job.

Alright, after JC1, was predictably, JC2, or was it? Ahhaha, not for me, I had a CUBE thingy. URA challenge for something something. Seemed quite important, but damn, I honestly believe that our group could have pushed a lot harder. During the whole competition I was just shadowing everybody else, I really wished I could have been a bit more vocal, but hey, still, had fun. (Yea, rite.)

Yeap, that was our initial model. It progressed, and the picture is SOMEWHERE in phone. Can't actually be bothered to search. But again, a few moments during that competition. First time I was working with Natasha, and to be frank and honest, she's a very strong leader. But even she didn't take control during that competition. And honestly speaking, I would have preferred it if she led. First time working with Jonathan as well, and he, same as Natasha, is a very good leader, of course I can go on and on about why I think so, but honestly, both he and Natasha can see the big picture, and they don't allow anything to compromise their planning. Anyway you look at it, that's a good point, a leader's job is not to be liked, it's to get work done.

After that, then it was site analysis first. And god did I have a great team, Bing Huang, Harith and David. Alright, not say the best, but the point is we can work. And work we did. I am generally pleased with the attitude of the team, except for some instances which pissed me off. But again, great team. We had a fully automatic powerpoint slide, which, if you guys have tried, it's kinda hard to do. So great job to the team, honestly.

Then we had the primer, alright, that was crap. None of us could get it, and honestly, we were really being stretched, the Green Sparks Competition was starting to loom over us and yes, I have failed to set a direction for the team. I fully take responsibility for that. We were desperately lost and confused for our Primer, honestly.

Moving on, you expect by now I should have started on JC2 right? WRONG! It was the Green Sparks competition, which, we failed to qualify. I had a team, Winrose, David, Bing Huang and Pac. And yet again, everything went south, Pac had a part time job and it became very hard to bring him on the project at the later stage. So we were down to four man, and oh man, things really went bad. I had no idea what went wrong.

I printed out a schedule of when to complete stuff, I gave so many tips, yet nobody listened. Yes I'm crossed we didn't qualify. We did not qualify not because we were not good enough, but it was because we just could not care. I can sit here, behind this laptop and point fingers at who is to blame, but ultimately, it will all come back to me. I saw so many snowball effects, yet I just stood there hoping it would change. To be honest, I am quite disappointed in the whole team, and even in myself. Nobody treated it seriously during the final week, nobody asked about progress, nobody asked if they could expedite any work. And work was really being churned out at a snail's pace.

Yes, there's a lot of "if only". If only I didn't allow so many oversights, if only I applied more pressure on the team, if only I really sat down and guided on how things should be done. And argh, if only the team would just let go of their studio project. I mean extension is given, there I was trying to focus 100% on the competition project, and there some people were just giving 50%. Of course it's bloody unfair. But oh well, no further comments.

But, of course, I have to give credit where credit is due. So guys, great job working under pressure, and I know it can be a torture for some of you guys to work at my pace, but again, great job for trying to keep up. And, yeap, pictures of our schemes.

Alright, so anyway, we did not qualify. So, that's 2 competitions I did not win.

Moving on, ALRIGHT! Finally, it's JC2. I kinda enjoyed it. Alright, remember, I started out the year with JC1, and then URA CUBE, and then Green Sparks and now JC2. That's packed. But before JC2, I would also like to highlight that I have a life.

Congratulations to Nigel for coming in 3rd for "Singapore Street Festival."

Congratulations to Nigel and Kia Tuan from coming in 2nd for "Clash of The Bands"

Congratulations to those who got into Uni. I think Hui Juan and Min Wei got in SIM, which is cool, now I can have lunch with both of them at one go. Ian and Jason, surprisingly ended up in NTU, same course. (That's kinda inside joke, so those who don't get it, then it's ok)

And Serena, if you're reading this, you still stunned me. Army, honestly, that caught me by surprise.

Congratulations Fairuz! (Wynn) on becoming Malay! I'll expect to see you get married under a void deck.

Congratulations Nelg, few more days left. You survived.

Congratulations Khairul, finally out of NS. And Faqir, final year. And Dyn, got your motorcycle license.

Sidenote, I think Dzul got married right? Ahaha, congratulations on that.

Cheng Yi, Iezah and Jannah, ahaha, really, have fun studying.

Siti! finally did that 70km cycle! At night some more, doubly impressive.

And Ian, wtf, I saw your HASA on togoparts. Iceboy selling for you? And how's William? YOG right? Fuck sia, really, I should go back to the trails.

And since I'm talking about you, congratulations Sujia for taking a degree in PAINTING A PICTURE!, ahaha, no really, degree in English Literature.

And, Kumar, still a black I see. Ahaha, don't ever change man.

OH OH! Caroline Chan got married! Right? Ahaha. Can't really say much, but. HEY! ABOUT TIME!

Anything else or not? Hmmmmm, I really don't about the rest of you guys, should really call me out, I really don't mind clearing one evening, or even the whole day to catch up.

Alright, now FINALLY. It's JC2! Ahahaha, alright, so, let's just keep in mind, I really had a lot to deal with, and then I was rushed straight into JC2. It was really a mere 3 day extension for a 1 week project, and yes, I only had ONE consultation. It's starting to get irritating, because I don't even know if I'm right or wrong, until it's time to get shot. But, JC2! Alright, I had fun, really, I had a lot of fun.

I'm not going to explain my concept, but it's good to know the grades were quite, satisfying. A+ A B+ A. (: . If you guys can only see how wide I'm smiling now.

There it was, my JC2 plans. Of course now it has seen a lot of changes, but hey, that's part of design. That is what makes it so exciting. There is no single right or wrong, there's just infinite possibilities to a single problem. I know, you don't have to believe me, afterall, I've just lost 2 competitions, but really, design is not a static one-off thing, it's an evolutionary process, and that, beats any box office hit movie in my opinion.

After that, you really expected me to progress to IR and JC3 right? Not so, caught a lot of snags. I was just so, I don't know how to describe, but yea, didn't go to school for a week plus. It's not that I can't be bothered, but there's just something in class that pisses me off constantly. And I don't think it's the 4 chord, 3 mins, 2 instruments piece of shit that they blast so loudly in class. I mean seriously, it's a BLOODY CLASSROOM. Can't you at least respect that some people would want to do work in peace. It's a classroom, not a bloody club.

Alright, so after that "I don't feel like going to school" snag, there was another one! Another competition, Green Wave, and oh god were we ambitious. It's still on going, so I won't actually discuss, but here, some pics of some of our schemes.

That, was really a lengthy project. Harith, Me and David. 3 guys, 3 projects, 2 weeks. To be honest, it didn't feel like a lot of pressure, but again, I was quite disappointed by the quality of work and with one member. Again, I can go on about how much I was pissed, but, what's the use. Really, if I ever get the chance to lead in another competition, I'm seriously going to command with an Iron Fist. I've realized my compassion allowed me to compromise on quality, and even if the rest of the team can live with it, I can't. Look at the first picture, SP is flashed straight at the front. It'll really be horrible if we handed in sub standard work with the school logo proudly displayed on the front. Again, no use complaining. But I really hope just ONE of these projects could get short listed.

It's really not looking good on my record sheet man, every single time I lead, we seem to kinda fail. Of course I'll be more than happy to blame it on the team, which I would, for some projects. But urgh, honestly, why is it so hard to get people to work towards a common goal. URGH.

Alright, now on top of that, I am of course preparing for the JC3 submission, so again, usual thing, but, I would like to share this picture, a sectional model.

And, so far, even that model has seen some development.

Alright, that's it for now I guess. I'll keep this blog updated VERY VERY frequently from now on. I promise.