Public Spaces for Bukit Bintang

Our final assignment of the semester! Now that we've done our analysis on our site, we shall then apply them into real life!

So our lecturers set the scenario for us: Imagine Bukit Bintang is empty, now your job as an architect is to redesign and enhance this urban district by implementing public spaces. We're required to present our proposal with the use of presentation boards and a model of our new site (yes, finally! Tiny buildings and trees on the way!)

I'm thinking, Bukit Bintang does look a bit too compact, hence why not let this place "breathe"?
We're going to make it more susainable and green! (wow it rhymes, somehow)

There are five things we agreed to focus on improving our site:

• better connectivity, transportation and safety
• more green and eco-friendly
• better public spaces
• more cultural
• retaining and enhancing Bukit Bintang as the (when I mean "the", I mean "THE") shopping and entertainment district

It was an exciting yet difficult journey as we now had to literally stay overnight on campus to fulfil our tasks. This is how we look like :

Just staring at the same old modelling boards and the masterplan for days!

Hence, after days of changing and improving our design on our site, this was our product!

 Our proposal to improve connectivity and our public spaces in Bukit Bintang.

 Our masterplan of our proposed site.

 Our proposal to make Bukit Bintang more cultural and green, and also to strengthen its image as a shopping and entertainment district.

Our site model, 1:1250.

As every assignment I had had its lessons, these were what I'd learned:

1. when they said design according to scale, they really mean it. In the beginning, we realised our roads on the model were too wide - 5m per lane yoo that's wow, and our buildings were too big. We had to redo nevertheless we're fortunate to have our lecturers who willingly stayed with us till the wee hours of the morning just to tutor us despite the fasting season. You go lecturers!
2. Masterplanning is important! It's challenging as we needed to consider the consequences of our descisions - where to place our parks, why can't we put it there or why should we place our buildings this way.
3. For a site proposal, we need to have aims and we need references to support our ideas. You can't just put a London Bridge into Bukit Bintang just because, you need to have relevant reasons and evidence.

Overall, it was a success! Couldn't have done it without them actually because I had this issue where I could just shut down anytime. We had a lot of fun doing our model despite the time constraint. I think I need to train myself to not fall asleep at the wrong times.

Bukit Bintang Analysis

Up next is the final series of ENBE - the Built Series. And for our first assignment, we need to do a proper site analysis based on a given site. For my case, it's Bukit Bintang, in the heart of the entertainment side of KL. Hey, that's also where my high school was located!

First and foremost, let me introduce to you my new groupmates - from left to right - Janelle, Rihana, Jing Kai, Charlotte and Christal.

And you must be wondering what's with the cameras, comfortable attire and shoes, backpacks and us out in the streets? Well, that's basically part of our work for a good analysis. If we really want to make a good report on Bukit Bintang, we must first experience Bukit Bintang ourselves. That brings up us learning how to make deeper observations using our five senses, our courage to be curious and venture into corners which we've never been before, and not to forget, plenty of research, from the history to the elements of what makes a good urban area.

This is my booklet, aka report on my Bukit Bintang Analysis

Bukit Bintang Site Analysis from Carmen Chan

Three things I want to take from this site analysis project are:

1. maps are really important in explaining your site. What do you see in this place? Indicate. Which part has this interesting feature? Indicate. How long do you have to take from one place to another. Indicate that too. And for that, maps help a lot.
2. for me, observation has gone to a whole new level. Now I have to experience intangible, abstract feature of my site - as in, which part of the urban area is high end, and which part is low end, which part feels dangerous, etc.
3. SWOT analysis is also essential in this report. I needed to determine the strong points of Bukit Bintang, which are its entertainment and shoppin district, and also its weakness - congestion of people and vehicles and pollution, mainly air and sound. I also had to propose solutions to improvise Bukit Bintang as well.

Overall, this was a whole new adventure for me and my groupmates. We actually had to stay overnight to experience Bukit Bintang to its full potential. And the two hour trips from college to this gem area were really worth the memories. This time I've understood Bukit Bintang more deeply and I fell in love with this urban space once again.

Taman Negara in Boards and Stamps

Our final component of our Nature Series is to present a topic related to Taman Negara in Presentation Boards, and also First-Day Stamps to promote awareness about nature. Fyi, presentation boards are a phase of an architect's life. And we're about to get a taste of it this assignment.

This assignment will be done as groups. Hence, I teamed up with Jun, John, Ibraheim and Keshav. Interesting fact : each of us came from totally distinct and different locations around and abroad Malaysia. How cool was that?

My group - The International Honeybees (because according to Jun, Honeybees are natural architects, which is true!)

We are required to choose a topic based on a significant feature or phenomenon of Taman Negara. So after discussion and research, we decided that Bioluminescent Fungi was our topic because glow-in-the-dark phenomenon usually occurs in the rainforest, which was a damp and dark environment, feasible for this species to grow.

And off we worked for our assignment!

Our presentation day had finally arrived. And that's when we found out how our classmates had been doing with their boards. Theirs were professional, I had to admit, in fact, more professional and better than ours. Each of us knew we're doomed. But still, we decided to continue and do our best to the end. We needed to save this assignment.

This is our presentation boards and stamps:

My Taman Negara Scrapbook from Carmen Chan

Our presentation:

We had a critique session from the panel after that (again, critique sessions are a phase of an architect's life, up to this day, I still cringe and my heart still aches from the comments on my/group's work). As expected, our group's work was obviously not up to par with the others, and even so, we were way far behind in our presentation. However, they commended us for our knowledge on the topic, our verbal presentation, and the interest and attraction of our topic. Nevertheless, we're still unable to translate our topic into visuals.

1. It was a bittersweet progress. Explaining my work visually was still a challenge for me. But I really need to learn how to do it. I need practise. *Back to pinterest where all the inspiration comes*
2. Besides, workmanship is also important in each assignment. The way the alphabets are aligned, the fonts need to be the same, the colours need to match. All these tiny details can make a large impact on your work.
3. Finally, teamwork. A group assignment really requires a lot of teamwork to be successful. One big mistake we committed was that we did our boards individually. Because of that, our workmanship was greatly affected.

Now that my teammates and I have learnt our lessons. We shall move on. And continue to improve on ourselves! Besides, we're there for each other right up to the end.

Taman Negara in a Book

We're back from our trip and now it's time to get started in our first assignment, and that was - to detail your findings from Taman Negara and compile them in a scrapbook. In architectural version, it's basically to prepare a report based on your analysis of Taman Negara. Haha for this, we're doing it in an interesting and fun way.

Behold my scrapbook.

My Taman Negara Scrapbook from Carmen Chan

If you are coming into FNBE soon and if you happen to be assigned to do this, these are my advices for you:

1. In whatever assignment you do, take it seriously! And by what I mean seriously, I mean be patient in presenting the best of your work. If you want to do a good job in your assignments, patience, preseverence and tahan-ness is key. (they basically mean the same thing)
2. This assignment is really challenging for me because I needed to narrate my adventure with visuals as my emphasis - pictures, sketches, drawings, you name it. People understand more easily if you put up pictures. You don't have to be architect or a designer for this advice, if you want to present your work, besides verbal and text, you have to learnt how to present visually.
3. Research before, during and after your assignment. Throughout the process of this assignment, I realised that you need to do a lot of research, from how you observe your surroundings, to the making of a scrapbook, and right up to how you should author your trip. You even need to know how to arrange your content and how you want your scrapbook to look like before you begein. I found some parts difficult to complete because I needed to express my observations about Taman Negara more in depth.

And that's for my scrapbook assignment. It could have been much better. Nevertheless, I felt proud of my work because I kind of use resources of what I had in the house and it looked like a legit scrapbook. And I put effort and tried my hand at painting. *satisfied*

Experiencing Nature

For our Nature Series, our class had organised a trip to Taman Negara, which is said to be one of the most legendary and the oldest rainforest in the world. This is to encourage us to get an exposure to how the natural environment is like.

When I first heard that we're going to a rainforest for three days, I felt pretty nervous and excited about it at the same time because this was going to be my very first experience to a natural place *city girl problems*. Nevertheless, I had enjoyed myself and I came back home with a craving for outdoor adventures now. *still am and proud with no regrets!*

To venture into the deeper parts of the forest, we had to travel by boat. This was me, with Tom and Qhalis. These were our "OMG" faces.

Would you look at that humongous tree..the tiny orange thing at the left corner of this picture is actually some of my friends in a boat! See the dramatic difference in size!

Caught this little black insect during our Night Walk

Reached the peak of Bukit Teresek. Challenging hike but worth it. The view was a beautiful sight!

We also visited an Orang Asli Village. And this is the roof of an Orang Asli home. Made of natural materials with bamboo as the main structure frame.

Oh, and we had this game series throughout our trip called "King of the Jungle". Our class was divided into three tribes. I was chosen to lead one of the tribes which we called Kabuto (beetle in Japanese). I was scared to lead at first, but then my tribal mates were really encouraging and helpful. And together, we made the night awesome!

One of our first pictures together as a class, and more to come! This was just the beginning of FNBE January 2016.

Besides making fond memories from our short adventure, I actually learned a lot.

1. I realised how vast, beautiful and different the world of nature is. I felt intimidated by how majestic nature poses and also felt that nature should not be destroyed. I felt the need to protect it.
2. Since we're going to be architects in the future, our profession is going to greatly impact nature. This is going to remind us while planning how to design our building, we will also need to strongly consider the effect it has on its surroundings. Is it going to destroy or *hopefully* improve?
3. If you want to fully experience something, you have to learn how to observe well, by using your five senses and also be courageous to be curious. Open yourself up to the surroundings.