Uia Regional Center

The brief calls for the design of “UIA Regional Center for Sustainable South East Asia” in Johor Bahru city. The building is a regional center, combining the functions of a small-sized regional office and commission activity center for promoting sustainable South East Asia through architecture, to the profession and/or public. The building shall portray itself as an environmentally sustainable architecture for this climate and context.

The client

The International Union of Architects (UIA) was founded in 1948 in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is a non-governmental global federation of national associations of architects and is the only world union of architects. It currently has 124 member countries and territories, and represents close to 1.3 million architects worldwide.

The issue and design strategies

Urban heat island (UHI) is a city or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. a Utilize green roof to curb with the urban heat island effect.
Lack of awareness about environmental issues and sustainable architecture among the Malaysians. There is a need for the public to be educated as a strategy to live a greener future. an Architecture can act as teaching material to implement green features into the building as a live gallery to showcase the sustainable architecture.

Design concept

The building is expected to act as a TEACHING MATERIAL in introducing the green architecture in Malaysia. As the green wave strikes, sustainability has become the main focus of all architecture throughout the world. The building is designed in ORGANIC FORM. Natural elements, air, wind, water, and even human flow smoothly through spaces, never in rigid straight lines. The building is designed in such a way to respect the organic nature. Green features such as green roof, stack ventilated funnels and light shelves are introduced into the building to be eco-friendly.

DESIGN APPROACH

RIGID AND ORGANIC
- Use subtraction to integrate between rigid and organic form
  - Breaking the rigid
  - Amalgamation of nature and urban at the site

SOCIAL MAGNET
- Creation of plaza and urban pocket space
  - To create a new node in the urban
  - Attract visitors into the building
  - Give back to the community (shaded area for pedestrians.)

project credits
Project name: UIA Regional Center for Sustainable South East Asia
Name: Yeow Yann Herng
School: University Teknologi Malaysia
Supervisor: Dr. Doris Toe Hooi Chyee

Arch2O has received this project from our readers in order to participate in the Students week 8 event, you may submit your own work for publication in the Students Week 9 , for more details please CLICK HERE