#normalarchitecture

MASTER BUILDERS ASSOCIATION OF MALAYSIA (MBAM) HEADQUARTERS DESIGN COMPETITION: THE PORTAL

Rethinking   An Institutional Building

Institutional buildings are often conceived as enclosed, inward looking buildings where spatial relationships are limited within itself. These kind of institutional buildings - with limited connection to the outside - belongs to the past. 

Our scheme proposes a rethink of what an institutional building should be. In place of a solid, enclosed building, we propose an open structure with equal emphasis on the relationship between internal spaces as well as with the surrounding. We believe that the architecture for an institution in the 21st century should be a open structure which enables and facilitates sets of relationships between the users, the city and the natural environments. 

It is not enough for the New MBAM Centre to be ‘just a building’. 

The Portal 

Befitting MBAM’s vision to be the ‘Prime Mover and the Recognised Voice of the Malay­sian Construction Industry’ our scheme proposes the New MBAM Centre as The Portal. Throughout the history or architecture, the portal has been used as a device to give build­ings a sense of dignity, grandeur, monumentality and also openness. The Portal is at once iconic and inviting. 

The MBAM Portal should be understood as a formal and spatial device.

Formally, The Portal is instantly iconic, a metaphorical gateway towards the future of the construction industry. Spatially, The Portal results in a monumental and generous open space framed by the building program. We call this space The Great Hall.

The Portal is more than ‘just a building’. 

Formally it defines an identity, a new image for MBAM. Spatially it creates place, a location which is filled with a sense of possibility and potential.

The Great Hall

This monumental space is conceived as an experimental multi-purpose space where exhibitions, demonstrations and other events related to the construction industry could be held. It will be a vibrant, active space filled with daylight and connected to the outside. Flexible partitions and screens will allow the space to accommodate different uses. Adjustable screen doors are lowered into place when protection from the weather is required.

The activities conducted in the Great Hall will be visible to the passers by and will serve as promotion for the activities of the New MBAM Centre. It’s ever- changing nature is a constant reminder of MBAM’s commitment to innovation and creativity.

Monumental yet inviting, The Great Hall symbolizes and realizes MBAM’s commitment to demonstrate innovative design, engineering and building excellence.

SHINKENCHIKU RESIDENTIAL DESIGN COMPETITION 2017: LIVING IN CARPARK DIMENSIONS

Malaysians love their cars. The limited access to public transportation networks forces many Malaysians to spend hours daily in the confines of their cars. Perhaps this relationship with cars also explains our preference for living in terrace (row) houses where cars are parked within the house compound and are immediately accessible.

A typical terrace house unit in Malaysia - usually 2 to 3 stories in height - averages 8 meters in width and 25 meters in length, while a carpark bay typically measures 2.5 meters in width and 5 meters in length. This proposal explores the spatial implications of reducing the width of terrace house units from 8 meters to a mere 2.5 meters- the width of a carpark bay - while retaining its length– which, at 25 meters is equivalent to the length 5 carpark bays arranged end to end.

The reduction in horizontal dimensions led to a vertical arrangement of spaces in a section with split levels. Spaces are connected to a central staircase/shelf and are always next to terraces andgardens which bring in light and air. This vertical spatial sequence culminates in an indoor garden on the top floor with a retractable roof. This proposal is not meant as a solution, or a prototype for the market, but is an attempt to question our relationship to spatial dimensions. What kind of qualities could be generated in spaces of minimal dimensions? What could it be like to live in houses with carpark dimensions?

THE GRID: INSTALLATION FOR NEUE ARTISANS 4.0

Neue Artisans is founded by BandLab: Bureau of Architecture and Design, and organised together with a collective of design enthusiasts. The initiative was to organise a design showcase in support of the ever-developing local design industry, seeking to explore improved/new techniques, experiments on possibilities and components in design, art and architecture. We encounter a pool of emerging talents here in Malaysia and the region. Neue Artisans brings together this network, and is becoming a kind of design-trade show for emerging design-makers.

For Neue Artisans 4.0, Normal Architecture together with Studio Karya were commissioned to carry out the installation under the theme ‘Technique’. Our installation took on the form of The Grid

9 POINTS ON THE GRID

• “In the spatial sense, the grid states the autonomy of the realm of art. Flattened, geometricized, ordered, it is antinatural, antimimetic, antireal. It is what art looks like when it turns its back on nature.”1 • The grid is not new, nor is it in anyway an original invention or idea. Architecture does not need to be in pursuit of the new all the time. • Any attempt to make the same grid will inevitably yield certain degrees of differences. The grid is always the same, but somehow always different. • The grid is anti iconic; it is an attempt to make architecture which is invisible, not in terms of being transparent, but rather by being a background for other things. However, the grid could also be monumental, which is different from iconic. • The grid as a construction becomes a technique to measure and frame space and events. It presents itself as a sampling and indexing device. • The grid is not formally complex, yet its apparent neutrality allows it to frame complexity. It is pointless to respond to complexity with more complexity. • The neutrality of the grid and the fact that it is an author-less, pre-existing instrument, makes it is the ideal technique for the collaboration between two practices. Without realising it, both of our practices have been fascinated by the grid. For different reasons, perhaps. • The biggest challenge in working with the grid was the discipline to stop ourselves from trying to ‘design’, beyond what is already there to be appropriated. • For us, the grid somehow addresses both the idea of limits and possibilities in architecture; both are equally fascinating and perhaps not so mutually exclusive?

TELUK KUMBAR MARKET COMPETITION

The proposal for the Teluk Kumbar Market is centred around the idea of redefining the brief in terms of what constitute the program of a market in order to best serve the local community and the introduction of the 5 FOOT RING as a conceptual and physical ordering device to frame the existing greenery on site and bring a strong coherence to assemblage of programs and forms.

Below are the main ideas underlying the proposal:

MASTER PLANNING The large area of the site in comparison to the amount of built space as requested in the brief led us to formulate a master planning strategy for the site. 

THE 5 FOOT RING Inspired by the ubiquitous 5 foot way, the 5 foot ring is here introduced as an ordering device which ties together the various components of the development. The 5 foot ring lends a strong visual identity to the scheme, while also acting as circulation and defining the area of the existing fruit orchard to be preserved as the ‘green lung’ of the development. 

THE MARKET PLACE AS AN IN BETWEEN CONDITION The scheme is an attempt at mediating between the small scale of the kampong in the vicinity and the large scale of development in the surrounding area. 

REDEFINING THE MARKET The market is redefined as series of spaces and events expanding the utilitarian requirements of the brief towards the formulation of a ‘place’ for the community. 

MARKET HALL Market stalls are staggered around a sizable central void, providing a clear sense of orientation and view of all the stalls upon entering the market hall. 

MARKET LAYOUT Stalls are laid out in a clear and straightforward manner, with clearly delineated zones for servicing and storage as well as extra spaces for informal stalls. 

PEDESTRIAN GROUND LEVEL Vehicular circulation is restricted in very specific areas of the site, ensuring a ground level which is pedestrian friendly. 

GENDER EQUALITY AND SAFETY Spaces are laid out in a manner avoiding hidden circulation and corners. The 5 foot ring which connects all the buildings, define the in-between spaces as well as contributing towards visually defensible spaces.

Ordinary Architecture does not produce any performative artificiality.We do exactly that, ordinary architecture, in a perhaps not so ordinary way. The work of Ordinary Architecture can be seen as an attempt at keeping equilibrium within intimacy, the emptiness but infilled, and the architecture in everyday. Often, the work is simply subconsciousness, at the best they make us blurred the everyday qualities which we take for being ordinary in our complex and confused urban environment.

Ordinary Architecture emerged from the studio work and researches conducted at The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design (Sep 2012 - Feb 2014) as well as other interests pursued concurrently with the Post-professional Degree.

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