Building for the people

THE growth of the Asian economies have drawn many foreign architects to Asian shores, resulting in buildings that may be iconic but do not have relevance to the Asian context or culture, say judges of the AAA. As such, they believe that buildings should be built with the people in mind.

“Architecture has to go back to the fundamentals, where we design for the community in the context of the culture and environment,” says one of the judges, Tan Pei Ing, principal of P I Architects and president of Arcasia.

“Over a period of time, we have looked to the West so much so that we’ve lost the ability to design based on this fundamental. Over the years, people have been so driven by form. The building has no more soul. China faced that problem with its fast development.

“They [the Chinese] realised that their cities have no soul. One city looks the same as another. A lot of the buildings do not respond to the local climatic conditions, they are not even livable. At the end of the day, you have to go back to responsible architecture, responsible to climatic conditions, to culture, to the local context,” says the former PAM president, the first female architect to hold the post.

Tan, along with her fellow AAA2014 judges — Keisuke Maeda from Japan; Kazi Khaleed Ashraf from Honolulu, the US; Rafiq Azam from Bangladesh; and Khairiah Talha, managing director and qualified town planner from Malaysia’s KWA Planners — deliberated over submissions for 10 categories. They were Single Family Residential Projects; Multiple Family Residential Complexes; Public Amenities: Commercial Buildings; Public Amenities: Resort Buildings; Public Amenities: Social/Institutional Buildings; Specialised Buildings; Industrial Buildings; Conservation Projects; Social Responsible Architecture; and Sustainability. The results will be announced on June 26.

Tan says the awards were restructured and relaunched last year to positive reviews. The awards ceremony now reflects the abundance of talent in Asia because previously, there was not “a platform to showcase our members’ works, to tell the whole world that Asian architects are equal or more capable than our Western counterparts”.

Kazi Ashraf, who is originally from Bangladesh and teaches at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, Honolulu, says while Asian architects have the competency to do the work, some may need to take time to reflect on their Asian heritage.

“Foreign architects are rushing to Asia to work,” he says. “And they usually don’t understand the local conditions. And I would like to say that a lot of Asian architects don’t understand their own local conditions and that is a crisis and a challenge.

“Asia is in a complex situation. It is a group of different civilisations, developing and growing at different tempos. There are innovations to be made, there are traditions to be retained, and sometimes these are conflicting. I think you need to be in dialogue with others beyond Asia,” adds the urbanist and architectural researcher.

Idea sharing is something that Khairiah, who has over 30 years’ experience in town planning, strongly believes in. She says collaboration with many parties make for better urban centres for all strata of society.

“The urban problems we are facing require all professionals to come together with a single goal and vision, and that is to make our human environment a better place, our cities better places,” she says. “Whatever architects create, it must be for the people first. But who are the people? I feel that a lot of architects design for those who can pay well. But what about those who are marginalised? There are a lot of problems with low-income housing, for instance, or providing housing for the poor.

The AAA2014 judges — (from left) Kazi, Khairiah, Tan, Maeda and Rafiq — believe strongly in Asia’s architectural talent to build structures for the community and the people who live in it

“But there is no one looking or delving into it, or researching how best to provide comfortable and affordable housing for the marginalised. As cities grow, as our urban population grows, we ought to address those kinds of issues,” adds the past president of Malaysian Institute of Planners.

The sharing of knowledge is something that Rafiq believes will be beneficial to all. “We need to share information on how we can create a living environment that is positive for society and for humanity, rather than having a commodity for people who just want to earn money out of it,” explains the three-time recipient of the World Architecture Community Award. “This global problem needs everyone to sit down and share the issues to create a pressure group. We may end up in a positive situation, in an environment in which we can live peacefully and create something for the new generations.”

The creation of something new should not be at the expense of one’s own culture, says Maeda. “Until the 20th century, the people of Asia had always been looking outside to Europe or bigger nations, but we forget where we came from. So, what we need to do is change the way we look at our traditional place or the place that we come from, so that we can create something great from what we have. Sometimes, we overlook promoting our local architecture,” says the winner of the AAA2013.

In a nutshell, the judges are passionate about designing structures that fit the local context. However, whether in Asia or another continent, the key is to ensure that buildings are built with people in mind. “We are designing for the community,” Tan reiterates. “And as people change and countries become more developed, architecture has to adapt to the change. But it should not lose its soul, such as a building a ‘foreign’ object that has no relationship with the people.”

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 23 - June 29, 2014.