Archemist Blog
This is a space for my own architectural related musings. Sometimes it is about a movie, a book, a show, or even something that I’ve come across online. Happy reading!
The Variations Of A Blur - A Year That Has Been
I won’t deny that this year has had its various ups and downs. What felt like a year that was filled with starts and stops also felt like a year of wandering through a blanket of haze. There would be days when I wish time would slow down for me, and there would be days where I resented the slowness of time. I watched people whom I admire opening themselves to another avenue, while I am asking myself whether I am demanding enough to meet the expectations of myself at work. The dynamic of spectating others and their growth while struggling to witness my own was distinguishable – added the internal reviews asking me whether I am getting what I want in a relatively mentally fatiqued state made me wonder if I felt satisfied from those discussions after all.
Where Writing Builds
The 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…
Like Really? You Want Me To Think Like That?
It's an exhausting and ongoing cry for journalism when it comes to the treatment and portrayal of women in the eyes of men. So I would like to share with you a rant that I’ve had with my friends three years ago – one I was terrified of sharing publicly but now feel confident in sharing now.
Girls' Generation 'Forever1' MV - A Review
For a K-Pop enthusiast who was first introduced to Girls’ Generation (SNSD), I thought it’d be fitting to write about SNSD’s comeback video. After all – who wouldn’t like to celebrate and reminisce on some of their highlights while sneaking in a tiny review of my thoughts on this glittery video?
Where did written criticisms go?
Recently, during a lunch discussion about an architecture the architects was reviewing, I raised sarcastic laughs from them when I absent-mindedly asked if their review was a ‘glowing one’. In the landscape of Architecture media, or media in Australia – in which defamation cases can receive severe punishments, there is a semi-walking-on-eggshells feeling when it comes to leaving your opinions about something you’re not particularly fond of. Where reviews are often a poetic description and capturing of the project, and critique is perceived to be dragging the project through the mud, the opinion piece becomes difficult to distinguish whether it’s a review or a constructive critique.
Archimarathon Studio: A Remedy to the Studio Culture Missing in the Digital Realm
I think I’ve spoken quite publicly about the fatigue that washed over me while I taught architecture online two years ago (my my how time flies). While we are in an age in that grants us various ways to connect in a digital replica of a studio, the lack of interaction among the students without the occasional dialogue of ‘no you speak first’ has really diminished the support system for architecture students (or any students let’s be honest). More importantly, watching hopeful eyes slowly lose their shine has been difficult to watch. Where we’ve been conditioned to learn physically (and also understand the importance of in-person engagement), the digital studio culture has severed that liveliness often bubbling from the physical classroom.