Tahniah Mie!

Towering success: Marhami outside the Beetham Hilton Tower in Manchester

Asm,

dlm posting sebelum ni saya ada upload gambar lama tahun 1979, masa saya darjah 3. itulah satu-satunyer gambar masa sekolah rendah yang masih boleh dipakai walaupun dah separuh rosak. saya upload gambar tu pun sebab Marhami. ya my best friend masa sekolah rendah dulu. dan blog ini menghubungkan kami selepas 26 tahun. puncanya bila saya ada post di blog ini ttg kawan-kawan semasa sekolah rendah dan Marhami google namanya di internet maka bertemulah kembali kami melalui email. 2 minggu lepas beliau balik ke Malaysia dan ada menelepon saya... terima kasih mie. teringat masa camping pengakap tahun 1982 di kem kijang. tapi sayang gambar tu dah rosak hu hu ...

tu cerita dulu mie, tapi sekarang ni ...

Sunday April 27, 2008

Walking tall in Manchester

EurofileBy CHOI TUCK WO

WHEN Marhami Arifin says he is on cloud nine, don’t just take his word for it. Check out Manchester’s tallest building, including its Sky Garden and Sky Bar called Cloud 23, and you’ll know that it is no tall tale: the 37-year-old Malaysian is one of the architects behind the 50-storey Beetham Hilton Tower which, incidentally, is also the highest residential apartment in western Europe. Above all, he is the designer and architect for its 12,000 sq ft penthouse, which has an extraordinary garden filled with olive, oak and lemon trees, some up to 500 years old.

Marhami said he was proud to be the only Malaysian architect in the team that helped to design the 169m-high building, which won the Best Tall Building Award last year. “But the penthouse is more than a masterpiece. Every single detail was drawn up by me after my boss (Ian Simpson) told me how he wanted it,” said Marhami, fondly known as Marfin to his friends. He said he was honoured to have been entrusted the task by his employer who wanted him to be his “second eye” in helping to design his dream home, which is the penthouse. “So, my boss has become my client too. I called it a poisonous challenge because it can work both ways,” he said, adding that the penthouse was expected to be ready by June. Marhami said one of the penthouse’s specialities was its Olive Grove garden, which had 27 olive, two oak and three lemon trees imported from Tuscany, Italy. He said all of them were fully matured, with four olive trees being 500 years old and the rest about 200 years old. “The trees alone cost more than £100,000 (RM621,719) and they had to be lifted up by a crane through the roof during the construction stage.”

Marhami, who designed the Multimedia University campus in Malacca and the Finance Ministry building in Putrajaya, said the £100mil building was his biggest project so far. Describing the slim structure as a challenge for engineers and architects, he said it was designed in such a way to allow its glazed skin to “move separately from the building”. “Another new technology is its single fire exit staircase where the corridors are designed in a way that they’ll be free from smoke. “In the event of a fire, the air is blown out and smoke extracted from the building, thus you’ll be safe in your unit for up to two hours,” he explained. Hailed as an iconic landmark tower that creates visual connectivity with the city centre, the building houses the 279-room Hilton Manchester, which occupies 23 floors, and 219 apartments. One of its distinctive features is the glazed skin of the buffer zone to the south façade, which cantilevers 25m above the top floor to form a “crystalline blade”.

Marhami, who graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1996, had worked in GDP Architects in Kuala Lumpur and another firm in Cheshire before joining Ian Simson Architects in 2004. Together with his wife Rina Mat Yunus, also an architect, the couple represents a growing number of successful Malaysian architects making their mark in Britain’s second largest city. “There are no fewer than 30 Malaysian architects in Manchester alone,” he said, adding that their presence showed they could do the job. And many of them are not here just to make up the numbers; they are associates or associate directors holding important positions in the companies, he added.

Marhami, from Kota Baru, said the influx of Malaysian architects was due to the earlier generations who showed they could do the work fast.While British architects were seen as laidback and wanting to take things easy, their Malaysian counterparts could do the same task so much quicker, he said. “However, the longer time taken comes with quality because design requires time, which Malaysians do not appreciate,” he pointed out. He said most developers just wanted the job to be done quickly, which could end up with them spending more money on remedial works. A major problem in Malaysia, he noted, was the lack of public appreciation towards architecture when purchasing properties. “The main criteria are usually the price and location with little emphasis on good designs,” he said. He said developers could sell first and build later, unlike in Britain where properties could not be sold if they did not conform to certain qualities or designs.

Marhami said he hopes to create greater public awareness towards appreciating architecture and architects to help improve the quality of designs. “In Britain, many architects are celebrities,” he said, adding that even laymen talked about architecture and designs. And his advice for Malaysian architects? Go out and prove to the world that you can do it, no matter what others think about you.

Choi Tuck Wo is Editor, European Union Bureau, based in London