Talk Architecture

Send us Fan Mail Part 3: How can we turn these seemingly generic topics generated by Artificial Intelligence into a design thesis project?  ChatGPT - topic: what is the university curriculum  > “postgraduate architecture design thesis. “  Part 1 & 2, dealt with topics 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 & 10 Part 3 deals with:  5. Strategies for Revitalizing Aging Infrastructure in Rural Areas 6. Examining t...

Send us Fan Mail Coming up next, I will be in conversation and interviewing Gary Yeow, a recent architecture graduate, and podcaster, whom I met at the Clubhouse audio platform during the pandemic lockdown period in 2020  and we, together with others such as Ar Lok Wooi, discussed numerous topics on architecture education and practice. Gary Yeow is co-founder of projectxyz – a design collective en...

Send us Fan Mail In an interview, the guest who is Gary Yeow, together with Naziaty, resulted in two podcasters discussing alternative methodologies in architecture. More of a conversation dedicated to the role of the Malaysian Architects Association (Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia - PAM) and how open engagements such as discourse and debate are needed to address all other issues and sentiments surfac...

Send us Fan Mail Part 2: How can we turn these seemingly generic topics generated by Artificial Intelligence into a design thesis project?  ChatGPT - topic: what is the university curriculum  > “postgraduate architecture design thesis. “ And the AI came up with these topics below.  I made commentaries on topics 1, 9, and 10. (See the whole list in the previous episode post). For Part 2, these a...

Send us Fan Mail Part 1 : How can we turn these seemingly generic topics generated by Artificial Intelligence into a design thesis project?  ChatGPT - topic: what is the university curriculum  > “postgraduate architecture design thesis. “ And the AI came up with these topics below.  I made commentaries  on a few of these topics namely 1, 9 and 10. I will make commentaries on the rest later.   1...

Send us Fan Mail The 2nd Part episode starts with listening to the collective voice calling for the design thesis as a crucial year, the beginning part of an architect's journey into their career, to be led by a design practitioner and not the academic. The project could fuel the passion of the budding architect to explore their interest and life-long learning.  This episode will explain the...

Send us Fan Mail A two-parter starting with this episode - why the design practitioner needs to be the leader in the design thesis studio unit for the final year of the graduating architect. And not the full-time academic.  A crucial understanding of how to design, manage and provide for the best start to a soon-to-be graduating student of architecture journey into the world of practice where the...

Send us Fan Mail Special Architecture Education Podcast Review on the Design Thesis After much discussion in the last decade, there are some hard truths to face. The most decisive year in architecture education is the fifth year where for the design thesis program, the students need to choose their own topic and seek a supervisor or a tutor who comes from the industry.  A person collaborating with...

Send us Fan Mail The Conversation you are waiting for is finally here, an interview with Ar. Lok Kuang Wooi on Architecture Education focusing on the Design Thesis process with Naziaty Mohd Yaacob, Ph. D.. Lok Wooi believes that Malaysian universities "don't really have that paradigm shift yet" and the main view we agreed on after deliberating and arguing on the Clubhouse audio plat...

Send us Fan Mail Coming up soon is a conversation that summarizes differing opinions and consolidates similar views on architecture education, in particular, where Lok Wooi and others had deliberated and debated in previous Clubhouse audio platforms and other face-to-face events in the past decade. Lok Wooi's concerns about the potential of younger architects and graduates are very much in ev...

Send us Fan Mail Some exciting insights to why as an architect we cannot skip those lost skills and methods in drawing manually as it can make us unstuck when it does not feel right while doing CAD / digital drawings. That and a lot more in-depth discussion on why manual drawings are very relevant and even more so in this day and age. A sentiment expressed by Amin Zakaria, who professed that “draw...

Send us Fan Mail In terms of purely production work there is no denying that CAD / digital drawings are better than manual drawings. However from initial ideas and concepts and right to detail design, manual drawings are essential and even better than CAD because of that connection between human and drawings. An interview with Amin Zakaria (teaser out soon)  who does both and is an architectural e...

Send us Fan Mail We started the discussion based on quotes and snippets found in Facebook chats specific to problems with the architecture profession from a women architect's point of view, to give us some ideas for future interviews.  ©️Talk Architecture 2023, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob.  Photo credit - Image from the article: https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/how-architecture-che...

Send us Fan Mail Up next on Talk Architecture Season 12, we shall focus more on what is exactly happening using primary data with regard to architecture education and architecture practice. We shall be interviewing people who are concerned about these things.  This is the link to Amin Zakaria's link featured in arch daily:  https://www.archdaily.com/974048/top-11-architectural-sketch-educator...

Send us Fan Mail A more detailed explanation of Design For All, precisely in the context of the Minister of Transportation in Malaysia's effort in the last 2 weeks to rectify the immediate problems of public transportation facilities such as lifts (elevators), escalators, and other issues, while proposing some points relating to accessible transportation. ©️Talk Architecture 2022, Author: Naz...

Send us Fan Mail This is an overview discussion of the term 'design for all', defined, and explained from the 'activism' point of view, how it is implemented in architecture education from the first year to the fifth year and how it relates to architecture practice. ©️Talk Architecture 2022, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob.  Photo credit ©️ Universiti Malaya, Author: Low Joo Yin&ap...

Send us Fan Mail Discussion on the architecture design thesis projects based on context-specific from 2016, focused on Kg Baru, Bukit Ceylon, Kg Kerinchi, Petaling Jaya old town, and UM Campus where the design problems were identified and were made challenges during the design process and how the recent political discussion and proposal on values and ideas such as TVET were dealt in those design t...

Send us Fan Mail The discussion in this episode is delving deeper into the relevance of the design thesis projects and architecture in dealing with real community architecture projects echoing real needs proposed by the Education Minister in presenting the core value discussed in Part 1. Examples from the 2019-2020 batch (Kg Kerinchi) and 2020-2021 batch (Old town Petaling Jaya) projects published...

Send us Fan Mail Focusing Core Value 3, proposed by the Education Minister on the poverty of children from B40 (The bottom 40% of the population) where it is to do with malnutrition, means or device or technology and spaces of learning, were dealt with in the design thesis projects from the 2019-2020 batch (Kg Kerinchi) and 2020-21, namely by Yasmin Nazihah and Chiang Her (both projects published...

Send us Fan Mail In light of the coming general election, we know that a degree in philosophy is not available  in Malaysian universities. How do university students learn about democracy and politics?  Referring to the teaching of politics in universities, I would like to bring attention to utilizing practitioners including people from all background to teach and give their opinions in the archit...

Send us Fan Mail Would you study in a school that focuses on drafting and construction or art, architecture and history with more thought-provoking work? Can we have both? We tried to do that when I was teaching in the final year (design thesis) and it is interesting that this issue was raised by others in a Facebook group full of architects.  ©️Talk Architecture 2022, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob....

Send us Fan Mail What’s the difference between learning to draw by hand and using software or digital architecture tools? What’s the best software tool?  Someone asked the question why architecture companies prefer their employees to draw in Autocad as they felt that it’s easier to draw in Archicad and Revit. This led to many conversations and led me to believe that we lost the ability to design i...

Send us Fan Mail Are clients unclear about the word ‘design’ especially in their role as the financier of the residential design project? Are the clients easily influenced by media such as HGTV and Pinterest images and videos on design styles and question the architect’s decision on ‘design’? Does the architect accept this situation and just give the client what they want?  ©️Talk Architecture 202...

Send us Fan Mail The title of this podcast episode was posted by an architect (employer) in a Facebook Group (Private) where most of the members are architects. I have permission to quote from them and expand on this issue of the architectural graduate that could not draw architecture in an architectural practice and suggests that this issue is not uncommon, as verified by a number of employers (c...

Send us Fan Mail Reading and commentary on a section by Thomas Fischer’s (2010) Ethics for Architects- page 132, “Environmental Hypocrisy” on an academic who talks about sustainability but does not practice sustainability, hence a hypocrite.  ©️Talk Architecture 2022, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob. Photo (artwork): "Talk Architecture" by Naziaty Mohd Yaacob; Bus Stop drawing by Kamelia Jam...