THE FINAL PERSPECTIVE
And finally we have reached to the last blog of this subject. But nope, it ain’t stopping here. I won’t let this be the end of blog writing as I find this activity really interesting. Throughout the week we are so caught up with our design projects and other subjects which require studying but I always look forward to Theories in Architecture class as it is something enjoyable and unique from the other 6 days of work. It may sound as cliché as it is but this subject is the most interesting one for me as it gets me thinking and looking at things in a different perspective.
As I take my time thinking about what we have wrote throughout this semester, I’ve come to realise that by doing all this assignments I started looking at things in detail. I start to appreciate things more in detail. For instance when I take early morning walks at 3am, I tune in to the sounds which I could hear from far away and try to figure out what and where it
came from. This was inspired from the video which we watched in class which is designing for the blind. It made me realize that somehow if we do design things for the blind, it would actually make our world easier. Not only for them but for everyone. Tried walking with my eyes closed was just a 3 second thing before I could not take it anymore. It got me thinking what if a person that was blind tried walking through this street? What would he feel and hear to be his guide? The railings? Sound of water flowing in the drain? The sound coming from the mamak up ahead? If something were thought of in the design process to aid the blind, it would be a benefit to those with sight!
Besides that, the subject also taught me to be more analytical and at the same time made me think bigger. Things that would blow the average mind into pieces. From what would the future of human life be to how architecture could shape our lives? If you could recall the previous blog on space, I remember imagining the future of humans being lived our as characters in a virtual world where our bodies are just dead but our mind is alive and moving around in this virtual reality space. This got me thinking, as our lives got more and more sucked into this system of social media and online medium, one day it might just happen that our lives will be online and not down to earth anymore. Or has it already happened? Well Mark Zuckerburg has just announce the future of Virtual Reality Group Chats. Maybe it has already happened after all ;) (man look at the smile on his face)
One important thing that change my perspective is the reason why I took architecture in the first place. In my mind it was very vague at the beginning and I didn’t not think of it in that way. I thought of architecture to be an artsy fartsy paintings and nice drawings kind of course and that it would be easy. I’ll earn a lot of money and someday change the world for the better. But never did I thought of this course to be an optimistic lifestyle until this semester. I would like to emphasize on the word optimistic because before taking this course I have always wanted to change the world, yaknow, to make it a better place. It didn’t occur to me that to change the world you’ve got to be super optimistic. Slowly but surely, semester after torturing semester, I believe that this course has prepared my friends and I for the worst and in the end to be the best optimistic bunch of lunatic people around. I don’t think the world would be any better without this bunch of optimistic people that strive to solve various problems that we encounter. Well, to solve problems, one got to be optimistic about it. No amount of complaining would get any solving done in fact. So a big thank you to all our lecturers who put us through hell. For the hell that we are going through will result in the heaven that humans would be living in.
Lastly, I feel the one perspective that have changed in me is my outlook on life itself. From how movies affect us, to how God can influence architecture. From expressing myself to giving to others. This course subject has really made me think deeper about life and its magnificence. A lecturer once said that architecture is a lifestyle and I start to believe that now. Architecture isn’t just about buildings and drawings, it really is a lifestyle. Nothing in this world has no architecture. Things like car designs, biochemistry and renewable energy all has architecture embedded in it. Everything in this universe is about architecture.
If it isn’t any clearer, architecture is the solving of worldly problems which is what we humans strive to achieve every day, every minute, every second of our lives. And with that I would like to say thank you for introducing me to this style of learning and thinking. How I wished that this would be taught in the earlier semesters. Maybe SABE should consider this to be brought forward to earlier semesters and incorporating this into their blogs, since we are required to upload our work into a blog every semester. I think this would be useful to the earlier semesters as it would get them thinking and not to mention giving them more work :p Thanks for all the cool and interesting lectures. Cheers
Check out this short video on the future of VR as a social media tool by CNET. Apparently Facebook bought Oculus Rift (one of the leading VR headset manufacturer) for 1 Billion USD. I guess this is the first step to a virtual life. There are other ideas which I heard that you could read a book in which ever settings you desire. There is also apps to learn how to cook, dining in a restaurant, working at convenient stores, driving cars, running from zombies, playing king kong, skydiving, scuba-diving basically anything that you would do in real life (I just wanted to make this paragraph reach the bottom of the line because my OCD side won't allow me to stop there).