I came across this interesting article on the Yahoo Finance website that exposes the dirty secrets of contractors in order to help home buyers be more savy on their house renovations. One of the points was why you should engage an architect or designer. A lot of people in SIngapore feel they can save on the Architect/Designer fees as the contractor can also draw, design and do the job. Well I quote from the website:
"If you're going to make changes to plumbing or electrical systems, most building departments require that you obtain a permit and that an architect sign off on your plans. Beyond this bureaucratic oversight, most contractors tell clients they don't need an architect. The fact is, the contractor doesn't want an architect.
Contractors hate working with architects because they're a step up the power ladder. They act as site supervisor, checking materials used and approving or disapproving work before the client releases the next payment to the contractor.
That's precisely why you should consider hiring an architect for any large remodeling job. Besides providing aesthetic inspiration, architects cram their plans with specifics about materials and construction. Not surprisingly, bids prepared from architectural plans tend to be much closer to the actual final cost. Architects charge anywhere from 8% to 15% of a project's budget. Some will critique a plan for about $100 an hour, with a minimum of $500 to $1,500. "
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
What does it take to be a famous Architect?
UK architect Rogers wins Pritzker prize
Thursday Mar 29 11:52 AEST
British modernist architect Richard Rogers, who designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris, has won architecture's highest award - the Pritzker Prize.
The 73-year-old Rogers, whose other major works also include the Lloyd's of London headquarters in the City of London and the rainbow-coloured, nearly mile-long Terminal 4 at Barajas airport in Madrid, will receive the $US100,000 ($A124,000) grant for a lifetime of achievement at a ceremony on June 4 inside a prize of British architecture - the Banqueting House, built in 1619 by Indigo Jones.
In announcing Rogers' selection, Thomas Pritzker, president of the US-based Hyatt Foundation, said, "Rogers is a champion of urban life and believes the potential of the city to be a catalyst for social change."
Pritzker jury chairman, Lord Palumbo, called Rogers not only a master of the large urban building but the creator of his own brand of architectural Expressionism.
Lord Palumbo said the high-tech Pompidou Centre, designed in partnership with Renzo Piano and completed in 1977, was a work that revolutionised museums, turning them from elitist monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange.
In an interview with Reuters, Rogers said that he and Piano turned out creating what the public called "a fun palace" just a short walk from the Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral, though they certainly did not know it at the time.
Their 92,900-square-metre modernist museum shocked Paris by putting the inner workings of a building outside in the street for all to see - including having "exterior" escalators enclosed in a transparent tube.
It was a public space that defied comparison as it combined a museum of modern art, a library, a design and a music centre along with a huge array of shops.
After first turning up their noses, the French public reversed itself and flocked to the centre at a rate of seven million visitors a year.
"Up to doing the centre, I had built a few houses, but Renzo and I entered the competition to build the centre because we figured two unemployed people would have more fun than one.
"It was like going from writing a pamphlet to writing 1,000 pages of a classical work. The French were pretty tough and the international press, except for one critic, hated the building," Rogers said, adding:
"Our concept was that the building would be legible - that the public could read how the structure supports the building, how the columns fit, how the wiring goes. We were keen on lightness, flexibility and a sense of space. We wanted a space for all people, all creeds, all ages."
They got it but their immediate reward was unemployment. Rogers said that except for teaching he was out of work for two years. "Nobody else wanted a Pompidou Centre after we finished."
But people wanted a new Lloyd's of London, and Rogers won the competition to design it, turning it into one of his masterpieces and the building that brought him new business.
"We can select what we want to work on but it has taken me about 50 years to get here. When I was being beaten up for the Pompidou, I never thought I'd be here," he said.
Among the projects he is working on is Tower 3 at the World Trade Centre site in New York.
"I believe that skyscrapers should scrape the sky so I want to make the tower soar and make it look as thin as possible, even doing the corners of the building in glass."
Monday, April 24, 2006
Are Architects a sexy profession?
Apparently, the potential candidate for the next series of hit reality show the "Bachelor" could be an Architect.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Back to the drawing board
Can an architect floor 'em as the next'Bachelor?' NYC gals say no
By SARI BOTTON
Can an architect floor 'em as the next'Bachelor?' NYC gals say no
By SARI BOTTON
'I have a tendency to have a lot of crushes on my clients because you go straight into a sort of intimate relationship with them.' - Eric Clough
When it comes to choosing eligible men for its dating reality show "The Bachelor," ABC usually goes for guys from relatively sexy professions.
Sure, Charlie O'Connell was an actor, but he was also a real estate investor. Alex Michel, the very first bachelor, was a management consultant, Aaron Buerge was a banker, Jesse Palmer played professional football and Byron Velvick was a bass fisherman.
But now, with the show's eighth season completed and on the heels of news that the latest ultimate hunk, ER doc Travis Stork, and his chosen woman, Sarah Stone, have split up just a week after the season finale, ABC is considering mining different types of fields for the ninth season.
Among the professionals they're considering: architects. Casting agents for the show have been approaching architectural firms across the country "searching for a 27- to 33-year-old single, handsome, successful, charismatic guy who would like to be whisked away to an exotic, tropical location dating 25 beautiful girls."
But with a pool of architects notoriously cheap, arrogant and generally terrible dates, if not altogether gay as bait, will gals actually bite? It's a move that gives even some architects a good laugh.
On the Gutter, a Web site and online message board for architects, the "Bachelor" posting has elicited these cracks:
"Most bachelor architects would be on 'Brokeback Bachelor,'" a reference to the many gay men in the field.
"I can't wait for the episode where his date spends the whole night in his studio, while he finishes hot-gluing a chip-board model," because architects are known to put in long hours agonizing over minute details.
"After gluing the model all night, wait till she has to pay for dinner." After years of expensive graduate programs, few architects are known for making big bucks, or being particularly generous with what they do make.
Some New York women's romantic experiences with architects only bolster such stereotypes.
"I went on a couple of dates with an architect I met online," recalls Eve*, a 36-year-old social worker from Brooklyn. "He was gay and either didn't know it, or didn't want to be. He was so effeminate, I was shocked that he didn't know how gay he was."
Janice*, 42, a writer in the Flatiron District, had a similar experience. "I dated an architect who turned out to be gay, in the full belief that he was straight. "I was so infatuated with the guy, I didn't pick up on anything. It turned out he had a boyfriend. Dating me was sort of a novelty for him."
But single, straight architect Eric Clough, a partner in 212 Box, a Tribeca-based architectural firm, warns not to judge a book by its cover. "Some people may get the wrong idea, because a lot of male architects are metrosexuals, not gay," he says. "I don't know what the stats are in the profession. I do know a lot of gay designers, but I know a lot of straight ones, too."
Clough at least admits to being very unavailable because of his work. "It's not easy to date, though I do meet a lot of women mostly married," he says. "I have a tendency to have a lot of crushes on my clients, because you go straight into a sort of intimate relationship with them. But it's true that architecture as a profession does take a lot of time out of your personal life, especially when you have your own business." That's the reason Sophie*, a 27-year-old medical researcher on the upper West Side, avoids dating architects after working at a big Manhattan firm.
"If you were to date an architect, you probably wouldn't ever see him in daylight," she says. "On an average day I worked 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and everyone's relationships seemed to be suffering. On days just before major deadlines, it wasn't uncommon for them to work through the night, or even two or three nights straight. Some of the architects at the firm had memberships at the 24-hour gym nearby, so they'd have a place to shower when they worked straight through.
"One guy resorted to taking dinner breaks to see his girlfriend," Sophie recalls. "He'd work until 7 p.m. or so, leave for an hour to meet her for dinner, and then come back to work for another several hours before he went home."
Sarah*, herself a landscape architect, 38, of the upper West Head, had a different complaint about the two architects she dated: arrogance.
"The first one I dated when I went to Cornell," she says with a cringe. "That one took himself very seriously. Everything he saw was fodder for sketching in this little notebook he carried around like, 'Oh, wait, look at that cardboard box over there.' He had very stuck-up opinions about what was art and what wasn't, what books I should and shouldn't have."
Though the experience wasn't enough to scare her off architects for good, a second one sure was. "He also had that reading-list recommendation thing all the weighty tomes of architecture," she recalls. And he wasn't terribly romantic. "On our first date, we went to a construction site and took pictures of pipes. And he was really cheap. When I went to see him after being away for a few weeks, he made me dinner: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
None of this comes as a surprise to Wendy Straker, author of "Men at Work: A Job-by-Job Search for Mr. Right" (Polkadot Press). "Architects are a great balance between the artist and the suit," she says. "They're visionaries who know how to plan. But the risk of dating an architect is that they're extremely set in their ways. They think they know what's best for you and that includes everything from which direction your couch should face to where you should hang that new painting."
Still, despite all these downsides, there's an undeniable sexiness to the field that reels women in. Think of Gary Cooper as Harold Roark in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead," an idealistic architect who refuses to compromise his principles and thus sweeps Patricia Neal's married Dominique Francon off her feet. Then there's Seinfeld's George Costanza, who lied about being an architect to impress women, as does Matt Dillon's character in the Farrelly brothers' comedy "There's Something About Mary."
MOMENTUM IS BUILDING
"We've had a lot of responses from really good-looking, charismatic, sexy guys in that field," reports Robyn Cass, casting director for "The Bachelor." She said the show is considering men in a few other fields as well. "We think an architect would be amazing on the show. It just seems like a really interesting profession. Regardless of profession, though, we're just going to pick the best bachelor in the country."
"We've had a lot of responses from really good-looking, charismatic, sexy guys in that field," reports Robyn Cass, casting director for "The Bachelor." She said the show is considering men in a few other fields as well. "We think an architect would be amazing on the show. It just seems like a really interesting profession. Regardless of profession, though, we're just going to pick the best bachelor in the country."
Straker's not sure an architect would be the best choice. "Architects tend to be introverted thinkers who would rather stay home to look at floor plans and elevations than wine and dine you at the latest hot spot," she says. If ABC goes with an architect, Straker says, "It will be interesting to see how this guy captivates a roomful of women. He might just be in over his head." The very busy, and so very unavailable, Clough argues otherwise. "I definitely feel that architects make good boyfriends and husbands," he attests. "We're esthetically aware and gifted. And we're especially good with our hands."
Sunday, June 20, 2004
One thing that I always believe in is that architecture should be site specific. In other words, the building should only be designed for that particular site alone and cannot be replicated in anywhere else in the world.
Singapore is known as the Garden City, but sadly the only evidence that we see of this 'namesake' is a superficial effort of planting aong the roads, and parks interspersed among buildings. This is only partly successful. There is a 'fourth demension', which is to actually bring the 'garden' into the buildings, that hasn't been achieved. There is still a clear distinction between form and landscape in many of the buildings here. I dont blame anyone. It takes a city of great character and some amount of risk to fully implement the concept of 'garden city' into our lives. However to fully call ourselves a tropical country we need to design fully tropical architecture.
I attempt to execute this in my design for the school. The concept of 'blurring', 'in between', or 'transition' between landscape and form is introduced. The heavily planted character of the site reinforces the idea that the school and landscape should be one, or the interior should flow onto the exterior. There is no clear boundary where the school starts or ends or where the boundaries of the school are. There is a conflict here as this goes against the age old planning principle that a school should be defined by boundaries to protect and confine the students. The great challenge is to make it look as if the school had no boundaries and yet offer enough enclosure and protection for the occupants. :)
To do that I made the walls of the school look like a series of landscape walls that flow along the contours of the site and dissapear into the earth. The walls are not just mere ornaments. Some of it form walls to the classrooms, some encloses courtyard spaces, and some help to define orientation and movement. Some of the existing trees removed during construction stages are replanted in their original position in the new school, so one will find trees in the strangest of places, such as between classrooms. Rooftop are planted with grass to cover more surface green . As mentioned earlier creepers are allowed to grow over walls and trellies for camouflage and shade. Ecogardens,ponds and fountains are intersperesed inside and outside the school to complete the sense of blurring.
On a micro level, even the classrooms are designed to bring the outdoors in. A large openable panel door flips upwards to reveal a courtyard, thus expanding the classroom area and into the outdoors.
The trick for me is to blend the building in but yet create a slight gesture of incision. It is almost like a scar that hasnt healed properly,but this scar becomes part of the person over time and acceptance. Another analogy is that it is like a new organsm that wriggles its way into the site and lives on it. This eventually creates something that is somewhat there, but yet not there. (refer to image)
Singapore is known as the Garden City, but sadly the only evidence that we see of this 'namesake' is a superficial effort of planting aong the roads, and parks interspersed among buildings. This is only partly successful. There is a 'fourth demension', which is to actually bring the 'garden' into the buildings, that hasn't been achieved. There is still a clear distinction between form and landscape in many of the buildings here. I dont blame anyone. It takes a city of great character and some amount of risk to fully implement the concept of 'garden city' into our lives. However to fully call ourselves a tropical country we need to design fully tropical architecture.
I attempt to execute this in my design for the school. The concept of 'blurring', 'in between', or 'transition' between landscape and form is introduced. The heavily planted character of the site reinforces the idea that the school and landscape should be one, or the interior should flow onto the exterior. There is no clear boundary where the school starts or ends or where the boundaries of the school are. There is a conflict here as this goes against the age old planning principle that a school should be defined by boundaries to protect and confine the students. The great challenge is to make it look as if the school had no boundaries and yet offer enough enclosure and protection for the occupants. :)
To do that I made the walls of the school look like a series of landscape walls that flow along the contours of the site and dissapear into the earth. The walls are not just mere ornaments. Some of it form walls to the classrooms, some encloses courtyard spaces, and some help to define orientation and movement. Some of the existing trees removed during construction stages are replanted in their original position in the new school, so one will find trees in the strangest of places, such as between classrooms. Rooftop are planted with grass to cover more surface green . As mentioned earlier creepers are allowed to grow over walls and trellies for camouflage and shade. Ecogardens,ponds and fountains are intersperesed inside and outside the school to complete the sense of blurring.
On a micro level, even the classrooms are designed to bring the outdoors in. A large openable panel door flips upwards to reveal a courtyard, thus expanding the classroom area and into the outdoors.
The trick for me is to blend the building in but yet create a slight gesture of incision. It is almost like a scar that hasnt healed properly,but this scar becomes part of the person over time and acceptance. Another analogy is that it is like a new organsm that wriggles its way into the site and lives on it. This eventually creates something that is somewhat there, but yet not there. (refer to image)
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Architecture is poetry.It should flow like the words to a song. In other words, it should be seen as a narrative. The metaphorical device of the 'journey' is employed in the design of the school. Education is a journey. It never ends. It is a journey of our 'worldly' experiences and events in our lives.
The concept of the journey is reflected by using a main circulation spine which the entire school is organised around. This spine starts from the street at the foot of the hill, continues through the school, reaches the top of the hill and is left open ended after exiting the school. This meandering gesture intentionally prolongs and enhances the experience of the act of 'going to school', without sacrificing much efficiency. The meandering form also helps in mediating between the different levels of the hill.
Of course, a journey without adventures becomes a long and tedious one. 3 major points of attraction are located strtegically along this spine to provide interest and a sense of focus and order. They are the canteen which fronts the entrance of the school, the library in the middle, and the hall at the top.
Again, the traditional elements of school architecture is reiterated here. The Canteen being a place of rest and energy welcomes the students at the entrance before the start of the journey. ( Coincidentally thats where I used to hang out when I come to school in the mornings:)),the Library being the heart of knowledge thus the heart of the school, and the Hall at the top of the hill overlooking the school signifies a symbolic place of gathering usually found at the highest destination of a journey. ( remember Acropolis at Athens)
I know that there is too much shit going on here to fully describe the scheme. I dont wanna bore people with the details. This blog is meant to be about how our daily lives and architecture are intertwined. Anyone is welcome to dispute, discuss and comment. I believe there is never a right and wrong in architecture, only a consequence.
The concept of the journey is reflected by using a main circulation spine which the entire school is organised around. This spine starts from the street at the foot of the hill, continues through the school, reaches the top of the hill and is left open ended after exiting the school. This meandering gesture intentionally prolongs and enhances the experience of the act of 'going to school', without sacrificing much efficiency. The meandering form also helps in mediating between the different levels of the hill.
Of course, a journey without adventures becomes a long and tedious one. 3 major points of attraction are located strtegically along this spine to provide interest and a sense of focus and order. They are the canteen which fronts the entrance of the school, the library in the middle, and the hall at the top.
Again, the traditional elements of school architecture is reiterated here. The Canteen being a place of rest and energy welcomes the students at the entrance before the start of the journey. ( Coincidentally thats where I used to hang out when I come to school in the mornings:)),the Library being the heart of knowledge thus the heart of the school, and the Hall at the top of the hill overlooking the school signifies a symbolic place of gathering usually found at the highest destination of a journey. ( remember Acropolis at Athens)
I know that there is too much shit going on here to fully describe the scheme. I dont wanna bore people with the details. This blog is meant to be about how our daily lives and architecture are intertwined. Anyone is welcome to dispute, discuss and comment. I believe there is never a right and wrong in architecture, only a consequence.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Education and Architecture
This is my final year project at university. It was a redevelopment of the International School of Singapore off Preston Road. The school is located on a hillside, hidden amongst dense vegetation.
I tried to think of my memories in school, and I realized that the best memories didnt come from within the four walls of the classrooms. Instead it came from the games that we played in the courtyards, the unhibited conversations I had in the niches and corners of my school, the gatherings on the amphitheatre steps... I can even remember some of the smells and touch of my favourite places outside the classroom, and such places were where I really 'learned'. It is in such places that we are totally free to express ourselves, our creativity and imagination.
I thought how nice it would be to have such places 'teach' and 'inform' the children, by reintepreting the classroom as an external space. To do that, I inversed the figure ground and generated a series of outdoor spaces which are intended for teaching purposes. These outdoor/semi covered/ covered spaces becomes the 'classrooms' instead and the classrooms per se becomes an optional facility and for wet weather programmes only.
Negative spaces thus becomes positive spaces and the entire school is planned around these outdoor spaces, such as circulation spaces, corners, leftover spaces, spaces between classrooms...
Students can also choose to formulate their own memories based on the spaces they choose to gather. There is no central mass assembly space. Instead the spaces are broken up and fragmented and scattered all over the place. This spaces creates a sense of informality and cosiness that encourages small group teaching and interaction, rather than large, unfriendly, intimidating parade squares. Students can hang out along the external corridors, corners, rooftop, anywhere that they feel they can call their own. Each space has its own tactility, views, experience and character.
I believe that architecture should be incomplete. It should hold a certain sense of randomness and freedom that can only be expressed over time. Nothing like those shiny new building you see in magazines, but more of subtle hidden quality that would qualify it timeless.
The school is almost hidden from view from the street firstly by trees and secondly by a series of landscape walls that shield it from the public eye. The mysterious quality of these walls lie in the curiosity of the activity that takes place behind them. Over time, creepers will grow over the trellises provided within the school and camouflauge the school even further with the existing vegetation. Moss and grass would grow over the walls and create a romantised version of the 'ruin'. Students could display their works on the walls or even built upon the existing structures of the school, as a means of personalising their existence and cultivating a sense of owenership and pride. The school's eventual completeness lies in its incompleteness.
Architecture thus becomes the social platform that shape these childrens' growth and memories.
I tried to think of my memories in school, and I realized that the best memories didnt come from within the four walls of the classrooms. Instead it came from the games that we played in the courtyards, the unhibited conversations I had in the niches and corners of my school, the gatherings on the amphitheatre steps... I can even remember some of the smells and touch of my favourite places outside the classroom, and such places were where I really 'learned'. It is in such places that we are totally free to express ourselves, our creativity and imagination.
I thought how nice it would be to have such places 'teach' and 'inform' the children, by reintepreting the classroom as an external space. To do that, I inversed the figure ground and generated a series of outdoor spaces which are intended for teaching purposes. These outdoor/semi covered/ covered spaces becomes the 'classrooms' instead and the classrooms per se becomes an optional facility and for wet weather programmes only.
Negative spaces thus becomes positive spaces and the entire school is planned around these outdoor spaces, such as circulation spaces, corners, leftover spaces, spaces between classrooms...
Students can also choose to formulate their own memories based on the spaces they choose to gather. There is no central mass assembly space. Instead the spaces are broken up and fragmented and scattered all over the place. This spaces creates a sense of informality and cosiness that encourages small group teaching and interaction, rather than large, unfriendly, intimidating parade squares. Students can hang out along the external corridors, corners, rooftop, anywhere that they feel they can call their own. Each space has its own tactility, views, experience and character.
I believe that architecture should be incomplete. It should hold a certain sense of randomness and freedom that can only be expressed over time. Nothing like those shiny new building you see in magazines, but more of subtle hidden quality that would qualify it timeless.
The school is almost hidden from view from the street firstly by trees and secondly by a series of landscape walls that shield it from the public eye. The mysterious quality of these walls lie in the curiosity of the activity that takes place behind them. Over time, creepers will grow over the trellises provided within the school and camouflauge the school even further with the existing vegetation. Moss and grass would grow over the walls and create a romantised version of the 'ruin'. Students could display their works on the walls or even built upon the existing structures of the school, as a means of personalising their existence and cultivating a sense of owenership and pride. The school's eventual completeness lies in its incompleteness.
Architecture thus becomes the social platform that shape these childrens' growth and memories.
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