Monday

Just a monday but got quite a few things done. the plan to wake up earlier saw me waking up at 7.15 w Ls alarm as my snooze. by the time i got to my chair and turn on the com though it was 8.50am. so instead of being early, it was pretty much on time. O commented on the form, from a telephone to more curvaceous now. i like very much the plan more now actually, more dynamically even within the rooms. all generated from the line of the existing building. initially it was just the closest line to it, and now even the set in of the carpark ramp is also that. the additional stair turned out to be quite a nice anchor in the massing. Initially i did think about slanted the edges too, but thought it looked to strange like a torpedo. Now, i really like it though, i feel it captures the dynamism of cyber work. the edges and curves. the meeting w the design n build contractors were postponed, as a monday s meeting almost always means that part of the weekend ll be used to sharpen a design. Anyhow, because the meeting was postponed i had some time to do the sketchup, and the 3d massing is looking nicely. my intent was to read up on 3 cad tips but now think i will read more instead. somehow i feel lacking in terms of thoughts no circulation and tecnical considerations.

A sunday!

This was a really nice and calm weekend, the friday that passed was a public hoiday, good friday and today is easter sunday. met B and her friend J for dinner, was nice of B to introduce the IT friend. had cze char at a 2 chefs and B saw a rat. last week was eventful as for the compe project we went down to the contractors place and had a discussion based on the sketch that the boss only saw once before. they photocopied many copies to go around. There was a day where 2 major things was due for this and the green corridor so that was a later day. But i have to say it was a week of sketching. never sketched so much in my life. On Friday, L and i woke up late, had a lazy afternoon, and i borrowed the car and bought buri so we made a buri daikon for dinner. Sats lunch was a spaghetti beef bolagnese of bottled tomato sauce and minced beef with onions and mushrooms. it was delicious from the cambodian pepper grounded.

The 3 cad tips for today are:
1-drawing a square, use command "polygon" instead with the edge sub command and it snaps nicely along with existing points of reference.

2-From 2016 onwards, just by clicking on the main dim command in the toolbar, the universal dim has an automatic snap that creates the dimension automatically when the mouse is near the edge.

3- For closing corners, instead of fille ing, one can ctrl click and the 2 open lines closes and a right angled instead of having to type fillet radius zero.

The tuesday of a 4 day week

Woke up at 7.15am, made a breakfast of butter toast and coffee, and then headed off to office. The usual walk across the overhead bridge to the top, where the cross branches of the trees form a really intricate pattern. the plan was to go earlier to do the sketches, but by the time i arrived it was 830 am, just half an hour earlier. time passed really fast, as i sat down, i realised O had already drew the changes so i started making the adjustments in cad. Also i added the grid from the structural photographs set as sent by the contractor. the meeting was at 3pm, so the plan was to leave office at 2, eat at 1.30pm, and start sketch at 11am. but after the grids were in , i adjusted the carparks to fall within the grid, and was only done at 1230pm. F kindly bought take away and we went downstairs to the canteen to eat as the meeting room was used up. and somehow she mentioned they didn't like people eating at their tables for the smell of things. the sketching was good fun, and the new pens i bought came in really handy. the 0.8 for boundary line and 0.05 for the internal rooms. i did the last sketch at 2.30 pm and we left only at 2.45. senoko crescent is in a part of sg that i have never visited myself. we took a couple of highways came out onto a whole landscape of industrial light building. large metal spans and corrugated surfaces with dialect signages. when we arrived, O requested for my sketch to be photocopied and we had 3 sets out. And the meeting started. local style with a smattering of english and chinese. As this is a design and build compe it was interesting to hear immediate systems type being thrown about, hollow core, truss beam, and some of which i couldn't catch. there were about 10 people in total including us. the largest most useful discussion was the structure location and span of the beam across the carpark. one engineer said that the beam span to depth ratio is 15. i extropolated the existing building grids outwards to get the grid of the carpark, but for one side, O had an independent grid and divided mainly the lots by sets of 3 cars. O drive back and it was quite long as going back was traffic jam time, but i could clarify many points so it was useful. the best part was that during the meeting a true point of concern was the shortage of almost 100 lots overall, but when i returned to the office, i seem to have found a scheme that can fulfill it. starting from the perimter lots, rotating the core and then adding double row parking. bought takeaway and left office at about 8pm. had from that scissors place economical rice, the otah, ngoh hiang and leek. bought 5 persimmons too to celebrate. overall a good day indeed, i really enjoyed the process. so i have set myself a target to learn 3 autocad shortcuts a day. today i ve learnt the mtp/m2p command to find the midpoint, throught the "c" command for circle; the right click "add selected" for continuing on in the same layer or cltrl 3 and dragging and drop a hatch or line type into the new palette, and the "join" command with all, relieves one of singular clicking. before sleeping, the aim is to do a little reading as well. ok i am all ready to zzZZZ

Already a Thurday?

Where did all the time go? My last blog was saturday. In an express mode, sunday was a bit of a rush but good. S came w G and A to my surprise at 930 and gave a fengshui consultation. firstly she measures the space of the room, and places the geomancy plate upon a tripod in the middle, and then advises on the placement of objects. luckily for us most of the big things were in the right places. flipped the location of my books on the brown shelf, removed the chinese NY words as they are the pictures of fish in them, relocated the rooms dustbin, triangle under fan, soon to have yellow paper under sink and 6 bottles of small water under the oven. i gave a token sum, which was quite considerable for the 2 hours, but helpful i guess. Asked a few of the future career and family qn for both L and i too. Afternoon was spent going for the Seatour as part of the martime week, but the commentary was horrendous. As it was on a boat, we got some nice sea breeze in our face, saw many vessels from afar LNG tanker that look like 3 scoops of ice cream, sisters island. The star was raffles lighthouse. it was suppose to be from 12-5pm, but it ended at 4pm, even though the guy said that it ll end at 2-3pm. took the train back and we even cleaned the house. We ended up having an early dinner at novena square, japanese food. Conveyor belt and very good sushi. L chose all the good stuff, i took a plate of salmon twirls, L ordered Keijiki, Hamachi, maguro, and chicken katsu. When we came back we even clean the house, L caught her parents and before we knew it the day was over.

What happen on monday? Started with the green corridor project to try to propose different ways of sorting the cp for 16 lots. and with the many sketch options, K was quick to point out the mistakes which were really useful. in and out directions of car, holding bays for outgoing vehicles for the mechaized cp, as previously we kept only an ingoing lot. Even though the plan was to work on green in the morning and ST in the afternoon, even after lunch i was doing the green for another hour. Then the A4 tracing paper and the 2 0.2, 0.4 markers came in very handy. Then there was the random meeting that i was told to attend and present, but very interesting though. a fast track project which will take 8 months including authority submission, and using prefabricated components. Our role was to support the contractors as this was a design and built scheme, and so we were mainly executing the color plans and perspectives updates according to price. The nice thing was that we. could take the taxi back, F was going back to the office so we, the 3 of us went in one taxi.

Soon enough tuesday came. More resolving and thoughts on the green. there was an idea that i put in sketch form. Afternoon was spent cading the ST thoughts, puting in the setback, according to category of road. Category 4 road, so 5m setback, and along the perimeter with no road, usually 2m planting trip. but C mentioned to have a fire engine access, so a 8m access way, 6m width of firetruck, and 2m away from building for the ladder. Before i knew it, it was about 6pm, and i left as B was back in town, so J,L,B and i met at beautypot in sommerset at 7pm. Took the bus , changed one that went along bendemeer and it took about 30 mins, quite fast. always nice to catch the girls! It was $50 each and the beancurd skin was the best. Even had a matcha ice cream cone, Cab back while J uberpooled.

Wednesday came soon after and today was LetsGoBike day at 6.45pm, so i rem i had to be efficient.
Cant rem in sequence but cadded out green in the morning and it worked. so started immediately on ST after that. tried googling on unprotected opening, and also printed out the relevant scdf pages but it was so confusing, luckily i could ask C, so then continued on the option of whether spiral ramp cp up 10m high to be at the front or at the back. and printed out then sketched over both the first storeys and had a discussion w C at 5pm, which i thought would be ok. Discussion ended at 6.15pm, but many good points were brough up. The first priority was the circulation said C. Option 1 could work with entrances, but the ramp needed to be push inwards to continue the green planting from the existing building. Structure and cores wise, it needed to be push away from the existing and firstly the stairs had to have a direct discharge to the outdoors without a roof as it traps smoke. Lobby needed to add a conceirge and letter box, re arranged the meeting rooms, and the areas were cut down at top. Quite an exciting composition with the ramp at the front and even elevation wise, it would contribute to quite a grand space. Option 2 did not work, as the headroom clearance of the ramp at the rear would interfere with  the existing loading and unloading bay. and if we had put a ramp first, all views would have been blocked. not to say that the structure above if it was put along the perimeter, would prevent any of them from coming down to first storey. The 10 man cyclist were actually from exxon mobil on a team building event. The breeze at night was really nice, and my favourite part was cycling on the F1 track. 15km and my butt did feel a little sore. Australians, HK, new zealand and thai. i was really worried the last few days before and read very conscientiously the singapore river book, but on the day itself only A spoke, and i was the rear cyclist. Picked up my cheque as well, and ate a late dinner of sliced fish soup with rice at liang court food court. nice and warm for the tummy!

Thursday cant believe it is coming to an end already at 11.42pm. It started when my alarm rang at 7am, and i snoozed and went back to bed. Started on green again first, the intention was to work on the second storey, but i decided to start on the basement. so this only happen after lunch. As in the morning, O called in an emergency and i was told to jump on the china project. 10 units on one floor, i did a cad of the sketch, 2 br and 4br. Interesting to frame the dimensions. Min widths of 3m for living room, 2.7 x 3.4m for bedroom, 2.9m for master room, 1.7x 2.9m for toilets, 1.6m depth for kitchen. 900mm for regular doors, 1000mm for entrance door. In the afternoon, for some reason i started looking at the staircase and was trying to put in a dog leg stair, as i didn't have enough run to reach 5m f-f. i did think about having 3 runs, but coming out on each side, didn't seem to make sense so i dropped it. However, when C saw, he mentioned that dog leg is the most inefficient stair, and to avoid it.  First thing was that he said coming out at alternate sides was ok, so we revisited that option, and he pointed out the need to have 300mm at the end of one run, and 600 at the end of the other. Very useful, and the 20mm plaster and 80mm handrail, and clearance of 2400 width that would be safe. Mostly, the visual explanation of the railing and how it should be straight really helped. no diagonal transitions. hence, i stayed a little later to cad all those in for L1 and B1. then added the PWD of 900x1400mm at each stair core. Even had a small discussion w C and K who were also still in the office about the advantages of a stagger stair. for green, K had stagger the B1 stair in order to maximise the basment wall line. This was because in B1, the wall can extend up to the green buffer, whereas in L1, the wall can only extend up to the building setback line. the offset was water entering the stairs vs having about 1200mm more retail space internally. C earlier, also talked about ST, and how i should use the same principal to calculate the stair core. Left office at about 9pm, bus 151 back reach home 9.40 and L was having her late dinner. smelled really nice, and we even had a fruit platter of cut papaya and yellow and green kiwis. Showered and then blogged about 5 days in a row! Phew.
Even though it has only been 5 weeks since i started but i have learnt alot. amazing how much things can be picked up in such a short time. had fish sliced soup for dinner earlier.

Saturday activity filled day

woke up at 9.20 when my phone alarm rang and went back to sleep. then S called at 9.30, took a green brushing up of face and teeth and hopped into the car. went to Guangming shan at sin ming to say hello to grandma. there was a small queue of cars, and soon enough we were inside, the temple compound, and parked illegally. along the way as we were inching along. had a good talk with S about whats going on in her life. the temple was packed with many people and their offerings of joss sticks and prayer boxes. i quite enjoy the sight. i wonder how is it like during qingming for the nether world. i saw grandmas picture and remembered the good times that we had on sundays growing up when mom would drive us over to yee yees place to chat and say hi after lunch. as we grow older, there seems to be less time for us somehow, where did it go? then had a breakfast of chakwayteow that i shared w sling at the shunfu market, bought some muffins, and met L for lunch at La Braceria for italian food. met even the president Tony Tan at the restaurant. the food was really good, had fettucine with homemade saussage, rocket parma pizza, baby calamari, caprese salad, came up to around 70 bucks each. then went to zhongshan park when L bought the ingredients for the lasagne, and ubered back. L prepared most the food and i assisted. H came lightning rod punctually at 7pm. it was nice to see H well and this time we found out he even got married in Jan. very happy for him and his girlfriend. L and H had a good chat, i washed  up the remaining, and fell asleep in little pockets. we had lasagne that bun made with the special pancakes. riccola salad with cherry tomatoes and walnut, and a banana cake and even little watermelon. ok really sleeeepy . good zzzz

Friday musings

woke up at 7.31am today. got into the usual routine, ate the bread multigrain bread pre sliced that i bought at swissbake at holland village cold storage. this was when i went to raffles medical mall to take stock of the directory. last night was crazy, finally browse through the straits times and saw that the land mall project we were working on was sitting on a piece of land that the government was acquring. and just like that WDP came to a close. a short but enjoyable stint. a pity, sometimes i wonder if the greater good is all that convincing an excuse. in a way, it seems like a way to overpower an individual, but every individual should matter, and its voice should be heard. and so the morning started by working on an updated timeline for the little retail. April would be a time of a mad familiarising myself with the authorities. in fact in the next 2 weeks, submission to the different LTA departments and CBPU. the puzzle is all in the plan. i need to buy tracing paper and thin markers. it is going to be a fun week of tracing and cadding. so it was nice i could discuss w K about the time taken, which was mostly 2 weeks and then authorities reply date. a little apprehensive about the positive projections. this year would mostly be getting clearances and doing tender, and from next jan, would be starting the construction if everything goes smoothly. n in the afternoon, i started on the feasi project. very challenging build, would be a fun exercise actually. either i go super early mon or go back for 1-2 hours on the weekend. maybe super early on mon would be a better bet. a new building added on to an existing 4 storey building. as such, the first 4 floors of the new built is like someone took a bite out of it. a big triangular bite. and the first storey of 10m to go up by ramp! it is going to be like an amusement park. anyhow it was good that C was here to discuss. He pointed out that the first thing would be the entrance position and then the placement of the structural cores, and because of the existing wedge cut out, after limiting it to sides, the next thing would be the circular ramp. and then the structural grid based on the carpark spacing starting from 7.2 to 7.7 and to 8, and the question was how would this bay affect the elevation. a few things i have to get right and placed in there though. a typical office core grid with staircase including the smoke stop lobby. my head was going to explode and this point. and then our neighbour office tenant did some painting, and the fumes came into our office. not long after i left. for some reason was hungry today, felt a little mentally hungry somehow. someone once said that it is when the soul feels hungry that the stomach tries to eat more to compensate. so i bought a duck rice with egg and beancurd which i threw away half, ha cheong gai 7 pcs for $8, and even bought a roti prata. L had mango juice after and i had a few slices of the fruit for supper. tomorrow going qingming. the musing of the day for me is that life can be like taking a straight bus, or taking 2 buses, eventually everyone gets there, right now i am taking 2 buses. really quite sleepy now

Thirsty Thursdays

woke up at 7.20am today, earlier than yesterday by 10mins. had the smoked salmon and leftover salami with the 2 ends of the bread n a cup of hot milo. caught the 8.35am bus, was worried that i ll be late but somehow got to the office door at about 9.02am. so that was a nice start to the day. today on the way back as i just missed the 151 when i got to the bus stop, i hopped on bus 80, and finally i took the 2 buses that have a higher frequency. it was a 154 and 961 i think, from the opp st andrews village stop. finally, no more waiting 15mins for just 1 bus! today was spent working on the comments the client had, more description before putting the comparison donut diagrams, firstly to start w the usage of the mall, and then to say why we chose the precedent malls that we did. it was a good exercise, gathered some GE picts with dimensions. indesign is really the tool for setting all of this up. thank goodness to the one who invented indesign. and also a summary of the 2 perspectives to highlight location of lift. all that was finally done at about 5pm. and along the way i spotted irregularities in the font type that i was using. verdana and calibri, alternating between the 2! terrible. when just finishing up, i started reading through the regulations for the other project. quite a lot of authorities. the journey begins! and just as i was going off, i was told to update the schedule for it by noon tomorrow. it was interesting to discuss the reason of the delay and in understanding which parts of the chart to move and duration for certain task. even though i have to say it left me a little apprehensive. the senior one today had a casual discussion abt the mall today. the barrier free access was highlighted which i did note as a design element to be taken. another one is the VRV system which could be considered as compared to the regular compressor system. This although more expensive, up to 2-3x the startup cost, is actually more efficient for the cooling load. Instead of the 8 individual compressors, the size is actually one big one almost equivalent to just 2 compressors. Very informative knowledge. In the evening went to L place to catch mom and dad as i wouldn't be able to join them on sunday as we got tickets for the port tour. had a chat w L for a little bit, and then mom, even played the piano. and by the time i return home was about 10pm.