Winter 2016 : ABC UK - Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

Nazran borrowed this book from the library. The ABC to Z refer to everything unique about the UK, for example, A is for Arthur (as in the King Arthur), B for Beetles (the band), G for the Giant Causeway (in the Northern Ireland). For each letter, I will find some videos (about King Arthur, the Beetles, etc) and watched them together with Nazran so he can learn more about the UK. Night time is loooong in the winter so we read a lot to kill time.

When he arrive at the letter L, he said he cant pronounce the word. I asked him to try harder (I was washing the dishes and I didnt look at the book). He tried but still, he said it was too hard. I asked him to spell it. He did but I stopped him halfway because I think he was not making any sense. Until I look at the page.... then I understand his struggle.

 

Cool, isnt it?! Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch is a large village in the Wales. It means - Parish [church] of [St.] Mary (Llanfair) [in] Hollow (pwll) of the White Hazel [township] (gwyn gyll) near (go ger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and] the parish [church] of [St.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo[f] goch) (Wikipedia). It is the longest place name in the UK and one of the longest in the world :)

Now, let's learn how to pronounce it!

It is surprising how much you can learn from a simple book of ABC!!!

Informative Stairwell Competition : The before

My office held an Informative Stairwell Competition last year. Each section need to beautify their stairwell and make it informative to encourage people to opt for the stair. I am always a fan of Active Design. This project quietly encourage us to make healthier choices.

I was selected to be the project leader. I googled some images and took photographs of other floors which has painting works in progress (*strategy* start late and look for inspiration) and presented it in the meeting. These are some designs-in-progress by other sections:

My section agreed to have a minimalist approach, simple, not too colourful as kindergarten's wall and have relevant information about our division (the important point of this competition is - the information). They even agreed with the idea of painting the floor with dark colour since the tiles were badly stained. No scrubbing work could take the 30 years old stain off the old tiles. No point of having interesting wall, but dirty floor. Gitu konsepnya.

So, these are the BEFORE and my quick rendering during the discussion, taking into consideration their ideas. Once we FINALLY agreed on the colour scheme, I can feel the excitement across the meeting room! 

Well, I think I was the only one worried about the whole thing because the final design involves specialty paints. Epoxy for the floor and glow-in-the-dark for the edge of the tread. (the staircase is black, so we plan to apply glow-in-the-dark paint on the tread edge so no one will miss the step during emergency). Great idea, huh?

Then I went paint-hunting.

KAED Fest : Bali & Lijiang Exhibition

KAED stands for Kulliyyah of Architecture and Environmental Design. I studied there for 6 years. KAED Fest is KAED's annual festival. You will see all sort of creative-minded people gathered there, all kind of booth selling creative merchandise, with wonderfully crafted booth signs - usually handmade, some creative - yet Islamic - performing arts, colourful posters and paintings everywhere, exhibition, competition, music, food and of course, the friendly students of KAED.

(Poster taken from Khalilah Zakariya's FB)

I had a chance to visit the Landscape Heritage & Cultural Studies Exhibition by landscape architecture students after I came back from the office on the 4th day. I told my husband I want to visit the exhibition the minute I saw my friend Kayla posted that marvelous poster (above) in FB. I went there with Nabil because he loves anything art-sy (and because his brothers were sleeping that time).

The students went to Bali, Indonesia and the Old Town of Lijiang, China for the Study. These are their final works. Awesome.

Old Town Lijiang team:

 

 Bali team: