Design Projects: Music with a Twist

Hello peeps!

It's end of semester 5 now, so I shall update here about what I've done in this four months.

This semester started with new lecturer, new assignment, new challenges, and new experience. Theme of design projects for this semester is "music", "culture", "experimental" and "heritage preservation". Means, we have to design an experimental space of music in a heritage building to promote and preserve value of culture. It's a fresh topic for me, and I found it challenging as I have no music base.

Well... learned some basic knowledge few years ago but I quit...

The first project is to design a propaganda poster (a poster which spread specific idea, rumor, etc.) regarding current issue, which is culture and heritage preserving, via selected music. I've chosen acoustic music - a kind of music that is produced by natural sounds through acoustic means, without any usage of electronic devices to modify the sounds. Nature and science of the music should be appreciated and promoted, as how the local heritage and culture should be preserved.

I've struggled a lot while doing this project. Previously I've been taught how to do infographic, where information are compacted into a poster using a lot of graphics. When I was doing propaganda poster, I had to express only the idea of culture and heritage preservation with simple graphic and a sentence of propaganda. I felt that my poster is too blank! It seemed so weird to me! However at the end I managed to overcome it. Making it into a 3D poster gave more expression and lively emotion.

Echo-fication here means to spread the
 awareness towards current issue like
echoes. "We don't only play music, but we
appreciate and preserve its culture too."

A picture of the final product and I.

Right after the first project ended, we proceeded to second project - research of site and subject. It contains two part, which is to do site analysis and to determine concept and AEIOU factors (Activities, Environment, Interaction, Operation, User) of the design. It was quite rushed while doing this project as project period is clashed with Hari Raya holidays and delay of works due to changing of site from Coliseum Theatre to St. Mary's Cathedral. By the way, we managed to complete this project too.

St. Mary's Cathedral is an Anglican church located in center of hustle and bustle Kuala Lumpur city. Yet the site is rich with local history traces and culture. Dataran merdeka, National History Museum, Masjid Jamek and other significant historical and cultural places are just near the selected site.

A sketch of site location map.

Presentation board with concept of
"Reverberation" and programmes of
my design project.

Concept model based on keywords derived from concept.

And yea, it's finally final project of the semester - Exploration and Experimental Centre. This project was tough for me as I couldn't fully understand the meaning and elements of Research Institution Experimental Design, until the final review was just around one month away.

So basically, this project is about creating an experimental space with selected music as theme and aiming to spread awareness of culture preservation, at the same time providing a research and institutional space for public.

For my design, ECHOLES Acoustic Music Experiment Centre, I have divided the programmes into three parts - Learn, Experiment and Spread. Learn as understanding the nature and science of acoustic music by creative and interactive means; Experiment as development and experiment with acoustic music after learning the basics of acoustic music and how the sounds work; Spread as promotion of awareness and idea of current issue regarding heritage and culture preservation.

The centre is a combination of institution and hospitality. Hostels are provided besides of experimental spaces.

As usual, conceptual space model is
prepared based on concept and activities.
Here's the cute mock up model.

Final conceptual space model, where the red parts represent
LES (Learn, Experiment and Spread) elements.

Presentation board 1, in A0 size.

Presentation board 2, in A0 size.

Presentation board 3, in A0 size.
I drew perspective views manually
again as I fell more comfortable
drawing manually, although there
were many obstacles such as
material matters, time and money
consuming, etc.

My pinned-up works and I.

Materials for my design. Sound absorptive materials
such as carpet and cork are used in private spaces while
reflective materials such as woods and tiles are used in
experiment spaces to create lively atmosphere.

I didn't manage to print this out during review. This is a
 pamphlet about introduction, operation and activities
of the centre.

Model for the centre. Facade of site building is preserved.

Top view of first floor.

Top view of ground floor.

Well, overall final review result for me is neither good or bad. I felt satisfied to my works and I presented them confidently (although I was nervous facing two review panels and spoke unclear), however when panels pointed out weaknesses of my works, I realized that there's many improvement could be done to my works. I should do more, explore more, and be brave enough to design the spaces. My design is still not mature enough as there's still some space planning problems.

I'm so appreciate my review panels' comments and advice, and I would like to use this chance to thank my lecturers, classmates, friends, and even my family who have supported, motivated and helped me in doing these projects.

Next semester would be internship, and then only followed by last semester of this course. I hope I can succeed in improving my design thinking and skills in the future, before I graduate and end my degree student life. Learning is endless, and I will keep moving forward chasing the knowledge.

Here's end of my post. Thank you for viewing my blog post and stay tuned for my next update! Have a good day peeps!