Sustainable Living
In an increasingly urbanized world, there is growing international demand for the studies on livable cities. This module helps us with the knowledge and skills to participate in this rapidly expanding profession and find our position as architects. The module uses case study method through series of videos (precedents) and explores on cities of Malaysia and international contexts focusing on a particular theory/model/framework pertinent to sustainable living. We are to explore the relationships of intangible aspects or the content such as cultural, climatic and social situations/user-experiences to tangible aspects such as form, activity and movement pattern. This includes understanding what makes the characteristics of a city for a formal understanding on sustainable aspects. Later, such characteristic understanding on urban reformation will be tested for what is still evidenced on the urbanity and content of livability. The module aims to inspire us towards fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to comprehend urban places and sustainable living. It is an exploration of both literature and reality.
Reflection on Module
This module is different from what I thought in the beginning. I took sustainable policies last semester, and I thought it will be another module about Sustainable Development Goals. However, I think this module is more “humanitarian”, as it focuses more on us and the cities that we are living in. After taking this module, I have looked at cities in a bigger picture and understand them better. I start to pay attention to the city that I am living in or I have visited. I feel the city that I am living in is closer to me, the roads, infrastructure, buildings, regulations, systems, plans, are all being modified to make a better place for me. This is mainly contributed by the lectures that are mostly real-life example. I began to reflect on the things that I am doing, is it helping the city to be more sustainable or deteriorating it. I think many still do what is known to be harmful to the cities is because we always feel that making a better city is impossible through one’s strength , therefore rely on experts, larger groups or the government. I am aware that this is a wrong idea, in fact, a lot of responsibility is put on us, because we are the one living in cities and cities exist for us. I believe the relationship between cities and human are closely tied and human action towards environment will eventually return to human, it is a cycle. Therefore, whatever we do must take environment into our consideration, we are not living individually on this planet and unaffected by external factors. Overall, for me, this module is not more on doings, meaning completing assignments but thinking and understanding what is so close to me, the cities. I enjoy this module.
Reflection on how the content of this module can help you improve your professional practice/final year of BAT in the future
‘Sustainability’ has become a common term now. I believe in coming years or future, I will be part of the people who are shaping the cities, and it will be my responsibility. Through this module, I have learnt that cities and human are closely related, and I must take the environment and user group into consideration, not just designing buildings that are aesthetic. It has taught me that although I might be just designing a building in the city, but it will affect the environment and the city condition. Besides that, by looking at the action plans of cities in lectures, I know the ability to make prediction for future and issues that are existing or rising now is crucial skills. So that, plans can be made to come out with design or solution that can adapt to the future context without sacrificing the sustainability of the city. Likewise, looking at what current cities have done or their plans of building a more sustainable city is something that I can apply or improvised in my own project. I believe precedents are there for reasons and I should learn from the masters before becoming one. Moreover, this module has taught me to summarize my findings, focus on specific topics and convey the information clearly through graphics. In future I will be presenting my work to more people, and most of them will not be in the same field as I am, therefore I think this skill is important to help me with better communication with others. Lastly, by looking at some cities that are doing well in sustainability development, I realized that every city is unique and not all method fit into every city. Therefore, I think understanding a city’s background and culture is important in providing a best solution for that city in sustainable development. Additionally, some cities have wisely used their weakness to overcome their issues and turn it for good. In short, these are my takeaway from this module, and it will benefit me in my future path.