Studio Brief

This studio-based module develops an appreciation for design skills in tropical landscape design as applied on a large city scale and marks the final design studio for bachelor-level students and the second of four master-level design studios. At this scale, interdisciplinary requirements from planning, landscape architecture design, engineering; as well as understanding existing cultural, social, natural and urban systems will have to be introduced into the design process. The project site is not only larger in scale but will also be a foreign location to most students, with more complex design issues to tackle than those found in Singapore. Possible design projects range from peripheral nature conservation sites to eco/agri-tourism to mix-use urban centres with an emphasis on deriving innovative design solutions using ecological and sustainability principles that have a potential to improve the liveability of the district.

The concept of a liveable city and designing for liveability is still shrouded in ambiguity despite the attempts by scholars to define it (Ahmed et al., 2019), to measure it (Stanislav and Chin, 2019; Istrate and Chen, 2022) and prescribe ways to design for it (Law et al., 2021). Yet even when implemented, it remains difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of policies targeted at improving liveability (Lowe et al., 2020). In the context of our design studio, we seek to uncover how the concept of liveability applies to our design site and how landscape architecture can contribute to such a subjective quality.

Unlike some other overseas destinations which the department have brought students to (e.g. Jakarta, Manila or Mumbai), there are no major or pressing ecological, environmental or social issues which require immediate international or humanitarian attention. That said, we believe that landscape architects can still contribute to making Kluang even more liveable through selective design interventions alongside consultation with local stakeholders. However, the concept of liveability does not only differ between an Eastern and Western understanding (Paul and Sen, 2020) but is also not fully understood in a Malaysian context (Ismail and Dempsey, 2021). As such design proposals need to be contextualized to a local understanding of liveability for them to be seen to be in sync with the district in question.

Site Visit

The primary landing site will the town of Kluang (formerly Keluang), in the Kluang District of Johor, Malaysia. Kluang was founded in 1915 as the administrative capital of central Johor by the British. It is located in the centre of the state and is within 90 minutes of all major urban areas of Johor. Over the past few decades, Kluang’s agricultural economy transitioned from rubber to palm oil while the industrial sector has also grown significantly with multinational investment and a critical mass of tile manufacturers enabling the district to be called the ‘tile capital of Malaysia’.

Being well known for outdoor recreation, organic farming as well as nature areas popular with hikers, the Kluang district serves as an interesting contrast to the hustle and bustle of Singapore while being just hours away and leans in well with what us landscape architects might gravitate towards. Kluang also has some of Malaysia’s largest organic farms with the sector boosting Kluang as an ecotourism destination with key farms such as Zenxin Organic Farm (which we visited), UK Agro and Kahang Organic Rice Farms (‘Kluang’, 2022).

A site visit to Kluang was carried out from 11th to 15th January 2023 (Wednesday to Sunday) where our hosts included stakeholders within Kluang ranging from administrators to organic farmers to residents.While there, students were exposed to various locations of interests including the newly completed double track elevated railway line and the Mengkibol River which run through the town of Kluang, local schools and residential areas, parks and nature reserves and the town in general.

While the site visit was short, we are very glad to once again travel overseas after the restrictions from the pendamic were lifted and once again thank all the people in Kluang for making our visit a comfortable and fruitful one.