CJ Lim: Short Stories: London in Two and a Half Dimensions

    For many years now CJ Lim has been my idol and I've never really stopped to ask myself why.  I have always been in awe of his detailed models and the incredibly complex ideas behind them, but who isn't? It was only following his lecture tonight that I really understood why. I went to the lecture as an exercise in disciplining the architecture student in me: expecting to understand little and expecting to leave with a sense of self loathing and a ' must try harder' attitude that would spur me on til Christmas. Instead I left with the complete opposite.
     The talk was based loosely around his new book 'Short Stories: London  in Two and a Half Dimensions', which acts to explain some of the narratives behind many of his 'drawings' for his London based pieces of work.  CJ  (I can call him that now cause we are now mates.......yeah he signed my book) talked about his belief in the importance of narrative in any design, how this can be represented through model form and how this can be used to define space; define architecture. Having only looked but never really understood his work, I found this very useful, and found it opened up much of his work that was previously inaccessible to me, and a world of representation techniques for me to try.
     I was particularly interested to find out that much of his inspiration came from simple childhood books that were personal to him: I generally sighting my inspiration as coming from chilldhood toys/games. He described his work as not taking architecture too seriously, and highlighted the need to have fun and design something that makes you happy - reinforcing the motos I had already set for myself. I found it particularly comforting and incredibly humbling to hear of his tales of underachieving, arguing with tutors at architecture school and still - despite having an incredible architecture career under his belt - him finding the need to impress his parents. This I realized, without me even knowing, was the reason why, he's was and still is my idol. 
CJ, your welcome around my house for Sunday lunch any day. Roast pork was it?

book review
http://www.domusweb.it/en/book-review/short-stories-london-in-two-and-a-half-dimensions/