My blog has a new look!

A sunny day in the peak of spring, a perfect day to visit the Royal Horticulture Society's Garden at Wisley. A garden and horticultural trials fields of more than a hundred years old, Wisley was stunning with the blooms of daffodils, magnolias, camellias, hyacinth, cherries and rhododendrons, just to name a few. Apple trees have just sprouted.

I visited Chiswick Park in west London to have it included in my case study for my dissertation about Feng Shui. It has a lake with waterfalls surrounded by nice office buildings and lush vegetation. It was a fantastic place to visit or to work at. I can 'feel' the revitalizing 'Qi' all over the park. Worth a visit!!

Walking in the '2-way Mirror Labyrinth' at Chiswick Park by Danish contemporary artist and sculptor Jeppe Hein. It's made of 2 rings of high-polished steel pillars (super mirror) that give sort of optical illusion. Jeppe Hein said that mirror has the ability to create various visual, often illusionary effects, to open up, broaden or close a room thus establishing a dialogue between spatiality and people entering the space. Furthermore, artworks with mirrors provide viewers the opportunity for playful interaction and extraordinary reception of the surrounding space. It was fun!

I bet not every Londoner aware of every of those quirky places.

What a beautiful day in spring, couldn't be more perfect for our visit to Hillier Nursery, the largest tree growing nursery in the UK. Had an insight view of nursery tree production, the specs, pricing, species, methods etc. A very enjoyable and informative visit with warm hospitality.

During this Field Study Week, we got the opportunity to visit some places to see some examples of landscape architectural works. For this semester, it's especially beneficial to visit some canals that will inspire us in our Wey & Arun canal project. So, I joined L4 & some L6 students, together with Ed, Simon and Bridget to visit Manchester and Liverpool to see the many canals there, but not the football matches though. This is also my first visit to the cities.

A marvellous engineering work, the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal which have difference in levels of 24 metres, or roughly the height of a building of 8 storey high.

Field visit to Bramley to the site of the restoration of the historic Wey & Arun canal, the so called 'the lost link of London to the sea'. Further information about this can be found on my website.

I am getting more and more excited in creating my 3D design for Hampton Hill Junior School's family centre project using Google SketchUp. My passion for Simcity games and my enthusiasm in 3 dimensional modelling finally found their 'qibla' and a more productive way of exhausting my free time.

This is my first white winter in London, extremely exited. Woke up at 8 in the
morning and went to nearby Vauxhall Park to play with the snow, and finally
became the creator of these snowman and snowbaby ;)

Our landscape department is working with Richmond Council to design the play spaces for the family centres at Hounslow Heath Estate and Hampton Hill Junior School. Site visit to both venues today. It is an exiting project targeting small children.

first sight focus day III. walk from waterloo, cross the bridge to somerset house, to london school of economics, covent garden, trafalgat square, institute of comtemporary arts, the building centre and russel square. i like the building centre, just off tottenham court road. not only because they've got a model of the city of london, which i always fancy at, there were a lot of creative informations about the built environment.

A day at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in a green winterday. Toured by Keith Grant, with Simon, Ed, Leo, Matt et al. Being a horticulturist, Kew Gardens is no stranger to me even when I was still thousands of miles away in Malaysia, but this is my first visit, and it was in a winter day.

Mr. Vince Wade gave his lecture on Intro Into Photography at Knights Park Campus. "Perspective never exist before renaissance. it is nonsense!"

Today is the first time ever I presented my work at Kingston. 'Horticulture & Play' was my presentation, as an initial research for the PLAY NOW project.

Tutors Matt Parker and Leo Thom, the twin digital genius of our department, brought me into the world of digital media [Autocad, Photoshop, SketchUp]. Today is the first session of the whole workshop which also includes Flash, InDesign, web design et cetera. This is what I always wanted to learn and finally, this is the beginning.

first sight focus day II:
london walk 2 with simon and ed - from paddington to sloane square via little venice, paddington basin, hyde park [victoria gate-serpentine gallery-diana,princess of wales memorial fountain], and victoria & albert museum. only until today that i know there is a place in central london called little venice, beautiful though.

autumn, hogsmill river;
the seed has just sprouted...
[my first day as a pre-master student
at the landscape architecture
department at kingston university's
knights park campus]