Johannesteijsmannia altifrons

Scientific name : Johannesteijsmannia altifrons

Common name : Palas, Joey palm

Location : Wisma Selangor Dredging, KL, MY

Previously it was commonly found in Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor, Kedah and Perak. However, since 35 years ago, this plant is categorized as endangered species because of deforestation and has been categorized as endangered species. More about this plant can be read here. This website is in Malay, unfortunately :)

Tradescantia zebrina

Scientific name : Tradescantia zebrina

Common name : Tradescantia, spiderwort

Location : Wisma Selangor Dredging, KL, MY

Sungei Palas BOH Tea Centre

Eid mubarak people! Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha. How was your holiday? Hope all is well.

This eid, our family took a short detour to Cameron Highlands! The last time I went was during my degree years, an ecology project. We went to BOH Tea Centre at Sungei Palas. Wonderful place, fresh air and beautiful weather. The tea centre is located in Brinchang about 2km away from Kea Farm Market or 5km after town. It complements the main BOH estate in Habu, Ringlet, with its very own tea center, visitor gallery and show factory. To view the landsmarks & location map, click here. 

The tea centre was designed by Hostasia Corporation. They provide efficient and comprehensive tourism, leisure and hospitality development services in Asia and Middle East. They design hotels, resorts, spas and even themed restaurants. In 2004, BOH plantations commissioned  Hostasia to conceptualize, develop, build and operate a new tea centre in the Cameron Highlands. The link the its website can be reached by clicking here. 

Are you a tea lover? I am. I prefer tea to coffee. Tea was said could help in preventing cardiovascular disease and cancer. There are also research evidence which indicates that drinking around four to five cups of tea a day may have a beneficial effect on two long established heart disease risk factors, high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure. Although the effect is small on an individual basis, when translated to whole population, the potential effect on heart disease risk reduction could be considerable.

However, I strongly suggest, whatever we do/eat/drink, must be done/taken moderately. Too much of so many things is always bad. Here are some photos I manage to snap before the battery of my camera drained out.

My boys :)

The tea centre.

Undergraduate project: Revealing the Landscape 2012

During my undergraduate years, the projects I've done are some of the most interesting, especially during my 1st year. I really loved seeing students' art installations and also hearing them explaining their projects. Some were very straight forward and some sounds almost too logic to be true :)

I stumbled upon this website while searching for a potential PhD supervisor. An installation project by undergraduate students. More photos can be seen from the website link below. 

The text and photos are taken from http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/blakegarden/?p=1816

The Unseen Landscape: an installation project is done by undergraduates in the Landscape Architecture Design 101 class taught by Daphne Edwards. The students were to choose a site in the garden and design an intervention/installation to highlight a landscape feature or quality. The project is up in the garden until Friday , October 12. boards and models will be in the greenhouse to view after  Wednesday, Oct. 10th.

What is an Arborist?

During the first semester of Bachelor of Landscape Architecture in UPM, the students are exposed with a series of related professionals that work together with landscape architects. Some of them are engineers, architects and arborists. The term arborist seemed a bit alien as the students made funny faces when hearing it. Well, surprise kids, there are so many more things you can do for a living. Typically, as children, we were exposed to certain profession such as doctors, lawyers, architects and police officer. As we grow older, and if we were curious enough, we learn that the world is so much more than all that. 

What is an arborist? 

In general, an arborist specialize in raising, maintaining and removing trees. They may specialize in keeping trees healthy, planting trees or landscaping. Sometimes referred to as tree doctors, they examine and take care of trees and shrubs with structural, nutritional and disease issues. They may evaluate tree color and texture to see if there is any decay or damage. If there is a problem with a tree, the arborist might take samples and send them to a lab for examination. Arborists also perform pruning and trimming on trees and shrubs, including removing dead branches as well as living branches that are obstructions. 

In Malaysia, there are not that many arborists, yet. According to their website, the list showed about 50+ members. You can access the website by clicking here. Do browse through and who knows, you might be interested in joining them :)

photos from http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/blakegarden/

What is landscape architecture?

What is landscape architecture? In Malaysia, why do people always associate landscape architecture with gardeners or 'tukang tanam pokok'? People misunderstand the profession and importance of a Landscape Architect. Not all Malaysians understand or even know what landscape architecture is all about. Even some of our 1st year students joined this course, not knowing what landscape architecture is all about.

I may write about this later but for now, I am sharing this youtube video about what is landscape architecture. It was uploaded on 2008. Filmed as part of the Landscape Institute's "I want to be a landscape architect" campaign, twelve top landscape architects describe their unique profession. 

For more information, visit www.iwanttobealandscapearchitect.com.

Comic strip #1

Container classroom

Me and my husband has always wanted to buy a recycled container (kontena) and renovate it to make it our studio. If we were crazy enough, we would make a small house out of it. But, lack of skilled worker is a limitation that we faced. Of course, we have experts! However my budget is just waaaay beyond what we can afford to pay these experts. Oh well, a concrete house would do, for now. Will definitely put our dreams on paper and finally on ground. I came across lots of images and projects about wonderful projects using recycled container.

Image below shows an office made of recycled container. Ohh I so want this!

image from here

I also came across a project by Adam Kalkin, which is also interesting but he took the container home concept to a bigger scale. Not the standard small container we Malaysians always see at construction sites. One of his project can be found here.

What interest me the most is a project done by Tsai Design Studio - a school! It is located at  Durbanville, Capetown. The school - Vissershok Primary School, is a rural school dedicated to the children of farm workers and underprivileged communities living in Du Noon. This project is sponsored by three South African companies – Woolworths, Safmarine and AfriSam. For further reading, click here.

Below are some of the images from the website.

Schefflera arboricola

Scientific name : Schefflera arboricola

Common name : Dwarf umbrella tree, schefflera

Location : Faculty of Design & Architecture, UPM, MY

A visit to PJ Trade Centre

Last  semester the 2nd year studio went for a visit to PJ Trade Centre near Damansara Perdana. The Centre is actually a cluster of 'naked' skyscrapers, housing 4 towers. Tower A is Menara Mustapha Kamal (not the actor), Tower B is the new BATA headquarters, Tower C is Menara Hasil (Income Tax) and Tower D is owned by the Perak Clay and chemical manufacturing group Taiko. The lanscape was designed by the famous Seksan. I always loves Seksan's choice of plants. They usually use forest plant species (which I am not familiar with), with beautiful tall thin clear trunks and small leaves. 

One thing that I've learnt about forest trees is, always plant them in clumps. Their natural habitat in the forest are usually clumps - very close to one another. When the trees are planted 'alone', it does not survive as well as when it is planted in clumps. I remember the Pulai trees planted near the highway towards UPM toll. When ever there is strong wind, it is most likely a tree would fall.

These are some of the photos of the area. 

For more photos, click the Read more below..