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<\/a><\/p>\nOver lunch, Naz recites a personal mantra I can only imagine lies etched in thought and present in action: \u201cno one is original, but rather you are a combined effort of everyone and everything that you came across\u201d. I find out that Chuck Palahniuk is Naz\u2019s favourite author, and it is unsurprising when I later discovered that this mantra can be traced to the pages of Palahniuk\u2019s Invisible Monsters<\/i>. It is one of those statements that bears a paradoxical likeness, being both straightforward and complex simultaneously. It is no wonder then that questions of specifics don\u2019t work with an identity so broad. However, Naz can be found best in his own works, like a house he calls the Cheesecake<\/i> and portrait sketches of people in the MRT. Four sketches of his favourite pieces of architecture also sit with me: Tadao Ando\u2019s Church of the Light<\/i>, The Sail @ Marina Bay<\/i>, Mies van der Rohe\u2019s Barcelona Pavilion<\/i>, and Toyo Ito\u2019s Tama Art University Library<\/i>. They are each admired for their clever craft and aesthetic, and I am told that the works hold values that have shaped Naz to be the student he is today and maybe also the architect he will be in the future.<\/p>\n The conversation takes random turns and we reach an interesting quirk of Naz\u2019s \u2013 colour-graphemic synaesthesia that relates the alphabet to colours. To him, the letter A<\/i> is always red in colour, B<\/i> is brown, C<\/i> is blue, and the next twenty-three letters follow a fixed association to specific colours. He carries on to say that his name, Naz<\/i>, takes on a dirty, blood red shade and tells me about other forms of synesthesia that exist. We also touch on travel, and Naz goes on to share about a recent architecture OCIP trip of his to Pulau Sumba in eastern Indonesia and relates some of the things that went on during that trip \u2013 the betel nut-chewing mentor they had, the woodworking skills they were taught, and the landscape of the island itself. Between now and his exchange to Munich next semester, Naz mentions that he\u2019d like to make a trip back to visit the place and of course, the people if it were possible. Strikingly, he also seems to eye the stunning little island as the perfect retirement spot \u2013 perhaps it is fitting that after what will be a lifetime of structures and cities, the lack of it and presence of vastness and space would draw him in. I mean, where else can you find wild horses in the middle of nowhere, am I right?<\/p>\n<\/a>