Transforming the way we build

International Built Environment Week (IBEW) 2019 Held at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore, from 3 to 6 September 2019, the inaugural IBEW welcomed more than 12,000 overseas and local visitors to the first of its kind built environment event in the region. Themed Transforming the Way We Build, IBEW 2019 brought together the […]

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Archifest 2019

This year, the theme for the festival was Craft. Working alongside artisans, architects develop an understanding of materiality and techniques that often reflect the genius loci. While it is easy to focus on the role of craft in the discourse of architecture, the theme had the potential to encompass far more. Seah Chee Huang, president […]

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International Greentech & Eco-Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia (IGEM) 2019

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Held from 9 to 11 October 2019, the 10th International Greentech & Eco-Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia 2019 (IGEM 2019) was an annual flagship event organised by the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change (MESTECC) and the Malaysia Green Technology Corporation (MGTC), creating a platform for solution providers and Green businesses to […]

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Mandai Eco-Resort

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In 2023, Singapore will open a new eco-resort in the Mandai precinct, for which construction is expected to commence next year. The yet unnamed resort will advance Singapore’s distinctive advantage of having a primary forest within the limits of a first-world metropolis—one of only few cities in the world to do so — that gives […]

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Lakeside Garden

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In a city renowned for its green cover and public spaces, the opening of a new park may seem as exciting as bringing sand to the beach; yet the new Lakeside Garden, a 53-hectare public park deep in the country’s heartlands, is a big deal. It is the first iteration of Jurong Lake Gardens, a […]

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Microlibrary Hanging Gardens

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The story of the Microlibrary Hanging Gardens at Babakansari, Kiaracondong, Bandung is a somewhat extended one: what we imagined to be simple turned out to be challenging. SHAU was assigned by Ridwan Kamil—then mayor of Bandung; now governor of West Java—to design another microlibrary after completing the Bima and Taman Lansia ones with the help […]

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Benchmarking the Benchmark: Reflections on the 10th Anniversary of Malaysia’s Green Building Index

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Good intentions notwithstanding, Green building rating tools can evoke a certain degree of consternation within the construction industry. These tools are far from immaculate entities, but rather dynamic and sometimes imprecise instruments whose efficacy is often a function of how, why and where they are employed. Just as how a hammer could be used to […]

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Yu Kongjian & Lou Yongqi

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Yu Kongjian | Design as a policy driver HB: What do you see as the role of landscape architecture in Asia today? Why does the profession matter? YKJ: Landscape architecture plays a key role in making countries sustainable. In Asian cities and China in particular, it is about death and life—the art of survival. We […]

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Frontlines of Ecological Practice

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Ecopuncture is acupuncture for the built environment. Each act of design, akin to a needle inserted into a living system-of-systems, seeks restorative goodness for the whole. It enhances the connectedness of the social and ecological, seeking positive reciprocity and strengthening the resilience of the whole. The approach adopted by designers on the frontlines of ecological […]

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Year End 2019

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To do less harm is no longer enough. We now need to do good. Every act of design has the power to degenerate or regenerate the wider system. It can fragment or restore social and ecological links. Ecopuncture—like acupuncture—is akin to a needle inserted into a living system-of-systems, to trigger a positive response and restore […]

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