Kategori: RAW Architecture Struggle, Crisis, and Research

RAW Architecture Years

Greetings, Dear Readers

Young architect and Restless Spirits,

On 25 September 2011, we were married. Our marriage is the marriage between families, so we leave the preparation to our parents. They like to be responsible for food tasting, choosing the place for receptions. What we focused on concerning us, Laurensia picked her gown and asked me about her opinion. She liked the simple one, and it was a perfect fit for her. We took a picture on our pre-wedding day in place of our daily activities, her dental clinic, the garage office, and the street, including empty land near my parent’s house. Our preparation was straightforward and modest. I love the moment that captured our life because it shows the real us in daily routines.

She cared about the studio; because that was the thing that I loved. We took the pictures in our architecture studio, showing time-lapse that doing architecture is a marathon, and she is waiting for all of the time bu patience and love. In the dental clinic, I let her take care of my teeth, and it’s an act of me accepting her condition gratefully.

We spent the evening playing with balloons and folded bicycle from my mother. The setting was to catch the dream and to give harmony, she will take me to the ground, and I drive the bike together, only both of us; it’s our world.

We set the picnic at the treetop in front of the studio; it was a lovely and timeless moment. We have beautiful pictures; what made it enjoyable was the moment captured in our parents, including her very close dog. One is a heartwarming experience. We want to experience it repeatedly, and it feels like I know her from the past life.

We had the Holy Matrimony and reception in one day. Our big family, my grand Mother, fellow friends, my students, and some long friend from Malaysia, UK, universities, brothers from architecture studios, high school friends, relatives, clients came to greet us. We feel grateful for their prayer.

That day was unimaginable, like a dream come true. And we have planned to Visit London for our honeymoon. We went to York, Edinburgh, Paris, Italia – 3 cities: Venice, Verona, Treviso, Spain-3 cities: Barcelona, Bilbao, and Seville, then returned to Paris and traveled home. I studied Jean Nouvel, Carlo Scarpa’s works, Gaudi’s Works, visiting Frank Gehry’s exhibition at Pompidou Centre, revisited Foster and Partner’s studio, including meeting old friends and looked at Metropole Parasol by Jurgen Mayer. It’s one of the pilgrimage trips that I started to understand the world of tectonics, the alchemy of materials, the critical of the guild, and the sublimation of poetic objects. I will share the pilgrimage trip below.

Laurensia accompanies me on the trip while I was learning at architecture. I always wait for her comments. I feel grateful to have her supporting the journey, and we can have fun while learning a new universe of architecture. I, as Narayana finally found my Radha.

Greetings,

Realrich Sjarief

Preparing the Marriage | Together with Laurensia

I learned on critical and creative thinking that both of the worlds need iterations of things. That’s architecture. Its fluid, it’s complex, and full of surprises. If you learn one brilliant architect’s journey, you will get amazed. I understand that my dad and granddad, they are a builder. It makes a massive leap as my understanding that architecture can use what available material around us. It forms a positive attitude, to absorb that is profound to open unlimited learning from context.

I traveled quite often after I had a marriage with Laurensia. We do learn from pilgrimage with her to explore new ways of looking at things. We went to places around Indonesia and London to retracing some exciting works by Norman Foster or even by Enric Miralles, and many great architects or even architecture without architects.

In this trip, the journey is varied from learning from many great – great architects. There are few names such as Y.B. Mangun Wijaya, Le Corbusier, Laurie Baker, Carlo Scarpa, Maclaine Pont, Antonin Raymond, Alvar Aalto, and others still living. All of those architects fight their vision and do their mission by what they have done. I am inspired by them, and I read autobiographies about their work every time I make the pilgrimage. I can cry and touch their effort to push their limit of humanity. They are complex. Their archetypes bring complexity to the current world.

Correa wrote that there two way of learning, direct and indirect learning. I think both of them actually needs a compass of retrospective, way to know that we are part of bigger picture. Actually this journey is about to understand our own shadows, personas, animas, animus, heroes, and so many archetypes that defines us. Jung probably right that there must me something magical that becoming background of the human’s mind and I think this is about transformation, and understanding that Architecture is so damn powerful.

Greetings,

Realrich Sjarief

Moments | Pilgrimage

Moments | Family

Greetings, Dear Readers

Young architect and Restless Spirits,

Her name is Laurensia, She has the same age of me. She went to the same elementary school with me, the same senior high school with me, but we went to different university. She went to university in Jakarta while I went for my bachelor degree in Bandung. Bandung and Jakarta is 2 different cities, has different life style, different climate, but same solstice as the location approximately in same latitude. I had not much time to know her, since that time.  8 years after that, she is a Dentist and I am an Architect.

My life was so fast at that time, “a lonely ranger”, I would say. After I graduated, I worked in Bandung, Singapore, London, while sometime fly to Banjarmasin to help my brother’s business. It had been a wicked time for work alcoholic time with almost 40 design competitions and design built works across South East Asia, Middle East and China. I spent a year in one place and another year in another place.

Greetings,

Realrich Sjarief

Getting Know My Love | Laurensia

Every time I went home from Overseas, I always send a text to Laurensia, called her. I did that because I like to share things with her. She was an indifferent world to me, and I had been friends since I was ten years old. We were friends because I knew that she had a boyfriend. But in London, I was single, and I did not care about relations, one thing that I am sure that I am pretty lonely. One time I got the reply email from Laurensia that I sent years before.

We conversed by email, and I knew that she was single, she broke up with her boyfriend. We shared life around us, and I knew that she worked so hard. She went to the rural areas in the mountain to practice, serving the government every day. In Indonesia, to obtain a license, a young dentist needs to fulfill the service to the government. It took three years for her to do things like that. It took hours to travel, and the need to change transport several times, from cars, mini can, and motorcycles. Her life was tough, and she was consistent in fulfilling her service to the government.

We conversed by emails and texts several times, noting that when I went back to Jakarta, I wanted to ask her for dinner. I wanted to see her in person. My curiosity grew because She lived in two routines, in the morning, she did service to the government in the rural area, and in the evening, she worked in her dental clinic. She worked so hard, and I can see that I am in love with her hard work. I did my hard work as well as an architect, working overtime and living morning and evening work. I saw her hard work as reflection of my life, how we are different but her story fill my heart.

Greetings,

Realrich Sjarief

Moments | With Laurensia Before Marriage

I divided the story into several chapters. The first chapter is my formation year. I came from a builder’s family, born in Surabaya. I spent some of my childhood in Bedugul, Bali accompanying my father that worked in the construction of Bali Handara project. I was astonished to see the culture of Bali, the island of God. When I was ten years old, I moved to Jakarta. Jakarta is a mixture of colonial, traditional, and ultra-modern cities. This juxtaposition shows the true potential of Indonesia, and this potential has its weakness in its infrastructure and integrative planning.

Since working in the architecture field, I was curious about what’s the limit of architecture. I was hungry for learning, and the first step is to get to know myself better. I moved to Bandung to study architecture in ITB. I worked in Ridwan Kamil + Partners’s studio, Urbane, for a year before working in Singapore in DP Architect, and finally accepted to work in Foster and Partners London. I put some understanding that The studio selected me, not me choose them. I did send many applications, and many got rejected. Few were accepted.

The second step was understanding that the studio has goals, and I do have plans. How to put both goals in harmony is the key. I need to care about the studio’s goals. By doing that, I have responsibility for the studio. The story then continued when I studied again in Sydney, continuing my master’s degree in Urban Design and Development under Jon Lang and James Weirick. Then, I started my firm, Realrich Architecture Workshop. This chapter is the formation year, year before I met Laurensia.

Greetings,

Realrich Sjarief

Formative Year

Greetings, Dear Readers

Young architect and Restless Spirits,

I have been writing and designing since 2005. I started in this blog to share my journey as a freshman and continued even after I become Architect. Since then, I got inspired by some stories from books, short articles, video clips, or even just a simple note from serendipity. I reshare some of the stories hoping that those stories can help you walk your life as they do to me. The tales start with a professor who taught their students about priorities in life. It begins from My Mayonaisse Jar. This writing is a way to contemplate, a way to respect, and a way to transform. I learn about the priority of life in his story. Family, Friends, Work.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, this space is a way to gathering my spirit. And when 24 hours in a day is not enough, I always remember this story about the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.” It’s a way for me to remind myself that I can encounter the problem by telling myself everything will be ok, start control and leave the things I can’t control. And this thinking made me start My Mayonaisse Jar.

Greetings,

Realrich Sjarief