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A critical piece of a story, where the designer started by asking the pertinent question of "what do we do with an under-utilized high rise building", Wong Joe Yee from the 2019-2020 design thesis batch, did what he needed to do. He designed the Vertical Neighbourhood Shared Space, taking the Menara Mutiara, a 13 storey building, and transforming it into a place for the community at Petaling Jaya Old Town, for his year long design thesis project. In this must-listen to interview, he gave the account on his experiences struggling with the design concept for most of the year and finally during the MCO (Movement Control Order), only managed to find the breakthrough in semester 2, that helped him focus to complete the project until the end, by the consolidation of the existing programs from the site around for different groups of people and then, salvaging exercise of existing materials from the deconstruction of the building and surrounding demolished buildings. Working with a high-rise typology, he explored and manipulated voids, after leaving only the main structure and lift core intact, working with volumes, space and details to create the idea of a "vertical park" that connects all shared spaces in order to solve the problem of an under-utilized high-rise and break the trend of "not just another mall". Do listen to Joe Yee's design thesis journey to know more. 
© 2020 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Art work in podcast is the section by Wong Joe Yee design thesis project 2019-20 named Vertical Neighbourhood Shared Space
Drawing  © Copyright: Universiti Malaya, Author: Wong Joe Yee

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