It took me nearly four years to finally grasp that feeling of wanting to design something for myself – where the direction, while guided and navigated by my peers, but towards the end came into fruition of something that I believe in.
Looking back at my architectural education – it felt like majority of my work was predominantly shaped by a combination of envy and the desire to feel validated for my design. A deep level of insecurity was sparked from jumping into another world without being aware of the lingo nor the terminologies others have been equipped with already. For me, coming from a school that prioritised final grades for reputation – it seemed like the only solution for me to understand or adjust to each semester was designing through the lens of my tutor.
Read MoreThe space was filled with a complete minute of silence when my colleague posed this question to me. Having giddily shared my freelance writing during idle moments at work, my colleague humoured me with a challenging prompt. To choose between writing or architecture initially felt like a demand to choose my favourite child…
Read MoreA few evenings ago, I attended a MUPSS discussion on ‘Planning for Pandemics’. While the conversation opened up a floodgate of talking points, I am finding myself overwhelmed by topics that have surfaced in the face of this crisis.
I’ve tried many times to pen an entry to this, however, the result left me writing a two-meter long mind dump on a list of things that I wanted to say and common threads that have been mentioned in the news, conversations, and social media. Below is condensation and an overview of what I’ve written.
Read MoreOne day, I bumped into my construction tutor at a social work event. We conversed about uni and work, laughed over the fun moments during class. One thing he shared about that was particularly insightful to me was that he finds joy to see his students continue to develop into outstanding architects. But beyond that, the most rewarding experience to being a tutor is to be able to see students grow away from the education bubble and becoming good mentors for other students as well.
I’m interested to hear their stories again in ten years time. And how will my journey continue?
Read MoreI will never forget a classmate of mine commented on how I looked haggard and worn down after putting up with my optimistic personality in life drawing class in first year. Till this day I still don’t know how to feel about the comment. Perhaps it is the experience from first year of architecture and to be able to be in the studio of our choice, our decision makings are different, and should we land in something that matters to us, our optimism may still be there, but the first year experience has given us some layer of realities of what’s to come.
Continuing from our previous conversation, Lily and I have reflected on the lessons we have learned during our time at architecture school – ones that we learned and applied along the way.
Read MoreIn this series, I’ve teamed up with my friend Lily Jiang. The two of us have experienced very different paths and have reflected on different issues that we would’ve like to have known, things we have encountered during and after leaving architecture school. These are small memos to ourselves in the past and future and for anyone really.
Read MoreI'm sure many avid Dezeen readers, architecture colleagues and my friends are aware of the hot topic that has exploded recently. After the news of Junya Ishigami's recently commissioned Serpentine Pavilion, where he is obligated to pay those who are involved with the project due to his unpaid internships. The news was immediately followed by another article condemning firms that provide unpaid internship shouldn't be commissioned by high profile galleries.
Read MoreLast week, my friend and I were polishing off our pancakes on our long overdue catch up when he asked me the question. Our conversation has reached a point where our doubts and wariness for our future has us questioning about the choices we have made in our lives so far. The amount of studying and measures taken to achieve our ambitions was evidently wearing us down. "I guess it's because we know that we may not get the opportunity to design something like the way we do again - in a practice at least..."
Read MoreAfter fours years of studying architecture, it was the first time a tutor challenged my architectural beliefs. At that point I never really thought of the implications honestly, I used to believe that as an architecture student, so long as we have good contextual and background knowledge and attention to detail, we should be able to produce an infrastructure that would serve a good purpose.
Read MoreWords are an extremely powerful weapon. Whether it'd be vocal or written, whatever comments made directed to you can always have an overwhelming impact. It's a common thing to talk about among my group of friends (whether they're from Architecture school or high school) about the comments that really places us on the edge - which in turn has catalysed extremely cautious personalities within.
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