A sanctum is a private place from which most people are excluded. It will provide tranquility and suitable for those who are looking for a private place to run away from the hectic city life.

'Flat Pack Bag Pack' is the title for project 2. I was so thrilled to start this project as it was something that I have never tried before. As exciting as it sounds, this project is about giving the homeless or catastrophe victim a portable shelter and acts as a survival tool to survive harsh environments in the street of Georgetown. 

The shelter

We were divided into small groups of 5 and I'm so glad that all of my teammates cooperated wholeheartedly in this project. There were a few criteria needed to be followed in designing the shelter such as easy to fold and retract, lightweight yet strong and stable, it should occupy for both day and night and materials used must be from recycling materials.

Our group during the presentation

New knowledge that I gained from this project is the study of anthropometrics, design consideration based on the homeless circumstances and their needs in daily life regarding the shelter. I was super satisfied with our work, from the design to the boards completed by us. Developing new ideas was not an easy task especially when working in a group and we managed to get an agreement in term of design and everything. I am also very delighted and grateful that we won first place on the day of the presentation.

In semester two, we started off our project with project 1 named The Old Charm of Georgetown. It is a task where the students were asked to do a series of freehand sketches. It was actually a good opportunity for the students especially those who were not born in Penang or stay here to explore more unique heritage buildings in town and being exposed to some architectural elements that they never experienced before.

My selection of heritage building is St. George's Girls' School. It is an all-girls school located at Macalister Road, Georgetown. The main reason for choosing this building is because I'm attracted to the emphasis of English architecture culture and elements towards the building itself, parallel to its use as a church back in the past.

From this project, I was exposed to new things such as the principle of design, creative thinking and I also improved myself in term of composition, freehand drawing and coloring as well. The comments given by all of the lecturers helped me a lot in realizing my mistakes and learning from them. It was a great opportunity to learn more about real life architecture with different stories and background.