When ‘Architecture’ meets ‘Urban Design’
Integrated Design Consultant Office
When small towns grow to become cities, the role of architects become expanded to urban design.
While architecture is about looking at design of individual buildings or groups of buildings, the practice of urban design is the art of making safe, comfortable and inviting places for people.
It includes looking into the connections between places and buildings, making sure that buildings, landscape and the environment complement each other and achieve a harmonious balance.
Urban Design came into the spotlight during an interview with Integrated Design Consultant Ng Chee Wee, who is also a former chairman of PAM Sarawak Chapter and his colleague Alan Lau Kor Loong.
“Architecture focuses on individual buildings, while Urban Design addresses the larger scale of groups of buildings, streets and public spaces, districts and even entire cities,” Ng told BizHive Weekly in an interview.
“Working at such a scale of course involves other professionals such as planners as well as economists who help to study the social-economic aspects of the development of cities, whereas the architect concentrates on the form-making and the visual aspects of creating cities” he said.
He further pointed out that a city designed with sustainable solutions was one which could simultaneously respond effectively to economic, environmental and social concerns.
“In fact nowadays people need to learn to live closer to one another to reduce the competition for land, which we should try and preserve for nature and agriculture as much as possible.
Density needs to increase so that we can build more sustainably,” he added.
“Besides looking at individual buildings, one also needs to look at how buildings relate to one another and to the surrounding areas,” he stressed.
“One of the key weaknesses of Asian cities is the lack of connectivity between buildings.
People tend to focus a lot on their own development and they forget to be design-friendly to their neighbours.”
“In a lot of places in Malaysia, they put barriers between buildings in the city.
“This shouldn’t be the case, we should make use of the spaces in between and connect the city together,” he added Lau, shared this view, and pointed out that it would be much better if one could also apply urban city design principles to big residential developments.
“You need designers who really understand the overall picture to come up with a project that has a strong overall character, which helps to foster a strong sense of community.
“Bearing in mind that good architectural design can also reduce and prevent crime – for example by reducing blind corners, increasing visibility of public areas, and making use of landscape elements such as water features as security barriers instead of erecting fences everywhere which can be very unfriendly,” he explained.
In Sarawak, Lau said the state was lucky in some respects because “we still have many historical buildings which have been preserved.
In many places the historical buildings have been demolished to make way for new developments, which is a pity, because then they lose their characters.” “It is an exciting stage for architects here because there are so many things that need improvement, redesigning and there are a lot of possibilities for us to come out with new designs and concepts,” he enthused.
“A city can only survive if the areas around it thrives, it is a symbiotic relationship.
Likewise, good urban design can only materialise if the buildings are designed to interact positively with one another,” Ng concluded.
Integrated Design Consultant is a private architectural practice based in Kuching which was established in the 1990s.
Since then, the firm has successfully undertaken numerous projects involving planning, urban design, buildings and also interior design, whereby its emphasis is on an integrative approach to design.