OK, let’s hire a real architect now

I know, I have been talking about this since the last two posts but it’s time to make that move.

The design ideas need to be translated onto paper now. You have armed yourself with referrals from friends and relatives. Names of potential candidates and their contacts are listed in alphabetical order or by their reputation.

In this day and age, you can drop an email to the prospect if talking on the phone proves a jittery affair. A simple query about what design style you fancy can make you stumped silly grappling for an answer, silence looming in the air for a few seconds. Even though you think you know it, everything will be turned upside down when you are facing the architect.

We were still in London when we contacted our architect, or to be grammatically correct, the guy we hoped would agree to be our architect. It was really just a phone call away but time difference would mean that I had to time it right. Ring him in the evening then I might catch him just as he’s about to have a nightcap or something. Or make the call very early UK time so that I would reach him nicely just as he reached his office. But the truth was I didn’t want to do either. I just did not want to get on the phone because I didn’t know what to expect out of the conversation. Rejection can be cruel and that’s some scary thought.

In order to squeeze into his possibly busy schedule and make our intrusion worth considering, we decided that the contact to be made had to be somewhat special. Email would be too ordinary. Snail mail would be so passé. A phone call, well, let’s not go there again.

Then we thought of this scheme that we thought would definitely stop him in his footsteps. The idea was this: what if we sent him a series of postcards? Make that one postcard every day. Wow, that’s a brilliant idea we thought to ourselves.

And so we massaged that idea further. We actually wrote some lines together, me and my other half, to use as a guide. Satisfied that we had something going, we took no time to go down to town to look for the cards. As we were going to write the special messages, the cards we wanted had to be those with blank content. Meanwhile, the images on the front cover did not have to be necessarily strong but they had to be meaningful and relevant to our case. Here’s what we had settled with:

Post card #1: This was what we wrote: Grand Designs? No, Small Projects. Signoff: Us @ 38 MPC (Apple iPhone 4s)

Post card #2: Kevin McCloud? No, Kevin M.L. Signoff: Us @ 38 MPC (Apple iPhone 4s)

Post card #3: Opulent? No, just straight lines. Signoff: Us @ 38 MPC (Apple iPhone 4s)

Post card #4: But we like your mailbox better. Signoff: Us @ 38 MPC (Apple iPhone 4s)

We'll share with you further details in the next post. So what’s your scheme going to be?

The search for an architect has begun...

Building your house from scratch allows you to express your taste. Another delightful perk would be hiring an architect so that together you and him can build the design you like. Whatever your design taste is, you and the architect must be able to work together with minimal fall-out.

When we started the search for the arguably most important figure in the journey, we kind of knew what we wanted. That made the investigation a little easier in that we could focus on candidates that we thought could deliver. The Internet surfing began on a clean slate. There were no referrals nor famous architects that we liked to check on. In fact, our budget was more of the shoestring type so that cancelled out the latter from the get-go.

Searching for an architect that could do cement-rendered flooring should not be that difficult. Finding one that could do that and a lot more so that the overall concept fell into place was not easy. That much my other half could share.

Flooring that’s at home in a factory, exposed cable conduit and cornice-free, bare ceiling were more of what we so craved for. Basically, everything looking industrial. It wasn’t that straightforward to begin with but my other half held on and persevered.

After several hours of page returns, she finally found one that looked promising. Actually, make that very promising.

His design style was under-construction. In other words, the end product will not look finished. He seemed to fit the bill. Apart from the desirable style, his architectural approach was one that’s self-sustaining, friendly to the environment and above all, design does not have to cost. We liked what we had seen so far.

Remember to decide on the style you want. Establish a tolerance point on how much you would allow it to stray. Have some budget in mind. Do check out the names given to you by friends and relatives but don’t stop there. Make your visit to the Internet more efficient and effective by entering the right key words. Bookmark what you liked seeing the first time round because you can lose them. Most importantly, allow yourself the time to carry this act out.

Tottenham Hotspur Football Development Asia (THFDA) 2012

Thanks to the folks at Football Focus Asia (FFA), aspiring footballers in the country can now get a taste of training the English premier league way with the arrival of THFDA.

Launched only in July last year, the programme is opened to individuals aged 10 - 18, teams and coaches to experience professional football training at its highest level. Partnering with FFA and the British International School KL, this programme is a start to improve the standard of Asian football at the grassroots level.

Listening attentively to the instructions... (Apple iPhone 4s)

Check out the your man in green... (Apple iPhone 4s)

My son had joined the programme from 8 – 11 April, held on the grounds of KBU College in Bandar Utama. The programme though short at 1.5 hours per day gave him an insight into the different levels of football techniques. And you know what, even their warm up, stretches and warm down looked special.

A simple graduation ceremony (Apple iPhone 4s)

We seized the moment to have a chat with Sheldon Xavier of FFA and the coaches on the last day of the programme. According to them, our son has good skills and focus but he has to develop on his communications on the field. Son, take heed ok.

Group photo (Apple iPhone 4s)

With the coaches (Apple iPhone 4s)

Time to design

Which architecture style tickles your fancy? If you already have ideas derived from magazines or living examples now it's time to hire an architect to put your collection of thoughts to paper. So how do you select one? Can you go with any architect or would your design appetite determine who you shall work with?

An architect helps to design the dwelling unit and incorporate your lifestyle and needs in the process. Most architects should be trained to churn various types of designs but like artists, some of them would stick to a particular styling or two, styling that they prefer or have developed over the years and excel at doing so. In the architect you would want a partner who is not too overly obsessed in keeping to his design but one that has a genuine interest to make your dream actually come true.

Having said that, your taste in design would inevitably lead you to that person. Let me draw up an analogy. If you are looking for someone to stitch up a baju melayu, you can go to the Masjid Jamek area in downtown KL and find a tailor easily amongst the compact shoplots. Shops like Omar Ali is better known than the rest because celebrities and politicians endorse his work, like it or not that would add to his street cred and reputation. Omar Ali could also cut you a three-piece suit, just like the green in-house tailors at Jakel can to but why would you go to these people when perhaps Spark Manshop or Lord's could do it better?

Similar to tailoring, the partner that you want to be working with would very much depend on the architectural style that you like and just maybe on case-by-case basis, how much money you are willing to spend. If your taste in design is quite plain, any good architect in the country can attend to you. By that I mean if your desire is the typical tropical house (like most residential dwellings in Malaysia), then you shouldn't have a problem looking for an architect.

Have you seen this house before? (image on the Internet)

But if your preference looks like boxes of different sizes joined together or a wooden skeletal cube that seems to be hanging on top of a giant tree or something that your parents won't approve then there is a good chance that finding the architect who can hack that kind of work can prove difficult.

Again, the design that you wish for would ultimately point you out to the right architect but whether or not he is the right partner, it is quite impossible to tell at the first meeting. Chemistry takes time to build. Worse still is if it doesn't get built at all. But first up, where are these people hiding? Where do you start finding them?

Just like any other professionals such as doctors and lawyers, architects are not allowed by law to advertise what they are good at so don't hope to catch an ad in the press or magazines or TV. That pretty much leaves your options to only two: through word-of-mouth and of course, your favorite search engine on the Internet!

You will not find ads (because the rules extend to the world wide web as well) but personal blogs and websites are abundant, administered either by individual clients or the architects themselves. Simply enter the key words like 'architects in Malaysia' or 'Balinese home', you should suddenly be inundated with pages and pages of findings, as coughed up by Google or Yahoo. As far as locating them in this day and age, it shouldn't be much of a problem. That goes the same for their background and reputation; the said media should dish these out as well.

Referrals are another way to find your architect. Maybe you have relatives and friends who know of people who have built or in the midst of building their homes. First hand accounts on how good or bad the architect is will surely be shared. By the same token, you'll sure to hear stories about contractors too.

It makes practical sense to find out who this architect is. Use every avenue. Talk and meet with as many of them as possible. Look out for their principle and willingness to listen to you at the same time, unless you love justifying every little change you are asking on their design. Architects can be very stubborn.