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Exclusive Interview: Khoo Salma Nasution suggested 'urban farming' as the way forward to resolve problems of access to edible and nutritious food in the cities and as a reaction to problems with pesticide-laden food and on the other problem, eating instant noodles by those living in urban poverty.  Talking about local government, developers, architects and society's role on how to combat climate change and reducing carbon footprint, the themes include, the need for us to come out of our bubbles to befriend other communities (such as the fishermen in her NGO work), similarly architects should be talking to others such as planners, so that we empathise and know each others perspectives, to start the journey of collective engagement to solve society's real problems. Heritage buildings such as the shophouse typology increasingly becomes an important type to resolve issues to combat pandemic such as COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), so back to square one, while acknowledging the limitation of air-conditioned spaces. 

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo (art work) shows Khoo Salma in her garden at home (close up view).

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What does an urban and environmental activist has to say about architects and architecture?

Khoo Salma Nasution graduated with a Liberal Arts degree from Duke University, U.S.A.  She is a friend to many of us, an activist who is multi-talented, campaigner, mother of three children and wife of Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, her partner in crime with Areca Books and Zero Sugar. Her activism started with heritage conservation with Penang Heritage Trust and AWPNUC, and now, the Penang Forum on the Transportation Master Plan and South Penang Sea Reclamation project. Khoo Salma had worked with a number of built environment professionals, including architects and designers. 

We would like to know from her, how it is like working with architects, what is her favourite architecture and urban conservation effort done, and what she thinks about design education or architecture education in particular. Would having a liberal arts education help an architect to deal better with the environment and society? These will be revealed in the interview coming up soon.

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo (art work) shows Khoo Salma in her garden at home.

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In psychology, the sense of self concept is one of the important primary understanding for self growth and awareness. 'Being present at the moment' and aware of the situation we are in, is the phenomenological thinking principle, from the human being perspective. Establishing from a meditative state we can begin to unravel the complexities of phenomena in relation to our sense of self with our surroundings.

In this podcast episode, we attempted in the first instance to interpret this awareness and underline the importance of consciousness in phenomenology to postulate how theory of architecture should be considered in architectural practice. We refer to the article:
How Architectural “Theory” Disconnects the Profession From the Public (Ross Brady, 2017) in Common Edge;
And began to assemble a case for theory to be a fundamental learning in architecture education and its relevance to practice.

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo of Terminalia calamansanai (winged seeds) taken in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur early 2021.

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We traced back some ideas on the future of design education. The context of the conversation is that architecture may relate more to the construction courses in some universities, but in this case some conversation was caught on a Clubhouse app chat hosted by the Design Careers Masterclass clubroom, hosted by some really good moderators, focused on the design courses and in this case, architecture definitely is involved. The chat was listened to by quite a number of people, was engaging and gave a lot of up to date information on design education. This one caught my attention in particular: why are universities are slow in adapting to the development in society on how people learn?  Universities are so caught up in ranking and businesses investing in them, that the idea of learning that universities are founded on is lost  and often it just leave to dedicated lecturers to conduct the learning. So what is getting a degree about again? Some points here to investigate further.

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo of Unit 2 batch 2020-2021 in July 13 2020, starting their walkabout site visit at Universiti Malaya campus for the final year design thesis project

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The second and concluding part interview with Ar. Ch'ng Sao Inn of Saoinn Architect.

Architecture is a process of discovery. In this session we continued on the subject of the importance of some learning in school that would be carried on into practice. Insights on Sao Inn's approach managing a design team in JDW a design and built company was explained in Part 1. Discussion on concepts being based on scientific evidence and not just a propaganda is pointed out. On his own practice, how he would approach designing from the start to going on site strategies and discovering as you go along.

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo (art work) from Saoinn Architect of people and works at a site in Tanarimba, Pahang, Malaysia.

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The first part interview with Ar. Ch'ng Sao Inn of Saoinn Architect.

In this session we started with Sao Inn's architectural journey from school (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur) right up till working life and establishing his own practice since 2016. We touched on architecture education including some insights on the first degree learning for architecture students which could be more hands on and understanding the materials. A fascinating description of how some things taught in a way quite simply at second year was picked up later in practice. Going back and forth, we touched on the importance of some learning in school that would be carried on into practice.

Reference Xinjiang issue here: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15203-architect-alison-killing-wins-a-pulitzer-for-uncovering-forced-labor-camps-in-china

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo (art work) from Saoinn Architect of people and works at a site in Tanarimba, Pahang, Malaysia.

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A teaser on an upcoming interview with the Principal Architect of Saoinn Architect.

What does design mean to you? 
Why do you think school is important? 
This featured podcast will be a dialogue on everything and anything about school and design between Sao Inn and Naziaty.

Born in Penang Island, Sao Inn received both of his architectural degree from University of Malaya. He joined GDP Architects in 2004, and later Juteras Design Workshop in 2008. In the following years, he worked alongside local builders and craftsmen under one roof. He established his own practice in 2016.

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo (art work) from Saoinn Architect of people and works at a site in Tanarimba, Pahang, Malaysia.

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This is the first part introduction of the series on "inclusive education" prompted by recent social media reports of accusations of discriminatory practices by institutions of higher learning to deny disabled persons who are qualified to take some university courses. I had the experience of being trained by a blind master trainer in 2000, in a "social mobilization" course organised by UNESCAP and I know of 3 blind architects. This is an issue close at heart due to myself getting visually impaired now due to a degenerative disease, and the challenges are real, but we need to study further how educational practices could create a more inclusive learning environment, even in applied sciences courses such as architecture.

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Photo of the author testing a ramp at the universal design bus stop designed by the author and the team of designers from ZaSve @ UM Innovations SB

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What is the fundamental difference and similarities between a building and a furniture? Some of the characteristics we can guess correctly and some are not obvious. Why is it important for the student of architecture to design and build a furniture? One answer could be that it's impossible for the student to design and build during their school program, as there is a set curriculum to follow and much of it is producing the concept on paper or digital drawing only. In this podcast, we will introduce the issue of a "design problem" which is essentially a "concept", that will be discussed even further in future podcasts. 

© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Art work is  the cabinet design of ©️ Universiti Malaya, Author:  Heng Mindy  under first year studio master Asrul Sani Razak's supervision, batch 2020-21

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The last in a 3 part series on the site-context issues driven design thesis studio, describing some issues and what are the hurdles and challenges when facilitating and moderating the year-long academic program (36 weeks in total), hence the focus on the studio masters team. How do we create the momentum and motivation to keep the students focus in this process and how much in sync the tutors team need to be in order to get the students to be on time with their design process in order to get a more satisfactory outcome. 
© 2021 Talk Architecture, Author: Naziaty Mohd Yaacob
Art work in podcast is a photo taken by Pacilia TSK in 2011 of the studio masters team discussing at the end of the final presentation.

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Do subscribe for premium content and special features which will help to support and sustain Talk Architecture podcast on a more in-depth explanation on design thesis and processes. These special commentaries and ‘how to’ explanations are valuable insights and knowledge not found elsewhere!