On Running a Studio

You need to know your students. You must know them through and through. As conceptualisers, as technicalisers…

“If Torres was a robot who was impossible to injure, and whose performance could not be diminished through overwork, then yes – maybe we’d see him start more games, and maybe we’d only need three strikers. But that takes Rafa’s belief in ‘possibilities’ out of the equation, and the fact he’d rather have 4 strikers deliver 15 goals than one delivering 20. ” (quoted from this link)

Rafa can’t do that yet. He wants the ‘two’ Liverpool team to work as one and I think he is dealing with Defensive and Attacking concepts. What people usually call as set pieces are even subsets of these D and A concepts. That’s why strategic and tactical knowledge is important for each and every player to ’synthesise’ in their game.

It is not everyone got a ‘different role’ anymore. Its everyone got two or three roles and they may overlap with another player. So to tackle a ‘defensive team’ that packs the midfield, he will fill it with more ‘defensive concept minded players’ so that they will unravel the other team.

He can do so much as implement his system. At the end of the day the players need to implement it well.

The team will be poor when they are not concentrating or not fit, in the case of Portsmouth and Porto game. In the case of Birmingham, the strikers and midfielders employing the concepts somehow got confused or did not managed to subdue the opposition. The opposition actually READ the concepts.

The concepts often work, because what Rafa does for the first 30 minutes is to BREAK DOWN the opposition team and then the team will run riot in the 2nd half. This had been shown prior to Portmouth and even with Chelsea, a big team. Hence his conceptual play really works.

So perhaps he need a BREAKER or some kind of psychological tactic to deploy against teams that read his concepts. Traditionally by sitting back and absorbing attack after attack is one ploy, ie suddenly go defensive when one expects you to attack. However it needs to have the whole team to turn it around on cue and the fans to actually appreciate that its a tactic and that it will work.

Fans now is not appreciating the system with its D & A concepts…fans are reactive to say the least.

Collaboration

Look here. We must collaborate. Take time to gel. Work out projects together. Find meaningful association.

Architecture is a dialogue – between materials and ideas, between functionality and beauty, between personal taste and good design, between human beings and the natural world. (Jeanette Winterson)

I have been following Huat Lim for ages. No, I have not been stalking him. I have been watching him professional-wise. There is something about him that exudes purpose and direction. He has something to say.

We collaborated earlier. He came in as a part-time studio master. He had a lot to give to students. His approach is research-based. Sometimes I am not sure exactly what he is saying, but I know what he meant when he said something.

I met him at his company the other day. It is thriving and after a long wait something is emerging.

After coming back from my study leave, I think it is time to collaborate further. One must always get inspired.

(Picture above shows The Challenge Park which is something I am looking forward to as it is now in the piling construction stage at Putrajaya.)

The Black Box

“However, as numerous commentators from Reyner Banham to Jeremy Till have pointed out, architectural education is a bit like a ‘‘black box’’ in so far as students enter as laypersons and exit as architects, but what happens within the black box is little understood.” (Webster,2007)

What sort of a black box is our school?  I think the first two years will make a lot of difference on how our students perceive what is an architect. A set of disciplined teaching is needed where we will bring this ‘layperson’ to a point where he or she can find him or herself.

A black box of discovery is needed where we will create defining moments. A sense of discovery will only be possible when a set of belief is made to overcome a set of challenges. I know it is not as simple as it sounds but we have done these ’sets’ before. It is now for an in depth review and how we shall provide the right set of challenges.

The Difference Between What You Want and What They Want

It is like a huge gap…between what you want and what they want. If you keep on doing things because they want it so, or you think you are going to get somewhere thinking that this is probably what they want and you will probably get somewhere, perhaps a promotion or lots of reward, unless you have it in writing and in a contract…Forget it!

I have spoken and known so many architects who are pratising having potential clients not paying for their preliminary designs. It’s the same thing when you think about whatever that is you are doing, studying or working.

You are doing something and you need to get it done. You then go about doing it mechanically and just following procedures. Your mind is numb and you are not excited. You are not allowed to explore and get excited.

Well, dear…that is your fault, to be honest. You can choose not to be preconceived in life and do things how you would like and want it to be.

It is your coice.

Life as an Artist

Deeper joints and more insightful connections…that is what I want to make. I feel disengaged and unsatisfied when I have to skim, surface and ‘overalled’ my work.

We all are artists. There are parts of us that write, paint, draw, compose and create things. That part of us needs to be nurtured and grow. That part of us feels for what happens around us.

Yesterday, I went to this Merdeka Architects Forum at Petronas Twin Towers. A group of people that gathered there were part of Malaysia’s Architectural History. All felt the pain of indifference. All were swollen and hurt when Subang Airport was demolished. You need history because the memory is important. It is not nostalgia. It’s a connection to a Deeper History. 

I believe that the role of the artist changes, according to the time that he or she must inhabit. I have felt strongly that in our time, the inner life, the imaginative life, the life of the mind, needed strengthening and protection, because we live so much on the outside, pretending that all our needs can be met by a bit more shopping and better technology. I have never been much interested in naturalistic writing – a kind of printed version of TV dramas, and I have tried to use the exactness of a heightened poetic language to prompt thought and to make new connections – not surface connections, but deeper joints. (Jeannette Winterson)

Curriculum Review

Excuse me for being emotional as we cannot exclude our feelings when we deal with something that we care about. We care about our learning programmes at UM. We must be passionate and anything less will relegate us to the role of posers and robots.

Posers are just muppets letting other people pull the strings. It would be very good indeed if those people pulling the strings have the same objectives as us, but if not, then the learning programme will be doomed.
Another idea is to make sure people know exactly what we want and that it all fits into the overall framework.

We must make explicit what we want.

We want DESIGN PROCESS to be an important part of the programme.

We want ARCHITECTURAL TYPES and TYPOLOGY to be an important learning component of the training of the Architect.

We want DESIGN PHILOSOPHY to be the ’seed’ where the branches and roots of ideas would sprout from.

With this grounding apart from the emphasis on drafting and model-making, the students will be able to VISUALISE better. They will be able to identify theselves as a would be architect.

Between Gimmick and Soul

Is it because UM students do not like to read that they are not able to conceptualise?

“Rubbish!”, you may say, but I think that the truth could be nearer than the heart artery. I think we need to nail this somehow. Looking at 3rd, 4th and 5th year work so far, in the interims, I noticed this. I noticed that most of the students have a lack of design finesse or sense of being a designer. Why?

This is bothering me. This is nagging me.

Between gimmick and soul.

Between literal and conceptual.

Can we have passion here? I don’t care if you want to be a technical assistant or just find a job. I want you to want to be an architect. What are you doing here?