If i ever were to write a book on architecture, it would fashioned after the coffee table books of the architecture world. Like Bali Style, Tuscan Villas, The Tropical House and Neophytic Clinical Interiors.....mine would be called Malaysian Underconstruction style.
Underconstruction style begins with the premise that the design and construction practice in the country produces buildings which actually look better during construction than when theyre finished. Buildings in Malaysia just look so cool and edge cutting with their stark concrete frames and twitchy rebars, its a national mystery why we ever complete them with plastered this and that. Its not something that is easily explained, lets just say that things have a way of adding up.
I propose an underconstruction style, one which embraces an aesthetic of economy and feeds off our local building and material industry; home grown, locally sourced and hip. One which allows the beauty of concrete frames and unplastered brick to win the hopeless war against painted moldings and pokey windows. It will be a style of contrast, of context and, dare i say, conviviality: one which will not take itself or its sense of detail too seriously. Underconstruction style will take to its garden and context the way gardens take to a ruin, passionately and unselfconsciously. It will be a style informed by the processes of construction, and in doing so, allow the integrity of its own construction to be revealed, not hidden.
Quietly now, lets all subvert the dominant paradigm.