Taylor's university Bsc. in architecture

1. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Chong Jia Yi ID No.: 0320869
Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Tutorial Time: Wed
Reader/Text Title: The Metropolis and Mental
Life
Synopsis No: 1
Author: Georg Simmel
The metropolis and the mental life dissects the struggle to preserve one’s independence and
individuality against the power of society and the external culture and technique of life. The author had
concluded that the metropolis life had led to an intellectualistic attitude of the metropolitan, with the
integration of money economy.
In Simmel's points of view, money dominates the life of metropolitan into a calculating lifestyle.
Money has become the unit to determine a precision and a degree of certainty, as an exchange value
which reduces all quality and individuality to a purely quantitative level. I find this point relevant to the
life nowadays as people tend to measure the success of others people by how much they earn rather
than their personalities and characteristics. When money intervenes with the relationship between
peoples, interaction between peoples are restricted at the superficial level, and results in a loss of
intimacy. This situation is inevitable in the ever-changing and compact metropolitan’s milieu. For
instance, I lived in a condominium with about 15 units at each level, each unit consists about 6 peoples,
which means I have 90 neighbours, and this doesn't even include the people from other blocks. Their
behavior are varied as they are from different state or country. Local peoples are usually friendlier, some
even invite us to have a drink in their place, while people from outstation tends to distance themselves
from others. In addition, their stay are temporal and short, and its make us hard to interacting with each
other. That’s why the relationship of the metropolitan is manifold as every day we are passively
contacting with over 90 people with unpredictable interests and characteristics. Therefore, we developed
an intellectualistic attitude, as we need punctuality, calculability and exactness quality of the money
economy to solve the complication and extensiveness of our life.
In modern metropolitan life, money takes the place to express the manifoldness of life, hence
result to the blasé outlook of the city. I believe that is an inexorable result of civilization process of
society. However, in the process to simplify the complexion of our life, we shouldn’t suppress the
qualitative uniqueness of an individual, by calculating with money. In short, we should find a balance
between the calculating practical life, and the manifoldness of life in the aspect of relationships and
individual values.
Word Count: 388 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.
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2. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Chong Jia Yi ID No.: 0320869
Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Tutorial Time: Wed
Reader/Text Title: Intentions in architecture Synopsis No: 2
Author: Christian Norberg-schulz
This reader is perceived as the formwork of Post modernism, which pointed that Modernism is
solely an idea rather than a worked out solution for modern architecture. The objective of this reader is
to seek the cultural meaning in built forms by studying the relationship between task and solution of
the historical architecture.
In my opinion, the main problem with modernism architecture is the building is becoming one
of the industrial products of modern capitalism that are meaningless. The form of the building had no
reference to the cultural intention or certain function with the purpose to represent its cultural structure.
I agree that his point to study architectural history is not to copy its form, but to investigate the method
of solution of the architectural problems in the past. Therefore, modern architecture neither be avant-
garde that breaks completely with tradition, nor imitation of the old architecture. We should conserve
on the structural principles of traditional architecture to facilitate our experimentation of modern
architectural form with the essence of place. In Malaysia context, I found that The deck house in Janda
Baik, Pahang, which designed by Ar. Choo Gim Wah, had shown its extensive research on the design of
vernacular architecture, specifically on malay kampung house. The architect cleverly composed the
vernacular elements to solve the contextual problem, for example slope landscape, by using elevated
timber decking derived from the structural principle of kampung house to conform the landscape as
well as for ventilation purpose. By studying and integrating with the architectural tradition and the
modern built form, it result to the formation of new types of architecture to solve functional, sociological
and cultural issue nowadays.
In conclusion, although I agreed that every architecture should somehow interrelated by its
cultural and contextual intention, but a new aesthetic exploration with forms and visual order is certainly
critical. However, to what extent should we let the historical architectural theory to confine the modern
built form? Maybe that’s the question that every architect should ponder about when they designing
their buildings.
Word Count: 326 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.

3. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Chong Jia Yi ID No.: 0320869
Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Tutorial Time: Wed
Reader/Text Title: Space, memory and
imagination: The temporal dimension of
existential space
Synopsis No: 3
Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
The reader basically writes about the relationship between existential space and the cognitive
experience of human, which is critical in place making process. According to Pallasmaa, the architecture
had play a significant role in perpetuate the historical essence as well as concretized memories of a
place.
First, she stated that the architecture can act as mnemonic devices as it is able to materialize and
preserve time, concretized remembrance as well as inspired and stimulate our memories toward a place.
I agree with the writer’s point as the old shop houses in Kuala Lumpur had shown its nature to
concretized memory and the essences of the old KL. As the time passed, the place changed accordingly.
However, the façade of the shop houses, which depict the ornamental elements of the different period
of time and culture, had to continually remind us of the Western colonization and the Chinese migration
culture.
“We live in mental worlds, in which material and the spiritual, as well as the experience,
remembered and imagined, constantly fuse into each other.” The writer strongly emphasis throughout
the article that the world is constructed mentally based on our fragmental experience, memory and
imagination. I feel that this point of view is related to my life. For example, my childhood is a fragmental
memory from varied environments as my family moved our house quite often. I could remember the
feeling and the atmosphere of meandering along the corridors of my houses, even some petty details
of the houses, but it is hard for me to recognize the location of the houses specifically. Therefore, I
agree that we perceived the world mentally through our situational and spatialized memory. Back to
the first point, architecture is to make those memories in our experiential world physically. When I going
back to my old houses, most of those memories that I forgot previously will suddenly flow back to my
mind, as I walk through the buildings. In other words, architecture helps us memorized our experience.
In short, I perceived architecture as a timeless space that preserves time and memory of a place,
hence evoke imagination of the people. Therefore, heritage architecture that has the historical value
which contented a lot of collective memories of the locals should be preserved and conserve to prevent
the loss of cultural value of the place.
Word Count: 366 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.

4. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Chong Jia Yi ID No.: 0320869
Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Tutorial Time: Wed
Reader/Text Title: Towards a critical regionalism:
Six points for an architecture of resistance
Synopsis No: 4
Author: Kenneth Frampton
Kenneth Frampton wrote this reader as the reaction toward the universality of post modernism.
The objective of this reader is to investigate the methodology of architecture to maintain the elements
of regional influence at the same time taking part in universal civilization. He found that modernist
architecture had no content or meaning, and it is boring.
He points out when utility becoming the only focus on architecture, the building become
meaningless. It is because the design and the form are restricted by high technology production, hence
lack of interaction between architecture and the contextual culture and civilization. I agree that the
utilitarian mass production had making the form of the building universal, yet I am not agree that it is
solely cause by the utilitarian construction method such as mass production and pre-fabrication of
building components. A new definition to the contextual response of a building should based on the
arrangement of the prefabricated elements, no entirely based on the design of the building elements
solely. For example, Taylor’s Lakeside campus that utilized IBS (Industrialized building system) had show
considerable response to the tropical environment through the strategy on climatic design. The large
overhangs, covered walkway and open courtyard design are borrowed solution of the traditional
architectural response toward hot and humid environment of the site. While using prefabricated element
in the building construction, it still able to maintain the elementary form of the local architecture, which
imply the regional identity of site.
Furthermore, he insist that avant garde had retarding the regional culture on architecture, while
only an arriere-garde could sustained as critical regionalism. I agree on his point of contextual
architecture, which means that architecture should derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular
place. As the context different, the architectural design should be different to fit into culture and people’s
needs. Architectural design should be served as the place making as the local identity of a place too.
For instance, Simpson-Lee House designed by Glenn Mercutt is a successful case to adopt modern
architecture to the context of the building. Although the building is mainly built from steel and concrete,
which is not vernacular, the architecture response to its context through the reinterpretation on the
Australia’s vernacular architecture including verandahs, overhangs, roofing shape, building form and
layout.
In conclusion, I believe that architecture is a critical place making elements that help to create, at
the same time preserve the sense of identity as well as the cultural and historical value of a place. Even
though we are moving forward to the modern world civilization, the national spirit and local value
shouldn’t be neglected in the future development.
Word Count: 440 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.