The Golden Palm Tree

An Extract from "The Making of the Golden Palm Tree", author Michael Chua

The world population has risen steeply, since the Second World War, due to the conquest of many diseases, increased food production and improved sanitation and hygiene. Alongside this population boom, came the impetus to develop houses, hospitals, schools, factories, etc to serve the increased population. This rapid urbanization in the last century has burned a trail of damages to the environment which we now see is causing climate change and mayhem in some nations.

While we need to continue to develop life supporting wealth to humankind, it is timely that development has to be done in tandem with nature and perpetually balanced with nature to achieve continued harmony and prosperity.

Harmony with nature is of paramount importance as humankind is part of nature and therefore ought to flow with the pace and rhythm of nature. It is amid the natural rhythm and balance that we find bliss.

The Golden Palm Tree has funded the Sepang Gold Coast Environmental Interpretive Centre for the protection of wild life around Sepang. Even before the construction of the resort, it has already contributed to the cleaning up and replanting programme of mangrove samplings along the (river) Sungai Sepang. These mangrove plants have been around for thousands of years. Mangrove swamps protect our coastal line at Sepang Gold Coast and also forms an important habitat for biodiversity.

The rivers at Sepang are now clean from debris and flotsams, thanks to the hard work of the boatman, our guide and the hired cleaners. It is through involving the common people in the cleaning process that the environment can be protected.

I asked the guide at the mangrove river boat ride how he would urge people to protect the environment and he said that he would ask people to treat the environment as their home. “How would you like it if other people come to your home and destroy your home? You wouldn’t like that, so do the same for the wild life at Sepang. As the environment is beautiful, it will attract more tourists to the place and bring prosperity to your business…”

It is through young men like this guide that more will step forward to protect these mangrove swamps and coast lines, which are the habitat of many creatures like the otters, sea eagles, kingfishers, egrets, mud skippers and the ubiquitous colourful blue swimmer crabs. You can see these wonderful creatures and more when you hop on the mangrove river ride. Then, you will also have the chance to plant a mangrove sapling by the river bed and do your part in protecting the environment.

The Golden Palm Tree is designed as an ecologically friendly resort with energy saving insulation building materials, water treatment plants and building the sea villas on raised stilt platforms with minimum disturbance to marine life. The raised platforms have become an artificial reef offering shelter to the marine life beneath. Fishermen at Sepang Gold Coast have said that there are now more fishes in the sea since the resort is constructed.

All these environmentally friendly installations added significant costs to the resort and savings can only be realised after many years. This means that ecologically sustainable development essentially requires long term commitment.

Besides the infrastructure, the other half of ecological sustainability is the service and training to hire locally and scout for local farms as their food suppliers.

As a result, the local cottage industries are now bracing themselves to get ready for more tourists. The local famous Seafood Bak-Kut-Teh (seafood pork rib soup) is already serving two bus loads of tourists every other day. Others like a local bird nest farm has decided to set up a showroom and visitor centre for tourists to understand and appreciate the process of harvesting bird nests and the health benefits of consuming them. They are also clearing parking lots for anticipated tour coaches coming to their showroom. Local fruit farms, fish, prawn and crab farms that are already suppliers to the resort’s restaurants will also see increased demands when Sepang Gold Coast ‘food paradise’ is completed. This will bring you the best chefs and restaurants in the region, so that you can wine and dine in the idyllic settings of the sea.

In the world of large corporations and institutional finance, cottage industries offer us a softer and gentler side of commerce in a more human scale, where products can be designed and packaged closer to the customers’ tastes and lifestyles.

Together with the resort, the restored environment and these cottage industries, the heritage of the people in the Klang Valley can be conserved for the many generations to come and enjoy.

For other articles of the Golden Palm Tree, click here.

Design Follies

I have seen some design follies around. This one, the Esplanade in Singapore, almost became one. It was a glass dome in the tropics. When it was finished, they realised it was too hot and went to design those spikey shades, earning its nickname "The Durain", which ironically becomes an architectural marvel and charm.

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A design folly to me is one that has no specific purpose, or that it uses building material and energy excessively and inefficiently. However, there is allowance given to architectural merit and character of the design, so it is not all science.

This is the City Hall MRT exit to Raffles City Shopping Centre in Singapore. For reasons known only to the designer, this short span of space is supported by an excessively heavy and deep beam.

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For a single storey structure like this, the size of the beam is clearly an over-design, waste of material, space and it is unsightly.

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The other exit is better. This shelter has the same span as the one at Raffles City, but uses a lot less metal.

.It uses a truss structure. Trusses are efficient structures as they are consistent with the triangulation of forces in nature. Nature does not create structural members perpendicular to each other. Therefore the most basic structure is a tetrahedran. Like this...

With five toothpicks and four pieces of candy, you get three triangles in a tetrahedran. With six toothpicks and six pieces of candy, you only get two separate triangles. So you can literally have your extra candies and eat it! See the efficiency yet?

In a truss structure, there are only axial forces that runs along each constituent member. Therefore each member has only longitudinal stress, but no bending stresses, no shear stresses or torque. It is like a woman who only needs to work in the office and not having to rush home to take care of her babies and also clean the house. Much easier isn't it?

The next folly is my regular coffee shop at Pasir Ris, in Singapore. This one has a topee roof that tapers upwards and then an opening at its apex for ventilation. The idea of such geometry is so that as the hot air rises, it is compressed as the roof tapers and therefore hastening the air to exit through the opening at the tip of the roof. Thus creating a rapid convection current and refreshing the air underneath, cooling the sheltered area below.

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However, recently they renovated the place and very ignorantly built a false ceiling under the topee roof.

They even sealed the ventiation shaft. I think they wanted the false ceiling to insulate them from the sun, but I think it acts to the contrary. It now traps the hot air in between the topee roof and the false ceiling. That is using more to achieve less.
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The moral of the story here is not have anything stale in life. Energy needs to be circulated. Air needs to be circulated. Money needs to be circulated (by investments). I learn from Tao that as we circulate, what goes out will come back with more vitality. But this will only happen if we get our system correct.

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We need to fix the system though, as too many trees are cut now, and too much carbon dioxide are emitted from cars and industries.

The next folly is the Downtown East extension at Pasir Ris, Singapore. They have decided to cover the multi-storey carpark with this giant iron girdle. Look at the size of the girdle compared with the workmen. It has no useful purpose. I don't think it look very pretty either.

See how thick the metal pieces are in comparison with my bicycle?

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They could easily grow plants on the multi-storey carpark. If they did, it will look more like this building at the Singapore Management University downtown. It looks alot gentler and kinder; and also it would let out more oxygen.
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There are other follies around. I found many useless or frivolous parapet wall structures in many residential estates. Look around you. They are very common. They serve no purpose and have no architectural merit. Most of the time, they look unsightly. It also covers the earth with more concrete increasing surface run-offs during a storm, instead of the water percolating into the ground.

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The purpose of this post is to raise your awareness of the design follies around us. Poorly designed buildings use more to achieve less. Ask your architect how much the building he designed weighs and he probably doesn't know. Bucky asked that and got a blank look from architects. In these days of acute climate changes and threats of ecological damages done to Planet Earth, it is important to think of ecologically sustainable dwellings.

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The extra metal used at the Downtown East carpark could be better used for a bridge that will cut travel time or a telecommunications ground transmission station or a satellite dish, that will aid communications and reduce the need for excessive traveling. These deployments will serve more people and thus create more life supporting wealth.

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I used to think the 'market' will take care of everything, but now I beg to differ. A perfect market place does not exist, much as and because perfect information and knowledge of the market does not exist. Otherwise, we wouldn't have spewed so much carbon dioxide in the air thus far.

So look around you. Tell me if you spot any more follies. :)

Bucky Group 13a - Ecological Patterns

This is the Sunday session of the Bucky Group, which is at MacRitchie Reservoir in Singapore. The Saturday sessions are held at Joo Hock's hair salon.

We continued our reading of Bucky's book, "Utopia or Oblivion". In today's page, it talked about man's travel patterns within his lifetime and that it has increased exponentially in recent years. This ecological pattern has to be noted as it implies an increase output of CO2 in the air, as most of our transport operates on fossil fuels.

There are some responsible individuals these days, who now take stock of their carbon footprint (the amount of CO2 emission they are responsible for) and buy carbon credits to offset their usage. Soon after some discussions about carbon credit and a short story from Joo Hock, the session ended.

This Sunday's discussion was very short. I don't know why. Maybe because everyone was feeling hungry. The Bucky Group tend to attract members who love food. Amid the discussion to decide where to go for our breakfast, I was fascinated that they were still using archaic and quaint terms like '4th Mile(stone)' or '7th Mile(stone)' to describe the locations!!! Milestones are literally stone markings established by the British surveyors to measure how far a place is away from the city of Singapore. That was long time ago and rarely anyone use these terms any more. So, I was witnessing oral history. :) Nowadays, common landmarks used are shopping centres and MRT (subway) stations.

Actually, the highlight of the day was a parable (totally unrelated to 'ecological patterns') told by Chao Loy. It went like this:

"Long ago in China, there was a man who left his wife to another city to work. Time flies and soon he worked for the boss for 20 years. Then, he decided that it is enough and wanted to return home to his wife. So, he told his boss that he will be going home for good. His boss agreed, but said that he has two options:

Option one is to take all his money and return home.

Option two is that he will not take his money but the boss will give him three advices.

The man thought for a while and bravely decided to take option 2 because his boss has taken good care of him for 20 years and that his three advices must surely be more valuable than his own savings.

The boss' three advices are:

1. Do not take short cuts

2. When you encounter commotions that does not affect you, mind your own business.

3. When you encounter a nasty incident, don't jump to conclusion, but leave it a day or two before approaching the person for an explanation.

Then before he left, the boss gave him a bread bun and told him to share eat it when he gets home.

So off he walked home to his village. Halfway, he met someone who told him of a short cut to his village. He was tempted to take it, but remembered the boss' advice and decided to take the long way. This saved him, as there were robbers along the short cut and he would have been mugged or killed.

Then as night falls, he checked into a hotel. Then in the middle of the night, he heard screams and was about to go out to find out what was happening, but remembered the boss' second advice and decided to mind his own business. The next morning, he realised that everyone was dead, as the hotelier's son went amok and chopped everyone dead with a chopper. Relieved, he moved on to continue his journey.

Soon, he reached home, but in a distance, he saw the wife with another man. This other man also stayed over for a night. The man was furious, but decided not to confront his wife as he remembered the boss' third advice. The next morning, the man was more calm and asked the wife who the other man was, and was relieved to know that that man is his son.

The man then remembered about the bread that the boss gave and took it out to eat it together with his wife and son. Then as he break the bread into pieces, he realised, hidden in the bread was his money that he had chosen to leave behind in exchange for the three good advices."

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What do you think is the moral of the story here?

We had lots of debates over it!!!

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Bucky Group 13 - Ecological Design

This week, we started our documentary review and discussion with a movie on "Ecological Design". Basically, it chronicles humankind starting with living with nature, to one that exploits nature and tries to control it. The movie highlighted the steps that some 'outlaw designers' are creating structures and dwellings that allow a partnership with nature, such that the dwelling is ecologically sustainable.

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The idea is to live in harmony with nature, technology and humanity; and how we apply them to the modern day large scale city.

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The movie mentioned about Bucky's own geometry and synergetics that allows nature's own way of doing things. That means, "We can't put it together, it is already together."

TODAY- The green, green class of home

Homeowners warming to idea of eco-housing but contractors must be educated, too

sheralyn@mediacorp.com.sg

A HOME that draws energy from the sun, breathes with the wind and drinks from the rain. It's the stuff of dreams, for an environmentalist at least.

Situated at the prestigious Sentosa Cove, this gem of an eco-home was dreamed up by a Singaporean doctor, who only wants to be known as Dr Lau. more
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By the way, tomorrow 22 April 2007 is Earth Day!