It's DOME DAY!

Registering our dome...say cheese^^

This is 10 September 2008. Important day! We have to assemble our dome today, after so many hard work. And now, final work on our dome. Putting our dome on our site and getting started with final steps to complete it.

Putting on the cover on the dome...

Dome completed! Photo taken from the door of the dome.

YEAH! Taking photo with our dome. Nice work!

And for the domesday, it can be seen in different scales. By using what our lecturer taught us, there are seven scales: object, interior, building, premise, urban, regional and global.

In this case, it can be like this:

-object:it can be a member of dome, the timber

-interior:the dome. Since the timber is inside the dome...

-building:HBP

-premise:Minden Valley dome spine, on HBP premise

-urban:Minden

-regional:Penang

-global:Malaysia, South East Asia, Asia

On your mark...get set...DOME!

New project launched. We were asked to form a team of five for the project. It sounds quite hard at first since we had no idea on it.
I have linked the project with what our lecturer, Mr. Wan Burhanuddin taught before, the six elements.
Intention- Build a dome, Experiental, Holistic, Simulative, and Learning
Act - Design, Build domestic dome, and Assemble it within given time
Actor - The members of the group 'Immortal' :
Moh Chink Seong (Construction Management)
Lew Cheng Keok (Construction Management)
Tan Geok Hoon (Construction Management)
Adriana Ling Sing (Quantity Survey)
Chan Gui Ping (Building Technology)
Rule - As what given by Mr. Wan Burhanuddin: using recycleable materials, zero cost, prefabricated, packaged, accomodate five persons, able to be carried by three persons, assemble in 30 minutes, show team identity
Site - Near HBP, Minden Valley Dome Spine. Our location is number 24, which is just below the BHEPP.

(Taken from cikwan's website)
Product - A domestic dome

(1v dome is what we going build)


First day started our meeting for dome. Everyone was so excited about this project. Giving opinions, finding informations, discussing about the dome, these are our activities in the first meeting. We came to the conclusion using wires to make the frame of the dome. And perhaps, timber to support our dome.


It was Friday. We went to the construction site opposite our school to find the timber. Finally, we found six timbers of about 1.7 meter.

This is the base of our dome. Learnt how to tie the bamboo together.Quite satisfied with the shape of the base-star, a big star.This is the first step to SUCCESS!



Tieing the bamboos together and building a five-port. We used so much energy to tie it tightly.


Ta-da~ the frame of our dome. So enourmous and even much more larger than what we expected before.


The night before domesday. We put on the cover on the top of the dome and tried to finish the higher part since during the domesday, we cant climb up to reach the top.

PRODUCT: Form and Space

There are attributes of product. We can see the form in the properties of materials, such as the color, texture, pattern, transparency, shape, size and others. Therefore, we can decide whether the product is good or not, beautiful or ugly and so on.

There is space for product. Either the product is welcoming, accommodating, tight, and else.

There is space on object scale, interior, building, premise, urban, region, global. Between the scales, there are nodes and paths connecting each other. We can identify a product from its attributes of form and space.

Site: Scale of the Built Environment

There are different scales in production model. In a production, there could be another production with smaller scale. For an example, take a bottle as a product, there are other smaller product-the cap of the bottle, the label, and the water. The scales can mainly divided into groups as below:

For production on different scale, the six elements-intention, act, product, actor, rule, and site are almost same.

INTENTION - Ideologies, design theories…the ideologies can be those from what we learnt last lecture.
ACT - Scope of work (development procedures…from start to end)
PRODUCT - Design of physical objects to physical world
ACTOR - Industrial designer, Interior architect, Architect, Landscape architect, Urban designer, Planner, “Governor”
RULE - Legal aspects of development
SITE - From factories to the internet

There are different ways to view the world, our Earth. There is Eurocentric view which is the one we usually seen on the world map.

Opposedly, there is another view called Pacific, Malaka perspective. Where Malaka hide the meaning of kingdom, even king.

And another kind of view, the Buckminster Fuller's view. Earth has became a spaceship. Hence, everything on Earth is actually lonely on them own. There is nothing there beyond the spaceship. However, perhaps there are many other spaceships out there- those so called alien, UFO...

In this lecture, we are learning about the dying planet-Earth. Therefore, the site we are talking about will be the Earth. And for the actors, will be everyone living on the earth-earthling, inhabitant of earth, global villager, designer, builder, and even developer. The intention of the actors? Of course, gold and glory. I bet none will say he or she does not intend for it. The act will be design and build…which causes destruction. The economics will be the rule in this production model. The product? DESTRUCTION, that’s what brings dying planet.

Thus, we learnt about the understanding of Earth has changed. The earth cannot sustain the increasing population. So, what should we do in order to save the world? Perhaps, the easiest way-human should kill one another? To reduce the population? Spray diseases everywhere to let people die?Iatrogeny? Here comes the point. Oh well, I support what Mr. Wan Burhanuddin said about killing useless people first. Since they are just like the parasite on the world! YUCKS!
<=Parasite??? (photo taken from google website) Iatrogeny is defined as something caused by treatment or diagnostic procedures. An iatrogenic disorder is a condition caused by medical personnel or procedures or through exposure to the environment of a health care facility, including fears instilled in patients by remarks or questions of examining physicians. Thus, iatrogeny can be another cause of death nowadays. What surprises the most is- it becomes the third major cause of death in USA! Perhaps, mankind are trying to kill ownselves. This makes me think of rats...while many rats are kept in a place without food, they will start to eat themselves...no matter it is its brother or sister or mother...And this seems to happen in human world too. Killing among human, for survival. So, iatrogeny, is it accident or incident? Actually, sometimes I do think about this…whether I am useful or useless to this society. Does my existence here on earth bring any changes? Is it good to the world or not? This lecture inspires me to have such intention- being a useful people to society, NOT RUBBISH. Erm, the act? Study hard, work hard! Gambateh!

USM 38th Convocation 2008

From Event to Oval

The Production of a Built Environment






Photo taken during the first day of convocation. Quite bustling^^..


Another side of the site…Same, so many people…They are also the actors in this production?


Wow…time for eating…coming for food or convo?(Photo taken during third day of convo-16/8)

Cool…suddenly everything just gone like that…here comes the end of convocation. Another product?


Finally, really gone everything…just like nothing happened before…

Production Model

What is meant by production? Perhaps, it can be explained as a process of producing something. After this lecture, I found out that there must be six elements to undergo a production. The elements are intention, act, product, actor, rule and site. The combination of these elements can answer the Wh- questions.
Intention is referred to an aim to do something. It can be explicit or implicit, constructive or destructive, good or bad and so on. Intention must be accomplished with knowledge. Therefore, we must have knowledge before having intention. Knowledge is a product of certain act by actor. The acts to gain knowledge are listening, seeing, and understanding.
Rule is something about right or wrong. There are many different kinds of ideology, concluded in different –isme. For the ideology which saying that there is no right and no wrong, it is altruism. While ideology saying everything is wrong refers to cynicism. Relativism says that everything is right. For those who always look for the truth, they are practicing truth-seekerisme. And Taoism says that the truth is there when there is no lie. For me, I think I am practicing altruism because I think everything is coming in their forms as they should, there is no right and no wrong. It is just the way it is. By the way, rule can also be man-made or natural. It can be climatic, technological, economic, or global.
Product is the result of act. It can be physical, mental or spiritual. Site can be differentiated into two major groups: real site or virtual site. Real site is what we can see in reality. For example, the land, floor, table, or even paper. However, the virtual site is where we cannot feel or touch, such as mind, dream and internet.