Talk Architecture

Send us Fan Mail An intriguing interview with the author of the Old Town Botanic Gardens, Chiang Her, expressing his thoughts on his design thesis journey in 2019-2020 session. We felt the concept as one of the most excellent ever done by a design thesis student from UM, however controversially it is a master planning project, which is deemed "lack building" but that is why it is such a...

Send us Fan Mail Introducing another urban design and master planning project that proposes to rejuvenate Petaling Jaya (PJ) old town with a Botanic Gardens project for the design thesis batch 2019-2020. Wong Chiang Her's main contention were on the issues of the lack of identity; lack of outdoor and natural environment for educational facilities and the relocation of the railway station (KTM...

Send us Fan Mail A compelling story of Eva Liew's design thesis journey, including her struggles on doing an urban design and master planning project. Eva Liew identified that the biggest problem was the lack of spaces for recreation, and an urgent need to reclaim the public realm for the people. The road is designed for cars and not for humans. Trying to create a better public environment fo...

Send us Fan Mail Learning has no boundaries. The design of a school should not have boundaries. The school is part of Kampung Kerinchi.   Amirul Hakim Ismar's Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) school is a design thesis project that dealt with the B40 community's problems of kids not interested in education. The image of the technical and vocational school in Malaysia...

Send us Fan Mail We are reviving this teaser as the EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Eva Liew is coming up next week. Check out Eva Liew's Kerinchi Neighbourhood Park Linkage, a "controversial" project that was debatable whether it is an "architecture" project, but it was a very necessary urban design project to be done for the Unit 2 Design Thesis Studio at University of Malaya&a...

Send us Fan Mail Malaysia's solution to help reduce school drop-outs and employment is the creation of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) school ( believed to have been introduced just recently in the last 15 years), and this teaser provides a glimpse to the issues and design thesis concept that Amirul Hakim Ismar explored in his design thesis project in 2018-19 at Kam...

Send us Fan Mail A sincere viewpoint in this interview with Ahmad Zaldarriaga Sadain’s with his design thesis project of the Kerinchi Market Link undertook to solve a bigger area straddling from the main sites of Kampung Kerinchi to the other side of the highway at Kampung Pasir and beyond to Jalan Klang Lama. (Key – “kampung” is village, “jalan” is road). In order to solve the problems that beset...

Send us Fan Mail Ahmad Zaldarriaga Sadain's Kerinchi Market Link is a complex programmatic urban link that connects Kampung Pasir to Kampung Kerinchi and Jalan Klang Lama, including small businesses and enterprises, transportation and agriculture. The project proposed to solve many community problems such as poor living conditions, malnutrition and economic uncertainty. The design proposal at...

Send us Fan Mail First Day Special Semester (Pre Design Thesis) Site Visit: Today's University of Malaya's campus site visit started at 7 am and was in most parts a drizzly rainy affair. We walked from the front of the Law Faculty, to the Faculty of the Built Environment, Faculty of Medicine, chatted at 9:45 am at the University Malaya Medical Centre's Food Court and continued throu...

Send us Fan Mail Find here in this refreshing podcast interview, Low Joo Yin's related account, both personal and objective, providing the listener clues to how she interpreted a "client" which at the outset is uncertain as the "local authority", when a street market has to do with the community, it's social-cultural identity and basic needs for household items and fo...

Send us Fan Mail The Street Market provides the settings for many aspects of urban life, as a social space, cultural activities, small businesses and enterprises, logistical flows of traffic and pedestrian, processing of waste both organic and inorganic, and other aspects that could either be social-cultural or economic. The local authorities find the street market a nightmare to deal with but lik...

Send us Fan Mail There is a banal argument that is going around with regard to the complexities of a design thesis project. Banality means: the fact or condition of being banal; unoriginality. This goes against the learning outcomes and objectives of the curriculum of a design thesis, in which students should be innovative and explore topics worth examining, often regarding issues, be it site-cont...

Send us Fan Mail Two parts: The Client's Brief and The User's Review of PPUM. An explanation on the importance of the client's brief to an architecture project. It may be simple enough if you have a client to deal with, but who is the "client" for the University of Malaya Campus projects? Of all the stakeholders to the project, which one would have the most impact to them?...

Send us Fan Mail Next U2 design thesis studio podcast episodes coming up: all 13 students and 3 tutors met online today to discuss about our site visit around University of Malaya campus starting 13th July 2020, the first day of the pre-thesis course and the entire design thesis courses that would take 35 weeks long until June 2021. Here is an account by one tutor and what that tutor thinks (if be...

Send us Fan Mail A quick 5 minutes update previewing on the next batch 2020-2021 design thesis projects on University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur Campus. 13 students have signed up for Unit 2, and with the studio tutors gearing up for another year of site-context issues driven approach to design, we can expect 13 different projects on dealing with a variety of topics from, redesigning the student unio...

Send us Fan Mail An in-depth personal account of Yasmin Naziha Hazizulden's Kampung Kerinchi Secondary School design thesis journey, starting with a question when she went to visit the site of a majority of the population of a low income group: "Why are the kid's not in school?" This led Yasmin to question the values of education, outlining social problems found after interview...

Send us Fan Mail Yasmin, another graduate architect who were part of Unit 2 design thesis studio at Universiti Malaya, batch 2018/19, has a lot to say regarding what she thinks a secondary school education should be like in a B40 (low income) population such as Kg Kerinchi, Kuala Lumpur. TEASER:  The design thesis proposal by Yasmin reviews the aspects of urban design and the school typology and h...

Send us Fan Mail  An honest talk with Saifull Yusop regarding his design thesis journey; whether that final year of doing the "Habitable Waste Infrastructure" project was worth it, his review on the studio masters and how he had to make a key decision after figuring out the complexities needed to make his thesis a success. His account proved that the site-context issues / community archi...

Send us Fan Mail This is a teaser for the interview of the designer coming soon. Another graduate architect who were part of Unit 2 design thesis studio at Universiti Malaya, batch 2018/19 will reveal all - his experience doing this highly challenging project and his experience of the design thesis journey .... TEASER:  The design thesis proposal by Saiful Yusop dealt with how waste can be managed...

Send us Fan Mail A strong mentality and sense of purpose is needed in order to be able to accept any challenges thrown to each and everyone of our students in Unit 2, design thesis studio, so we deal with complex and difficult issues in their architectural design thesis studio program throughout the academic year (final year), thus they will feel equipped in dealing with problems with clients, dev...

Send us Fan Mail A DESIGN THESIS JOURNEY A candid interview with the architectural designer Cheryl Yew's one academic year journey of doing the Kampung Kerinchi Primary School project  focusing on the why, what and how of her design thesis journey. We asked on "why she thinks the project is important (personally) and what were the challenges that she faced with dealing with the project&q...

Send us Fan Mail Cheryl Yew's Kampung Kerinchi Primary School can be truly appreciated knowing that a B40 (low-income) population in this area, parents needed to cross the highway in order to send their 6 to 12 year children to get an education. With the right analysis on the urban problem, she was able to identify a site that is very accessible to all, making full use of an unused religious...

Send us Fan Mail An introduction to the "inter-disciplinary nature of architecture" by discussing based on "architecture design education" referring to some works currently being explored at Unit 2 Design Thesis Studio at UM School of Architecture. We probe and question on: Why does architecture straddle the two main branches of human knowledge (Science and Humanities). It is b...

Send us Fan Mail Eva Liew's Kerinchi Neighbourhood Park Linkage was a controversial project that was debatable whether it is an "architecture" project, but it was a very necessary urban design project to be done for the Unit 2 Design Thesis Studio at University of Malaya's School of Architecture, as it is the bigger picture / master planning solution that deals with the big voi...

Send us Fan Mail This topic of "Re-examining community architecture: site specific issues in local context situations" provides an introduction to proposing for a case for a new agenda on Context Specificity projects, to be the most effective design thesis course for a school of architecture. Referring again to University of Malaya's School of Architecture, we argue that the design...