Execution vs. Conceptualization

I accidentally drove along Perak Road and found out that the building that I designed 4 years ago eventually got built. It does take that long to put a building up here in Penang and we are only talking about a 4-storey relatively small building. But it is not my intention to talk about the rate of construction in this posting.

Instead, I would like to highlight the importance of architect's role during the construction stage. Initially I was about to name this blog Illusion of ELEVATION because I thought the problem of the building constructed was due to my failure in visualizing the Elevation design in 3 dimension. However, upon closer scrutiny of the actual building, I realized that the problem is not about thickness of the wall. The problem lies on the proportion of the building, the very basic principle of architecture. The artist's impression below is the original proportion of the building that I designed and we can clearly see that the actual building has deviated tremendously from the original design especially at the rooftop as well as the sizes of coping. This may due to changes made during construction stage for some reasons. Developer tends to make changes to the building in order to save cost at the expense of architectural aesthetics.


Anyway, I'm still happy that it finally get built after all.