LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts studio

I could never really understand what is life and what it entails but I do know I love Architecture.
My life really began when I rebelled against my parents and decided to pursue a route less taken. When I was removed from Singapore Polytechnic, I enrolled myself in LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts and so I choose and started my education as an Architect more or less.
The interior space is that of my first studio in LaSalle. It was converted from an old school building. It shows my studio mates trying to piece our individual projects together before submission. You probably cannot see it but it was quite frantic. The interior was white washed almost clinical and the floor concrete screed. It felt really cool coz you feel a certain sense of history. The stories as to what this room experienced when you look at the marks on the floor and the drawings or materials on the wall that the white paint could not really cover.
This room meant a lot to me, it was the place when I first experienced the joy and pains of being an Architecture student, the same room was also the “Killing Grounds” so to speak with all the critique sessions going on. It was also a pleasure room with unofficial majong sessions and the “drunken from Champagne” recovery room when we finish our “visits” at openings of art exhibitions at Earl Lu gallery which is just five minutes away. It was the place that I met good friends and lecturers and had a wonderful time. Thomas Kong, Peter Tay, Peter Chen, Jacinta Neoh, Faris, Mike, Hendra, Jamie, Rong Ren, Tern Yuan, Ben… you Guys ROCK!! It was a place where Architecture first seduced me and is leaving me stranded now.
Sadly, LaSalle is due to move to its new campus next year and the fate of this room and the present campus (Designed by William Lim) remains unknown but I am almost sure it will be town down. A building, a place, a space can never be detached from the memories and feelings of its users. And each place is unique according to one’s experiences. Perhaps that’s the invisible part of Architecture or least one aspect of it. It’s not just the physical and measurable. I can never recreate that place with its people ever again and why should I attempt to. It was for that moment and that moment only.
My favourite place does not exist anymore but I hope to visit my old studio again more or less.
Your life is but a Moment, Live this Moment-Unknown

Chua Co Seng