Solid Ahhhh!

Asolidplan: No. Yes. In some ways.

Zhong Yi: Yes and no. It depends on the scale of the project. I mean, we're never satisfied with what we have. We want to always grow and do better things, more interesting things right? So there's always that desire to try something new. So in a way, I think things we have tried before we will be less eager to just take it up but for new things we'll definitely want to try. So it's never easy.

In a way, we've built up some reputation, it becomes easier for us to talk to clients and there is an understanding of what we can do. There is less of a need for us to explain and to prove ourselves before we get the job, for example. But because we're always on the lookout for newer projects, bigger projects, something different; there will always be that gap. So we will always be working hard to get newer, bigger and different types of projects. In a way, it's not easier only because we made it this way.

Ker How: I would say that the only real criteria that we have is never to repeat any design. Very consciously. Rather than not repeating the type of project. Say we do a condo penthouse for example, we will still do another one, but we will explore different things for the next one. I always like to use this example where someone actually called us and said: " Hey, I like this project on your website. I have the exact footprint plan of it. Can you just replicate it for me?" So immediately our answer is: "No."

We don't want to do that. Because if you think about it, it is very easy to do it because everything is done, you know, and the client just wants a repeat, right? It's good money, easy money. But to be fair to the owner - the original owner, we don't want to do that. And also for us, because we believe that every project should be something different, maybe there's some similarities, but we always try to do something different.

Jing Feng: Describe each other, hmmm.

Jing Feng: Let Zhong Yi start first.

Asolidplan: It’s a tough question. laughter

Jing Feng: Maybe I'll just start with what we see in common. It’s why we have these partnerships in the first place, right? It is because all three of us agree that whatever design that we embark in, it is always very contextual; and how each individual responds differently to the same context. For example, we have a few projects in Tiong Bahru, right? The walk-up apartments with the same layout, but how each of us deal with it is pretty different. It's always very contextual and how we insert our own concepts into the context and I think that is where we agree, it has to be contextual. That's first and foremost and how we apply our concept into the context, that can differ from person to person. I think that would probably be the best way. But in terms of being specific, how each of us approach design, that definitely is pretty different.

Zhong Yi: I thought our processes are very similar. In fact we all go to through the same thought process of the context and the concept. In fact we always show our clients this diagram projecting an intersection in between the content, context and concept. Yeah, there is more similarities than differences. The differences will come down to how we deal with the very realistic issues of clients and contractors and budgetary constraints. So not many differences in process I would say. What do you think Ker How?

Ker How: I mean, of course, we are not 100% the same. We are all three individuals and the difference is the method or the 'step by step'. Maybe Zhong Yi does 'C-B-D-A' , then Jing Feng will do it 'A-B-C-D-A'. Some of us are a little bit more fluid, some of us a little bit more step by step. So that's when I feel that these differences come in to complement each other. Like for example when let's say for my projects, I do it step-by-step and then suddenly Zhong Yi will come and throw me a curveball: 'Ey, why do you do it this way, you know.’ Then that kind of resets a certain thinking and then we go back one step. It becomes a to-and-fro kind of design process. Of course its tiring for the office sometimes. But I believe that's what drives our design a little bit differently from other design projects we have in the office. So every project is different, we always contextualise the concept or we conceptualise the context. I think this phase is very important to us and we hold on dearly to it.

Zhong Yi: And this process is very objective. It’s methodological, it’s objective. A few times, actually quite regularly, we would openly critique our projects in front of one another. Do an open sharing session in office and with all the critiques coming in from the whole office, whether it’s the partners or the other colleagues. Because the process is objective, we can take these comments objectively and in the end it always contributes to the process. We're quite happy about the process.

Jing Feng: Currently, everyone is working with every one of us three; in one way or another. We didn't really exactly define a kind of team structure within a company. It's more in terms of wanting this kind of dynamism in terms of the chemistry between different staff to different directors; and different directors can offer, pass down different knowledge to all of them as well. Yeah, I think currently we are still enjoying this kind of process. And we are not planning to really have a very structured team within the office in the near future.

Ker How: It's really more project based.

Zhong Yi: We do keep track of everyone's workload, in the big Gantt chart. So we know who's busy with what. I mean we get very active feedback from the staff who will tell us they are busy with this and that, and then we will try to adjust the workload either by holding back on the client’s side, or reducing some of the deliverables, or transferring some of the work to the other supporting colleagues; because we do pair our projects with our staff. We have pairs of staff working on a project, so one leads, and one supports. So sometimes the supporting person can come in to help also, or sometimes we ourselves will help. So it's quite dynamic.

Ker How: I think the other thing that we consciously do is we also want to groom every single person working in Asolidplan. I think the target is to be to be a master of all trades, rather than a Jack of all trades. So let's say, one of them works on residential ID - too many projects on that, and then he or she expresses the wish to do a different typology. So when the next commercial project comes along, we will say: “You take this on, regardless of who the partner is in charge”. So that's why we kept this dynamism. It's not so much where, I lead one team, Zhong Yi will lead one team, or Jing Feng will lead one team. This cross-learning is very important, which we advocate. That's how you become a master of all trades.

Jing Feng: Yes. In both directions actually, because we do have a lot to learn to learn from the younger ones as well. So vice versa.

Jing Feng: We just had this conversation. laughter Ker How, can you elaborate on that?

Ker How: I think the optimal size is 15. Based on what we are doing or what we want to do. The moment you go beyond 15, you usually go super big, and then you start to have to fight for big scale projects - condominiums, master plans, skyscrapers. If you look at the architecture firms in Singapore, you realise that that's also the trend that they follow. Anything below 15 or within 15, it can maintain that size. The moment they go beyond—I mean, you look at Woha now, last time they were 15 or less, but now they are like 100. It becomes a different animal altogether, a different mechanism. How you control the quality of your works, it's a very different ballgame altogether. So at least for now, the three of us have discussed that 15 is our optimum for now.

Ker How: Wow. No choice right? Okay, the correct answer should be passion. I remember this story when I was in year one NUS architecture. I interned for Randy. So every day he will come to me and say: "Do you still want to be an architect? Do you still want to be an architect?" Yeah, then he will bring me for drinks with Mr. Tang Guan Bee and then Mr. Tang will ask me the same thing.

Jing Feng: Now he's asking the younger ones.

Ker How: Yeah. So at that point of time, actually, I did think of leaving the industry because I realised the real realities of this industry. If I'm looking for money, that's not where I will be. If I'm looking for say, meaning of work, which I believe there's a reason why we are still doing what we are doing, at least there is some meaning in what we are doing right?

Rather than I go into the banking sector and look at numbers that I don't feel a thing for. And just want to earn money and go travelling. Of course some people have those life targets, which I guess for me, that is not so important. It's important, but that's not my priority. I still want to enjoy doing the work I enjoy. So that's how I went past seven years. Beyond that, it’s too late for you to turn back. Yeah.

Jing Feng: I think apart from passion, is also the question of purpose. The other ‘P’ that really drives us. Kind of like, what’s the purpose in the things that we do, right. So I guess, in short, for whatever project that we complete, we see how clients use the space that we created for them. We see how they use the space according to our intentions, or sometimes, you know, how they use the space to overturn our expectations. That kind of gives a lot of satisfaction after completing the project; which will motivate us to do better in the next one. So that's how I see it.

Zhong Yi: Yes, it brings me to the Japanese concept of ikigai - What you are good at, what you can be paid for and how you can contribute to the world. So, in a way, the scale of the projects we do, which is a lot of residential work – effectively, we are improving the lives of our clients. I mean most of them were living in smaller homes or messier homes or something not to their liking and we are actively participating in improving their lives.

And so couple by couple, family by family, we slowly contribute to improve their lives and I think that's meaningful, despite all the difficulties. I think that really drives us along.

Ker How: Maybe I’ll start first. For me, I don't think there's any brightest spark. Every project is a spark. It’s a different spark and it triggers different chords in me, personally. To the smallest project of say, an art exhibition to a very public project say like NDP stage set to a one bedroom apartment to a good class bungalow. I think for every project, the moment when it's completed, that triggers a little spark, or medium spark that contributes to this purpose of work. And I think the best comment usually comes when they see the product and say: "Oh I didn’t know my house could be like that." Then that really send chills down my spine. We really show you a physical vision of what your house could be, what your life could be. I think that’s the satisfaction.

Jing Feng: I agree with Ker How, there's no single spark or single project that really stands out among the rest. It's really, every project is different, with every client and how gratified they are. There’s hits and misses as well. There are still things that we learn, even though certain projects didn’t end up really good but there are still important lessons to be learnt from there, which we carry on to our next project. I think that’s the most important. So that’s what really drives us and keeps us going.

Jing Feng: I think the difficult part is more of the physical presence, which we couldn’t have, in that two years. Which we realised is actually pretty important. You know, we've always been taking it for granted. Coming into the office and stuff like that, but during the period that we can't come into the office physically, one of the difficulties is not be able to meet with colleagues.

You know, there's less interchange of ideas. Or even learning from each other. The opportunities to collaborate, to critique each other are much fewer. And you have to purposely make the effort to set up a Zoom meeting or give a call to each other just to get some inputs. Which probably takes more effort apart from our everyday work already. So, that's what we realised, you know, after the rules were loosened, most of them actually gave feedback to say that they'd rather come back to the office. They prefer to come back to the office because even if they suffer, they suffer together as there are colleagues around. So I think for that two years, to me, that was what was difficult.

Ker How: It's the lack of passive learning. Because when you are physically in a space, even when you're not involved in a meeting, you will still be eavesdropping, right? You always hear like, "Oh, there's some problem with some particular project", and then you will realise that—well, you wouldn't realise it actually, but you will subconsciously not do certain things, because you know that that's going to give you some problems later on, down the line.

There's also another thing; especially for the younger people when they’ve just graduated from school. Practice is a different ballgame when they are stuck at home: They have to call, they have to message, and when they message people, people don't reply or they have to purposely set up a Zoom. So all these deter them from asking questions immediately. Rather, when you have a colleague beside you, you say, "Hey, for this one, how do I fillet the lines?" for example. And "Do you know, where's the Office Standard?", for certain things that you want to look at. So I think the physical working environment is still important for our line of work. So that's our difficulty during COVID.

Zhong Yi: I remember that Bukit Purmei project. It was a very small three-room HDB flat with a triangular plan. That was one of the very early projects. One of the first few projects with just the three of us working on it together and we came up with a great idea of the 45 degree reflection. Everything was done and when the design was out, client was happy and went for tender. Then the price was too high, and we couldn't do what we wanted.

And then came that TV show. With the TV show there was some sponsorship involved. And suddenly we could do everything that we had wanted to do. And then after the whole thing, during the filming, the client actually cried. Yes I think he probably was very touched. Whether he was acting a little or not, I don’t know. But he definitely was very touched.

That was really quite a touching moment for me, because we went through so much and it almost didn’t happen, and then we ended up with so much help from everyone; all our contractors who sponsored so much. That was one nice moment.

Jing Feng: I wouldn't say no. We're always open for collaboration with internal or external parties, to share ideas and work out a project. Yeah, so why not?

Zhong Yi: In many ways we're already collaborating with a lot of our very regular partners. Our friend Bjorn of Tripple does a lot of branding, graphics – we worked closely with him. I mean, we are constantly collaborating. So whether we formalise it within the company or not, I think, I don't know, we don't need to think that far. In fact, these days, I think everyone's getting a bit more… less structured. Even for employees, the idea of employment is also being questioned now right?

Ker How: Yeah. And I mean, every time when people ask me this question, I always feel that there's no need to tell people that we collaborate because that's really in our blood. Because we collaborate with everybody in every project anyway, right?

Multi-discipline; we are already doing different types of projects, we collaborate with artists for an exhibition, we collaborate with creative directors for the NDP stage set. So it's something that is a given, for us, that there's really no point for us to say that Asolidplan is about collaboration or Asolidplan is about multidisciplinary. It's really in us.

Ker How: I think it's interesting to point that out because recently we also looked at some firms where they employ a visual content person to drive their visual content. I mean, at this point, we also don't know whether there's any visual content person who wants to join us. So what we do within ourselves is, I mean young people are very savvy with a lot of things nowadays; they do videos much better than us. They talk about Instagram, Tik Tok. So we are trying to inculcate certain directions towards that, making videos more than static spaces, or using renders to represent our work, but that is still at a very infancy stage. We haven't really talked about it in detail, but I think we are definitely open to that when the chance comes.

Zhong Yi: Yeah, I think it's not so much what they graduate with, their educational background; but more of their attitude and mindset.

Jing Feng: Yeah, I mean, how they think or process, for design. I think for me, it's never say never. It's always the case of 'never say never' right? If the right person comes in with the right mindset and skillset, why not? Right, it can offer a different perspective in what we have been doing. So yeah, why not? Like Thomas Heatherwick is not architecturally trained as well, right?

Zhong Yi:

Ker How: Do you know why we find it hard to answer this question, because we even had a lecture before, talking about crossing typologies. It's like nowadays, shopping malls are like public space right? You cannot say that a shopping mall is a shopping mall typology, or is a public space typology. So, even the way we approach our project, we keep asking ourselves: can this house be not just a house? Like, what kind of different things, what kind of new typology can this genre of project become? So we're constantly asking that, and to the extent that when we were trying to relook at our projects, what’s the good qualities of it, we realised actually we are trying to cross typologies to create new ones. Yeah, so that's why I think the three of us suddenly went very quiet.

Ker How: I wouldn't say that we are limited by size. If it's anything, we are limited by track record. That is a prevailing issue in the Singapore context, right? The only way to break out of it, like for example, we joined the Char Yong Foundation design competition, and we were shortlisted as the five. Of course in the end we didn't get it, but we hoped that we could have gotten it. That would have been one very interesting project that we would like to work on. Whether it is just three of us working on it versus a 15-member firm or versus a 50-member firm, I don't think it's a matter of size. It's a matter of whether we are given a chance to look at it.

Zhong Yi: Yes, it brings us to historical competitions, where young, smaller firms managed to break through the market. Whether its Arc Studio's Pinnacle at Duxton, or Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers, with the Pompidou Centre. It's always been a few of these big gestures that allow small firms and young architects to break through. And I guess if the opportunities are there, we just have to keep trying.

Asolidplan: laughter

Ker How: Before I chose architecture, I was contemplating the option of hospitality. I like the experience; the very intricate experience of when you're serving your customer at a restaurant, or hotelier - so you have to understand when they walk into your hotel, what do they like? What do they dislike? When the customer sits down in the restaurant, straight away you know what they're going to order and then you just serve them, and then you see that kind of reciprocal appreciation, which is very interesting to me. So if I'm not in architecture, I will be a hotelier, I mean, not a hotelier – a hotelier is for rich people. laughter I will be a chamber maid.

Ker How: Yes, yes. Yes, I think so. Yeah. And also I mean hotel is a very nice space. Talk about proportion, scale, design, the fabric you choose, you know, things like that. It's a happy place.

Zhong Yi: When I was at URA, I was exposed to GIS - geographical information systems. The whole geospatial mapping analysis, seeing the world through maps and data, spatial data, that was eye-opening for me. If I didn't pursue architecture I'll probably go into that.

Ker How: Wow. That’s a scientist.

Jing Feng: For me, I suspect I might just become a carpenter. Because I grew up watching my dad work as a carpenter. During the holidays I helped him out as well – when he used to have his own company and his own workshop. So I guess if I'm not in this line, I'll probably kind of like, be his apprentice? Become a carpenter. I don't know.

Ker How: And probably earn more too.

Jing Feng: Maybe I start first? Be prepared for disputes. Yeah, because it's bound to happen, like it or not, big and small. Because it's really different individuals coming together. You have different backgrounds and different values. So you are bound to have your own different priorities as well. So when people come together, and especially in business, you are talking about not just design, you're talking about dollars and cents too.

And most often than not, partnerships fall apart because of financial disputes. In fact, even general direction, change of direction, for example, for maybe one of the partners. So, I think if there's anything, you know, really, be prepared for disputes and be prepared to iron it out together. Yeah. For the three of us, we have a common understanding of how we resolve disputes. Which is why we think that three is also a magic number, because there's always a majority.

Zhong Yi: A partnership in a business is like any relationship. It's like your husband-and-wife relationship. It's a relationship. It's about two or more persons coming together. And you have to let go of part of your ego, yourself, in order to make the partnership work. And you have to acknowledge that the sum of wholes is greater than ... oh what's that term again? Anyway, You're just stronger together basically. You have to acknowledge that it's stronger together. Don't let the ego get in the way. Ego is just a part of yourself.

Ker How: It's interesting, you asked this question because I just answered this question during a young architects talk at SIA. So what I said then is the same as what I'm going to say now. To come out on your own. It's not just a bed of flowers. You need to have that vision. You need to ask yourself, why do you want to come out on your own? Like what they said, are you prepared for all these problems?

It's not just about design and I always remember what Randy told me on my first week on the job: design is only 10%. The other 90% is to deal with nasty clients, difficult contractors, not so cooperative consultants who give you very short timeline and want everything in the world. So to start out on your own you will have to deal with more problems than you would usually deal with if you are just an employee in a design firm or an architecture firm. Without that vision, you would just start and then you go back, which I've seen many of such cases.

But the problem with people doing that is when they just come out, in order to get jobs, they charge very low fees. They don't know what kind of cost that they need to incorporate into it. And that just brings the whole industry into a very unwelcoming state of profession. And I think that's something very important for young people who want to come out.

Jing Feng: Praises.

Ker How: Criticism.

Zhong Yi: Criticisms.

Ker How: Dusk. Eh, do you need to think for so long? laughter

Jing Feng: Dawn. yeah, dawn.

Zhong Yi: Dawn. It moves me because I rarely see it.

Asolidplan: Questions.

Asolidplan: Pencil

Ker How: I should have said Sketchup. No, I use Rhino. laughter

Ker How: Can I have another option?

Jing Feng: Both.

Zhong Yi: No. What I can't stand most is: ‘I don't like’. Without a reason.

Ker How: Why I chose 'Can I have another option?' Why I don't like that is because I always get the other one: 'This is not what I imagine.' But it's in a good way. We always get that comment because when we show them, they say "Wow, this is not what I imagined!"

Ker How: But 'option' is something so common and it's like you just don't know what you don’t like about it. You just want another option. So that's why I don't like it.

Jing Feng & Zhong Yi: Chin Chow.

Ker How: Michael Jackson (*local drink which is a combination of chin chow and soya bean drink)

Ker How: Context, context!

Asolidplan: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Chris.