Gangxia - Bookhub
Shenzhen, China

This was my final work for my last semester in school. It is a project sited in Gangxia, an urban village in Shenzhen, China. Gladly satisfied at the completion of my work, both my drawings and model.

I was quite despondent because I receive lukewarm comments from my professor who felt that my drawings did not sufficiently described the project scheme and that they could be strengthened further. I agree to some extent that his comments were valid but I felt that we have deferring emphasis on the kind of drawings presented. I invested my effort into drawings that explain the narrative and the spatial quality of the project in its entirety while he prefers a sequence of perspectives which could illustrate the differing spatial quality. We are essentially talking about similar things but my choice of presentation misses his expected illustration of my project. Yes, architecture is subjective indeed.

That aside, it's been a week since I ended my critique. Critique went fine, there was no major disagreement with the project scheme. Praise God. Was certainly privilege to have my younger brother and my hall neighbours (Meiyi, Michelle, Manyan, Melissa, Mandy aka Heiman... the ''M" ladies) to assist me and grant me support throughout this submission preparation. Thank you so much for your prayer support and encouragement throughout this submission and during my last 5 years of school.

When Audrey heard that I have completed my project and could successively graduated from NUS, she felt like she was graduating with me. Ha. Indeed, my cell group has accompanied me through these years and they certainly know how hard the course had been and how tough my educational journey was.

The completion of my architecture course could only be possible because of God. It was during this course when I accepted Christ and it was through this course, that I felt the reality of God. In this final submission, He showed me once again through tangible ways that He was with me. He refreshed my perspective of what it means by the sufficiency of His grace. He reminded me of the leftovers after he fed the five thousand with merely five loaves and two fishes. He is a God of sufficiency who supplies more than our humanly expectation and exceeds beyond our logical and limited perspective towards the nature of things.

I never like to use the phrase "Akitorture" which aptly describes the course "Architecture". I know I have completed this course with joy and thanksgiving because I have learnt much and matured much. It's through the struggles and the torture that I learn to appreciate the fruits of my labour. The course is tough, that's undeniable. But, the course is complexly intriguing. It's multi-disciplinary as it goes beyond the boundary of the walls. Architecture discourse is more than just architecture... it's always architecture with the world, with the nature, with the political climate, with the economics, with the society..... LIMITLESS.