Architect's Notes on Designing of The Veronaville Estate:
When the person (whom I shall henceforth called as Client P) expressed interest in the design of the Veronaville Estate, a number of construction requirements were ironed out:1) There will be no use of pink colours (Client P does not appreciate pink)2) The house should be ergonomic in design (no showy corners or layout)3) There must be gardens with willow trees included.4) There should be an area to include the career rewards for the Sims 2 characters.5) The bedroom area must be located on the second storey.6) There must be accessible computer access.So I spend the first four days thinking about how to fit all those abovementioned construction requirements and continue to manage to build a house fused with asthetic and creative elements.
The front porch was designed to meet Sims 2 friends and hence should be large enough to accomodate Sims 2 characters standing and talking with one another. I included a lot of lighting because such visits may happen at night and I want the characters to be able to converse under good ambient lighting. The surrounding pool is made to connect all the way to the front porch and I added statues to increase the environment value of the front porch as well.
The living room is split into two because I want one to have the theme of music appreciation and the other to be the conventional TV-Stereo one. This one shows the piano as the main piece with a grandfather's clock to add the classic feel to this section of the house. Personally, I would love to play the piano myself but after years of toil, gym, my fingers are so crooked that playing the piano would be an incredibly uphill task but still, the piano is a beautiful addition to the house.
This is the conventional TV-Stereo living room to entertain Sims 2 friends who are less musically-interested. Obviously, I added the best plasma TV and stereo set for this section of the house. I also love the add greenery into the rooms to provide a splash of colour and nature to tone down the sharpness of the colours
This pool room is created after consultation with Client P who loves an occasional good game of pool. The room is too small to add sitting area but I can manipulate more drawings on the walls and some plants on the ceiling. Notice that I did not cram the walls with expensive environment-adding paintings because it will exponentially increase the cost of the house, making it much more difficult for Sims 2 characters to earn the simoleons to move into the house.
The private lounge area is designed as a rest area away from the hussle and bustling of the normal living room areas. I choose a long N-shaped sofa lounge to provide continuity and unity to the room and added an expresso machine as well as a music amplifier there to provide a smoother living room-cum-lounge experience. If this is a real house, I would choose the private lounge to laze around with friends and just talk about anything under the sun.
There are a total of four toilets in the design of the Veronaville Estate and all four of them have the same layout although I have varied the designs of the wallpaper, flooring, colours used for the bathroom items as well as the carpeting. Toilets are meant to be super-ergonomic but I made sure that they are spacious enough to provide a better asthetic feel.
The second storey corridors are bland because I did not add those expensive paintings. I think I will leave it to Client P to add those additions since the estate was created on Client P's behalf anyway. Simple and private, I continued using the red carpet to provide a sense of class and continuance to the first storey. I would have made the corridors wider but that would have meant even more space used on the main building and less space for the outdoor gardens.
The master bedroom is made to have TV and computers because Client P is an avid computer user and I think it's a suitable addition to the room for convenience. The wall-mounted plasma television is imagined to be connected to the computers and thus a wider-screen experience can be obtained if Client P chooses to laze on the bed and use the computer from there instead.
The study room is created because Client P has a collection of interesting books and will probaby need a proper place to store those books. Luxuriant sofas were added so that reading can be done in a comfortable and undisturbed place, except for the wall-mounted telephone, which is located in almost every room in the house for convenience of communication's sake.
The gym room is meant to keep Client P healthy and fit. A companion beside the treadmill and a nice beautiful painting will be a better indoor exercise experience. A sofa for any exhausted occupants of this room and I kept the room in a more serious tone with stone walls and a diamond-white floor so that the room's ambience is kept in syn with the rigours of exercise of the body.
There are a total of two guest rooms in the Veronaville Estate so that Client P can invite any friend for a stayover. The guest rooms are smaller so I tried to fit in as much without making them look crammed. Whilst the master bedroom has a view overlooking the back porch and gardens, the guest rooms have views overlooking the front porch.
The dining area is kept neat and tidy with a long table to entertain Sims 2 characters who are coming over for a visit and a meal together. I kept the dining area well-lit with plenty of windows overlooking the back gardens and made sure there is plenty of food around by providing two refridgerators instead of the conventional one. Two stoves also provide easier and more efficient cooking if there are a lot of mouths to feed.
Notes to be continued.
Finally, after more than three weeks, spending time in between lessons and sleep, I completed the Veronaville Estate and am ready to share the slideshow with the readers of my blog. The slideshow will take some time to finish so you can sip your favourite drink whilst you are at it.
It's nearly midnight now so the specific write-up will have to wait till I come home tonight. Hope all of you will enjoy the designing and the tour of the house! Goodnight!
A rare sight on the MRT trains nowadays. Since the ERPs came up, the trains have been ever more packed. This was taken when I was on my way out of Pasir Ris after meeting SC.
A nice can of chocolates from The Cocoa Trees. It was a treat from one of my students and I loved the dark chocolates flavor within because they gave me a high during the lesson and made me very animated. Hahaha.
One of the songs picked by Xiangrui when we went for KTV at Jurong East Kbox. I was particularly amused by the first line of this verse because it sounded so weird and even gross but at least the second line of the verse was more well written. Forgotten the name of this song but who cares - we enjoyed ourselves.
The Kbox lunch box then was plum sauce chicken, raisin rice, bean curd cubes, vegetables and jelly. The rice was a tad too hard but the chicken and the vegetables were nicely done. Xiangrui was so hungry that he finished his lunch within 15 minutes though.
More food. This was the lunch I ate with SC when I met her at White Sands. It's called 海鲜生面 and I haven't had it for a long time. The mussels were fresh and so were the prawns but the fish was quite hard. The noodles was the best because it wasn't too hard. I think the restaurant we ate in was called 湾仔香港餐厅 at the 2nd or 3rd floor of White Sands.
This was SC's lunch. I think it was some pork rice. She said it was nice too but I hadn't got the stomach for rice-based food that afternoon. Anyway, after lunch was over, we spent coffee time at Coffee Club because it was raining and we could not venture out to the outdoors area as originally intended.
The rain did not stop so we proceeded to Suntec City for window shopping and koi fish looking. We stopped at a nice cosy cafe for dinner because Pizza Hut requires a silly waiting time of 45 minutes. Both of us ordered some egg-based wraps and a caesar's salad. Mine was ham and cheese flavored.
This is SC's portion of the dinner. Hers was chicken. The salad was light and crunch and so were the chips.
Hotplate/Steamboat dinner taken at 大长今 near Kallang MRT station with The Busy Bee. She said the place was popular with the PRC Chinese and she was right - it was flooded with them but I focused on the food because it's what I came for. Hmm... hotplate prawns first.
The soup component of the dinner comprising of meatballs, mushrooms, vegetables, fish slices, clams, etc. It tasted alright but I still prefer the hotplate foods more.
Photos of contestants during the 11 August 2008 Monday Auditions at Music Dreamer Live! Cafe. She has excellent vocals, good stage presence and good external image.
She has a very stable and deep voice to boot.
Cute looking lad which appealed to many of the girls within the audience. Reminds me of Zhiyang of Campus Superstar with a guitar.
This guy's guitar skills are very good but his singing was not on par with his guitar playing. Perhaps he can be an instrumentalist instead.
Photos of contestants during the 25 August 2008 Auditions at Music Dreamer Live! Cafe. She was very bubbly and had a nice soothing voice behind.
A very talented keyboardist showing his stuff at the auditions. His voice was somewhat less impressive though.
She was known as the self-high girl because she could not stop laughing onstage. Extremely lively with a booming voice but at the young age of 16, her singing skills are not completely developed but her stage persona was formidable.
A confident contestant with good vocals, good stage presence and a lively character too.
A more senior looking contestant with very stable and well-trained vocals. I wondered how he would sound if he had chosen more modern songs but I liked his stage confidence.
