Off late, the project that I involved was designing a local museum. According to brief, this project was seen as an opportunity for Selangor State Government to achieve strategic objectives relating to the promote culture and history awareness of Kampung Baru as well as bonding generations and ethnic groups by generating activities for mutual understanding. Our intervention aims to highlight the local patrimony and respect it by the architectural creation.

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Simplicity, as a process of adhering to the essence of use, to lack of ornament, and to mimesis of the technical reproducibility and expressive rigor of utensils, has, as we know been the most prominent and common stylistic banner of modernity in this century. The local museum was designed with simple look to normal warehouse as exterior. Steel window profiles and garage doors evolved in their role and expression into open-space partitions.

 

In side of the building, it is a timelines introducing with the local materials : timber, concrete and steels. Old textured window glass were integrated in the partitions dividing private and public spaces. Materials are clear and simple. Using the local materials and design elements intergrate could make residents have the sense of familiar when they visit. Meanwhile, not to destroy the existing design elements around. Constructed in timber, concrete and steel, the material elements respond to the desire to reduce the architectural impact within this landscape.

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Inside the altar, the main activity was brewing tea. The idea behind was using smell sense to intense people to walk in through the building itself. Delicate lattice frame composed of slender ties beams and posts for the kitchen. The powerful presence of the timber structure emphasises the stark transparency of the void below. As saying goes, the recognition of complexity in architecture does not negate what Louis Kahn has called “the desire for simplicity.” But aesthetic simplicity which is a satisfaction to the mind derives, when valid and profound, from inner complexity.

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“The reasons behind a simple building must reveal, not cover, the fissures of doubt; they must reconnect and not isolate. They must first address their own limits, and must limit the risks of instituting a law that lacks the necessary internal order. That is, they must realize that its balance is precarious, but at the same time pursue it with tenacity.” With this, the washrooms was designed  with a apart from the other ‘blocks’ , using the same material of concrete floor. Without boundary of columns or wall , it reclaimed the space.

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In simplicity, there must be nothing pre-established, nothing immobile. Instead, all must be balance, measurement, relation between points, vital organization, mysterious transparency. It is therefore, all the furniture inside the local museum itself are all movable and easy access for everyone, either old or young. Design, designing for simplicity which will lead us to consider for the disable or old range of people. For instance, thinking about how an old people walking, climbing around the building, etc. 

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If we take a different view of design, and focus less on the object and more on design thinking as an approach, that we actually might see the result in a bigger impact. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ― Clare Boothe Luce