i was given:

i. a bungalow renovation in PJ for an entrepreneur who was a close friend of my boss. his bungalow was already big enough, but he just got another lump of money, his children are growing, so he decided to expand. he barely had enough space for his two mercedez. the space was quite limited bcoz his bungalow already filled in most of the compound. although it's just a bungalow renovation, it costs about RM1.8mil for that only. i turned a typical featureless bungalow into a bali resort.

i handled from the very beginning, discussing with the client, putting up presentations of proposals, amendments, redesigning and reproposals. bcoz of my inadequate knowledge in supplies and costing, my boss occasionally accompany me during such meetings to help me on those aspects. i went to lepak at the client's house a few times, trying to get a feel of it. sometimes we conduct on site discussions as well. finally i built a model to show the client what it would look like, and he agreed.

in the drawing production stage i was less involved bcoz i went into the next project. i finally let go the project to another architect (part 3) in the office bcoz my boss wanted me to concentrate on the next project. when i left the office to join UTM the project was already 80% done. i didnt get to see the final product, only saw pictures.
ii. the next project was quite a controversial one. it was a mixed development - a commercial complex podium with two apartment towers on top of the podium. that's not the controversial part. the controversial part is that currently on site was a 4-block low cost PKNS flats. people dont wanna move from the site. there had been protests. the site is right behind LRT jelatek in keramat. the flat is still there, bcoz the project got postponed indefinitely. with keadilan taking over selangor, i doubt the project will ever see the light of day.

the project belonged to PKNS. when i came in, it's already been in proposal since 1996. i realized the reason i was brought in is bcoz no one could stand the head architect of PKNS (en. halim). he was a mean prick especially when it comes to design. he even called the office, asked to specifically talk to me, simply to bash my design. WTF! but my boss already knew that i'm not the kinda guy who'd take it up the ass, so he let me do whatever i need to do to get better. with a help from my close friend fauzan who is also working in the office, we went down to UTM, discussed with several lecturers on the best design, and cooked up a good presentation.

in the end, the PKNS people were quite impressed with the design (especially since two very young kids taking over from the big boys in the office). truthfully, my boss already fed-up with PKNS. he wanted to move on. the project has been stuck at design stage since 1996! it's already 5 years! but we finally convinced them. my boss was impressed. we started to work on the project seriously when PKNS finally got the red light from above for that project. so it was postponed indefinitely.
those two projects overlapped quite a lot. i was juggling between the two when finally my boss decided i should concentrate on the keramat complex. at some point, i slept at the office just to finish the proposal. during that time, we dont get overtime pay (bcoz of 1997 recession was still in effect). our boss' principle was simple. u work at ur own time based on deadline. whether u wanna come to the office or not, it's up to u, as long as the job gets done by the end of the day. that's what we did.

when we're more free, we help others on their projects as well, especially site or construction visits. my boss was quite disappointed when i told him i'm going fulltime with academia. but since he was a lecturer in UTM too, he understood my drive. fauzan left the office bcoz he and his wife was offered at sime UEP. he's the one i mentioned previously who worked as a naval architect. now he's back in KL preparing for his part 3.