Slices of serendipity | Yvonne Yoong, New Straits Times

This article and its pictures about landscape designer Ng Sek San of Malaysia grabbed my attention with its focus on simplicity, creativity, design, the environment, the writing process (research interviews), photography, gardening and a foreign land (to me)--and Ng's serendipity in making connections!

Yoong writes: 

Ng who has proven time and again that designing out of pure passion, perseverance and pursuit for perfection makes for a pleasing equation tends to be rather selective in the choice of projects he undertakes while shying away from media publicity. No photographs of him either, if he can help it.

Yoong notes that she had difficulty getting an interview with the shy designer. Her own perseverance paid off in that pursuit. She writes:

These days though, Ng prefers to remain even more low-key - away from the glare of the public eye and happily tucked away in his pursuits of designing his self-built sanctuaries next-door-tonature. Shunning publicity on almost all occasions - preferring snapshots of his projects rather than himself, my desperate attempts to get in contact with Ng for a previous issue went unheeded – with e-mails and calls unreturned – only to discover that Ng was away, busy building makeshift shelters for orphanages in Mae Hong Sorn, Thailand.