PAM Sabah Chapter has organized a Design Conference in conjunction with the World Architecture Day 2014. The event was held on 29th October at the Megellan Sutera Resort Hotel and was attended by its PAM Council President, Ar. Chang Seong Aun, local architects, engineers, surveyors and representatives from the various local authorities.
According to its Chairman , Ar. Victor Wong, who is also the Organizing Chairman of the event, the World Architecture Day is a world wide event that is being held over the month of October each year since 2012, and it aims to bring together architects, planners, engineers and designers to exchange ideas and showcase award-winning works. The inaugural World Architecture Day was held in London in 2012 with the theme “Architects are Cities Changers” while the second one was in New York in 2013, with the theme “Culture – Architecture”.
Ar. Wong further added that the theme this year is “Healthy Cities, Happy Cities” and it raises the awareness on how architects can design healthy spaces, facilities, housing and urban landscape which foster happiness, health and quality of life. It also questions by what means are the architects able to bring to life to cities, to infuse them with energy, to insure their viability and sustainability, to anticipate and heal disorders and to accompany their harmonious development.
Three accomplished guest speakers from the international architectural fraternity had been invited by PAM Sabah Chapter to present topics relating to sustainable architecture, the importance of design analysis in modern architecture, religious buildings from an architectural perspective as well as inspiring a change of mindsets about built environments through good architectural design.
Ms. Ayca Ozcanlar from Arup Singapore shared her expert insights on sustainable architecture in her presentation titled ‘Designing Sustainable Facades‘, stressing to the audience of the importance of implementing sustainable architecture in the face of increasing and alarming global warming effects around the world; weather changes, of which have also been experienced in Sabah. The Turkish-born architect cited several key advancements in facade design technology and discussed the main factors of evaluating a successful and efficient sustainable design facade system. She ended her informative presentation with examples of ongoing projects by Arup Singapore that are currently incorporating sustainable design facades and how good designs add value to building properties. During the Q&A session, Ozcanlar also suggested how existing buildings could also implement sustainable designs to boost better energy efficiency.
Architect and academician Vikram Lall from India presented the topic of ‘Architecture of the Buddhist World‘ and shared his discoveries of ancient building structures built to cater for Buddhism and how its various architectural styles was influenced and shaped by the early cultures and populations around the world that adopted its spiritual philosophies. As a published author on this subject, Lall gave a brief synopsis of his findings on Buddhist architecture from an architect’s perspective, and summarized his research as an attempt to understand the process of architecture as well as the intent and solution behind the various forms of buildings.
Landscape architect Leonard Ng inspired the audience with his presentation of Landscape – The Future of Urbanism. As he conveyed the message of ‘Designing Loveable Cities‘ to the attending crowd, Ng discussed the emotive value of designing with the element of water, using case examples of how Singapore has transformed undesirable urban amenities such as flood drains and illegal dump sites into popular and conducive community activity areas, thus adding intrinsic and monetary value to development properties affected by these urban features. However, in order to succeed in these respects, Ng stressed to that all parties involved including local government departments must be willing to collaborate in their urban design and allow for an overlap of responsibilities in regards to maintenance of the said amenities in its new design and form.
