Postgraduate Architectural Portfolio - Lim Wen Jie

I N C L U S IV E

A R C H IT E CT U R E

BE YOND

I MA G I NAT I O N

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an introduction

This portfolio consists of some of valued works within 6 years of pursuing architecture beginning from 2014 to 2019. The selected works includes projects during undergraduate, postgraduate, competition and personal interest.

Endless process and progress are thought through the whole period of designing and critic sessions. It has been 6 great rewarding years of journey and preparation into the real world to become an Architect. Please proceed to next page (curricular vitae).

wenjie0914@gmail.com // https://issuu.com/wenjie0914 // insta:kaki_lagi // fb:damu studio 3

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Project Overview

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Student Life Centre is the thesis project in my master final year study. It emphasises placemaking concept and how it affects the learning experience in the university campus. Partial abstract as below: Spaces for learning in university campus are changing inevitably. University campus provides opportunities to students and campus community to interact with each other. This type of involvement creates positive student engagement that can nourish the sense of belongings among the students.

The research showed that current university campus encompasses different learning experiences. This can be happened in student union whereby learning experience can take place everywhere around the centre. The notion of studentcentered learning experience as a new place maker in university campus is global; such as formal and informal learning spaces.

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LEARNING VIA PLACEMAKING

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LEARNING VIA PLACEMAKING

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There are more than 800,000 hectares of derelict lands in Malaysia, 630,000 hectares plots composed of fertile soil types which have been left idle and become unproductive due to either socio-economic factors or technical reasons. Instead of using greenfield, brownfield should be taken into consideration. The thesis is to explore the opportunity of urban agriculture which can be a prime model for brownfield revitalisation initiative.

A sustainable city development needs to focus on the resilient farming opportunity on brownfields by using architecture solution. A prototype of Future Cities Farming Centre, acts as a research hub to study about food sustainability in the future time. It targets to improve the sustainability of centre, acts as a research hub to study about food sustainability in the future times. It targets to improve the sustainability of entire town area and has potential to be developed in an emerging city and serves quality food products to the locals.

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CONVEX VS CONCAVE

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The urban space can be the opportunity for social aspects and urban environment. These moments of experience are elusive to the locals and visitors. Expressing the value of understanding, an interactive space between locals and visitors, it can achieve the concept of “community togetherness�. An ideal public space meet the needs of people of different social classes, ethnics, and in general different backgrounds. The design features, social activities and events, level of participation are the urban factors contributing to the good public space design. However, the trends of globalization and urban paradigm change will continue to mould the pattern of public space. Our public space nowadays facing the challenges of value deprivation. Providing the urban change nowadays, the designer needs to find an alternative way in creating the new public space as contemporary urban space design, which integrate public space into the design development scheme. In this project, Alor Gajah town was selected. Methodology such as interview and literature review has been conducted.

Throughout the interview with local people , the locals express their opinion about existence of public space. The discussion will be revolving around Dataran Keris as it is a significant public space for entire town.

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A public space is a cultural venue where people can see things of interest, and can relax.

It is a space that can be used by many people and where people can go. It can be seen in various kind of forms such as streets, plaza, park, and marketplace (Al-Shams et.al, 2013:78; Harun et.al,2009:2). With a different point of view, Gehl et al. (2008,p.87) sorted out public open spaces into 5 categories of “square for a main city; recreational area; a big broadwalk; traffic square; and memorial square� Today, lack of public space becomes the issue. We worry the public space of today, indeed the public realm, is shrinking (Banerjee 2001).

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Throughout the observation, the density of the population in Alor Gajah town is less dense. In term of demography, it is an ageing town as many youngster start to move out from hometown to the bigger city such as Melaka and Kuala Lumpur. In term of social interaction opportunity, locals prefer to go kopitiam and food court during day time and evening time.

At night, people will gather at Dataran Keris as there will be some leisure activities available.

There are a few problems and potential development can be done in Alor Gajah town. Throughout the observation, Alor Gajah is a peaceful town.

The lifestyle is in slow pace and everyone has their daily routine that need to be done. One of the problems is Dataran Keris is being under-utilised.

The field is only be used for a certain period such as event organised by state government. Collectively, the problem statement here is Dataran Keris is unsuccessful in welcoming the groups of people especially in participating in various kind of social activities, and benefiting from the opportunities given. One of the reasons is poor design of urbanscape.

During afternoon period, the entire Dataran Keris is hot due to less natural shades. Action is needed to revitalise the current situation. Again, Dataran Keris is the identity of Alor Gajah town and existing in past few decades.

Hence, it plays an important role among the locals.

From the interview with locals, most of the interviewees agree to have injection for the town so that the locals have more choices where to go.

Some excitement need to be injected to the town in order to revitalise the identity and cultural value among the locals. Many locals think that Dataran Keris gives a sense of belonging to the locals. In the past, it used to be the only recreational area where people can mingle around. Children were gather together and playing football and kites. Bond of relationship was strong at that period of time. But when time goes by, the role of Dataran Keris become diminishing.

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Asia Young Designer Award (AYDA) (Shortlisted Project)

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Personal Interest

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Architecture is bound to situation. And I feel like the site is a metaphysical link, a poetic link, to what a building can be -Steven Holl-

SCAN ME

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