DR SHARIFAH S S MAHDZAR

UTM has organised a Forum event regarding our National Housing Crisis, PERUMAHAN DI MALAYSIA : “MAMPU MILIK ATAU MAMPU TENGOK” on 24 Ogos 2016 at Dewan Sultan Iskandar, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor. The event itself was mainly organised by Malaysian Counsil of Professor (Majlis Professor Negara).

Housing is a major development program of the nation. Housing development, home ownership and property have always been a major issue in the discussion of our geopolitics. Studies has been made by the Institute Sultan Iskandar (ISI) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Survey Research Group (SRG UTM). The level of perception and satisfaction of the people towards the achievement of the housing must be increased not only in number but also in life long belongings.

The Malaysian National Housing Policy has become the future of design and construction outlines for the housing. Housing development should be appropriate to the capabilities, services and the required quality. Recently, Johor State Government introduced the Public Housing Association in effort to help the achievement of affordable housing. It is used to ensure that the developers in providing such priority to the development of the affordable homes in Johor.

The affordable housing should be defined as literally affordable or be able to purchase by common citizens who fall within the target group of middle-income households abilities accordance with the standards specified. The household total income was the most common method used as the standards in evaluating their eligibility. The most critical problem of low-income housing in Malaysia is its affordability for poorer people. As described at the beginning, although the ceiling price has been set by the government, many low income families could not secure the amount of money to buy it. For the government and local authority, it is also difficult to fund the low income housing more than they do now.

As for our Research group initiative, We aim to solve this social problem by adding the time dimension to open building construction with the name ‘Incremental SI (structure-infill) housing. It is the housing supply system where structure is built first with reduced amount of budget, and infill is attached later in an increment manner. Unlike normal open building construction, this allows the bare structure of the first phase construction to be utilised as a basic shelter, and in the following phases, those who moved in can participate in the incremental construction of their homes. By splitting the total construction into smaller manageable volumes, it is expected that the local authority can initiate the development with less risk and financial burden within a limited timeframe. As the nature of house is ‘incremental’, those who moved in can also have flexibility of handling and managing their construction plan, based on their own financial status.

Research on the Development of Incremental SI (Structure-Infill) Housing for Low-Income Population in Malaysia funded by British Council Institutional Link Grantt. Formal meeting on 10th Aug (Wed) at Northumbria campus from 10:00 to 14:00 where UTM will present works and book potential chapters. lunch at the campus at 13:00 on the same day. casual chat or meeting informally and we can have lunch outside the campus together with any staffs available. On 10th, 9 staffs to meet UTM including Kevin Thomas (Head), Oli, Agnieszka, Marco, and Pedro. ‘Development of Incremental SI(Structure and Infill) Housing for Low-income Population in Malaysia’ funded by British Council under the name of Newton Fund Institutional Links with collaboration between Northumbria University and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Datum KL, an international premier design conference in the region attended by about 2,800 architects from Malaysia and other countries. A conference is an event for architects to reenergize themselves and to dare to dream again after listening to speakers from all over the world, with different backgrounds to share their works, their philosophies and thoughts on architecture. Datum: KL international architectural design conference held with the theme “Rejuvenation” at the KL Convention Centre, which focuses on the exploration of place in architecture. Datum was organised by the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) in conjunction with the 6th consecutive Kuala Lumpur Architecture Festival (KLAF) 2016.

The two-day conference provides a platform for the discourse on the role of architecture in place-making and features a line-up of speakers from Zaha Hadid Architects, MARK DYTHAM Architects Klein Dytham Architects Japan, Y Architects Malaysia, Footprints E.A.R.T.H India, 10 Designs Hong Kong, EKO PRAWOTO Building Workshop Indonesia, and finally from ESA MOHAMED UIA President, Malaysia.

The PAM Masterclass 2016 from 25th to 29th July 2016 will bring together architecture students from seven Malaysian schools of architecture, namely UM, UTM, UiTM, UIAM, UPM, USM and Taylor’s. University Each university will be represented by five students for a total of 35 students. The PAM Masterclass 2016 The workshop was arranged in a group competition manner. With 35 participants, there were 5 groups with 7 members from different universities. The task is to design a masterplan exploring ideas for a sustainable 21st century Asian city; a walkable city, a city that celebrates diversity and attracts people of mixed ethnicity, social class and economic wealth to live, work and play in the same place, a city that builds upon the existing ecology, a SMART city that privileges public transport over the private car, a city with wonderful public places, a city that conserves memories.