Revolutionary Design Book

Perhaps, I was destined for design, after all, for when I was in High School, a classmate, Miriam, gave me a bunch of books.

She said her brother -- a student of Architecture -- wanted to give it to me.

There was a thick, black book on design, and classic books on oil painting, anatomy sketching, and sculpture.

I immediately latched on to the design book, and read it with great interest.

I also followed the oil painting book, and after I graduated from Architecture in the mid-80s, I had taught myself how to paint in oil, using my mom's flat knife, as a spatula, and making do with the brushes I could find.

I even created my own canvases, just with the imaginative, raw knowledge I had, even painting scrap plywood white paint, as if mimicking a canvas.

As is always the case in my art, great urgency dictated whatever materials were immediately available will have to do, lest the Muse depart from me.

With art, everything becomes possible, and that black design book really stretched my natural bent and love for simple, comfortable, compassionate design.

George C. Chilton's "Design: Serving the Needs of Man", became my main reference when I got to Architecture school.

From this, all other studies for me were judged, and often found wanting.

The amazing Chilton book showed how the helicopter was fashioned after dragonflies, how submarines were fashioned from squid, and of course, it all made sense to me.

It showed how man's design was fashioned after God's design -- nature.

The original blueprints were God's, all this time!

How very beautiful, and intelligent!

Architecture didn't teach me that.

Chilton's book did.

Originally, I wanted to become an archaeologist, an anthropologist, a sociologist, or even a psychologist, so this new knowledge was riveting.

I know, I know, I wanted to become a journalist, too.

I wanted to be so many things, because many things interested me.

But since I was brought into Architecture, I merely shifted to truly designing for man, and not necessarily, architecturally.

There were so many more aspects of design that begged to be studied, and I was an eager, and voracious student.

Of course, design was but one aspect of life, and life was my best teacher.

When I seemed to pass many tests and hardships from life, my design got better.

And when I found God, and started following Jesus, my thinking radically shifted.

I was no longer obsessed knowing self.

I had become fully-attuned to God alone, and I also found my raw desire and knowledge for design and comfort, perfection and precision, had sound basis, after all.

More than ever, design was meant to serve the God in man.

Updated 24 January 2022

Comfort Nut

I may not have been crazy about Architecture, but I sure got crazy about wooden furniture when I first opened my world arts and crafts shop in the big city in mid-1995.

Trained in Anthropometrics, from studying "Architectural Graphic Sandards", I became particular about comfort and measurement.

Of how we had to design everything, using human averages like height of counters, shelves, stair risers, landings, size of rooms, bathrooms, height and width of doorways -- everything that needed to serve man.

Of course, our thick textbook was published in the U.S., and here we are, designing for our tinier race, so we made the necessary adjustments, or at least, I did.

After Architecture, I got really precise with most everything I did, for it made sense.

But, unlike many other designers, I was particular about comfort.

If it wasn't comfortable, it had no place in my heart.

I only design for comfort.

You'll be stylish if you're comfortable.

So, I wasn't crazy about style.

Comfort always came first for me, for I'd always put myself in the shoes of my "client", in whatever I was tasked to do.

I was intrigued by one of the more humble elite from the big city in the late 90s.

This lovely lady married a Frenchman, who designed chairs.

I could see they liked alternative living, and was not taken up with all the wealth her father and family had.

It was also at this point that I was selling world arts and crafts, and had become familiar with such.

Then I began liking turn-of-the-century wooden furniture when I did have that shop in 1995.

I loved sitting on wooden chairs, without cushions, for the wood loves use.

Eventually, the wood takes on natural patina, which makes me like the furniture even better.

I bought wooden dressers, tables, huge cabinets, bowls -- but lightweight ones -- to re-sell at my shop.

I would wipe the furniture with mildly damp cloth, and finally a dry cloth, and the sheen would be marvelous.

I liked well-designed, comfortable chairs and tables.

The simpler, the better.

I was a practical designer and user.

My life must not be possessed by possessions.

If anything, things had to be utilitarian.

I'd review famous architects we were taught, look at their designs, and find them a bit stiff, and uncomfortable, even impractical.

But my classmates ooh'd and aah'd.

I always reminded myself that we design for people.

People come first.

Whether it's a car or a home, even a toy, people came first.

I was trained differently, from a book I learned to love.

And that will be for the next post.

(Image source from this blog.)

Updated 24 January 2022

Lessons From Architecture

Ever seen one of those T-squares?

They're a cool invention for precision, but a pain to carry, what with 36 inches of it.

I called it my "palakol", my axe.

Quack architect had to carry that every day for five years --  together with triangles, scales, pens, pencils, tracing paper, books, notebooks.

I trudged the library with that, too, for we didn't have lockers.

Strange that I think about that now.

We sure didn't have lockers.

My school was run by German and Belgian priests, and we didn't have lockers??!!

Oh, and yes, there were no working elevators either.

Too bad if you had to come from the ground floor, and up to the seventh floor, where our classrooms were.

My father bought me a nice, yellow lamp that can be angled.

He also had a carpenter fashion a drawing table just for me.

Again, this quack architect cringed as every nail was driven to that table, which was actually the halved ping-pong table of my brothers when they were kids.

Now, my fate was sealed.

A table, and a lamp.

I had to get to work.

Dad kept a close eye on me at school, and would pick me up after school, parking his van right outside my building.

My teachers and classmates behaved, for obvious reasons.

So, what did I learn from all these?

Patience.

Precision.

And "perspective".

Architecture taught us to see, and draw, things from a worm's eye view, normal street view, and bird's eye view.

We were taught to see from three dimensions. 

That really helped in my thinking and writing.

And yes, I excelled in English, Religion, and Theory of Architecture, and was intrigued by Sir Bannister Fletcher's "A History of Architecture".

The rest of my classmates excelled in everything but those.

Their interests were in Architecture and construction itself.

Which made me feel even more of a quack.

The Quack Architect

Honesty is refreshing.

I will never pretend to be what I'm not, which is a real architect.

I'm more of a writer, so I write.

Even as I did finish that lengthy five-year Architecture course in college back in the mid-80s.

Still, I'm a quack.

I had not taken up the board exams.

So, I got to graduate as architectural draftsman, building construction technician, and finally, as architecture grad.

All my classmates were beaming, wearing their togas, clutching at their hard-earned diplomas, and there I was, with a pained, unhappy expression on my face, distancing myself from them, knowing I was going to be a quack architect all my life.

Sure, I did the necessary drafting apprenticeship for a couple of well-known architects.

You know how it feels to pretend your heart is in your work, and that you know what you're doing?

I had no love for drawing endless tongue-and-groove illustrations, to signify wooden flooring, but in this case, I was asked to draw it for the ceiling, as the Chinese clients wanted it for their four-story building.

How mechanical I had become!

Those were the pre-computer, pre-CAD days, and we did it all by hand, by pencil, by ink, by tracing paper, by watercolor, by blueprint.

I knew I was not going to end up as an architect, so I was careful about asking my father for stuff needed in my course.

He was a very hardworking physician, and I couldn't bear to ask for anything.

I knew I was going to disappoint him.

It was only as I neared my thesis, that I finally asked to buy a lettering set, for it was needed.

It took me that long.

I couldn't ask for an expensive tool, that eventually won't get used anyway.

Throughout college, I asked for nothing.

Well, except for that obligatory lettering set.

But surely, I learned from Architecture, yes?

You bet!

Lots, and lots, and lots.

And that's no quackery.

The next post tells you what I learned from Architecture.

Published on 25 May 2020

(Updated 28 September 2023)