Hi guys!

I've been given the opportunity to give a talk on educational paths to become an architect in Archidex on 5th July 2019. I first started discussing this topic in 2005 here in Lowyat Forum called "So You're Interested in Architecture?" to assist school leavers in figuring out possible ways to become a full-fledged architect in Malaysia.

Then when social media become widespread, I started a page of the same title. This is when my interest in architecture education become known amongst peers, and later I was invited to contribute in MAPSM as an expert in education and co-authored the Manual of Accreditation for LAM.

In this talk, I do not represent UTM per se, but as a LAM Accreditation Reviewer. With me will be Dato' Dr. Ku Azhar from USM, and Ar. Zaini Mufti from ZSR.

If you are interested to study architecture in Malaysia (or in any LAM validated overseas school) and want a no-bullshit, honest and straightforward information sanctioned by LAM, come to this talk. I highly recommend school teachers in charge of career advice and motivation to attend this to get the most up to date information on architectural studies.

The talk is free, but you do need to register first. Please go to http://reg.archidex.com.my then goto Events & Highlights > Forum@PAM Tomorrowland Pavilion > RSVP
Click the image above for more info on the talk.

See you there!

This post has been edited by azarimy: Jun 27 2019, 12:52 PM

How bout org tua yg nak tukar profession nak jadi arkitek.
Is it too late for me??

what is the criteria to be good architect? Creative? Can draw very well?

ala ingat represent UTM

Can. As long as you willing to take the degree.

Creativity, above all. Mind you, there are many architects who can't draw for shits.

Can. But meet me afterwards.

My SPM result so teruk even art school also tak mau me .......

Can only dream. All I know is Architect need to be good in math cause designing for a structure the structural integrity depends on your design ...... one wrong move it might be disaster waiting to happen in the future.

@azarimy. Go on play the sims and show ur architect skill on game. Lol

Well, that's a common misconception. Architects don't do calculations on structure. Structural engineers do.

I played to much Sims to the point all that all I did was to come up with various different ways to kill the Sims!

no thanks

whoa, i wanna go get your autograph yo

So architects just draw whatever they could dream of? Then pass them to structural engineers to figure out how to solve the problem? I'm confused.

A good architect is one who can handle local authorities without much hassle. Everything else is secondary.

I'm not good in drawing, but I like to play Simcity and The Sims

usually it's a two way street.

a few way street, include the money man and gov bodies too.

i knew some architect this day lazy do drawing and sketches, always review and commend other drawing. you still do design and drawing?

i interior come kacau abit can?

runner and draughtsman handle better than architect, trust me!

do a sketch of idea on paper.
then open up cad.

can become architect without degree ah? just take pam exam can ah

No laa. There's still basic rule-of-thumb of dos and don'ts when it comes to design. It's not all "design whatever the architect like and let other consultants figure out the rest".

Remember, architects used to do everything from ideation to structure to costing to construction to interior design. But all these have branched out into specialized areas and eventually grew into an independent profession.

Although architects can still do calculations, its better to leave it to experts in structural engineering so architects can spend time elsewhere.

Cannot. This profession is protected by Akta Arkitek. You can't even use the title architect outside of architectural context without approval. That's why in Malaysian there's no Computer Architecture or Systems Architecture programmes because Lembaga Arkitek already blocked that name.

Without an architectural degree, you can watch only laa.

BTW, Pam do not have exams. LAM do.

This post has been edited by azarimy: Jun 27 2019, 06:25 AM

How much an average architect averagely earning

Basically, the simple answer will be Yes.
A good architect will be able to dream but yet have some basic knowledge of Structure so that the design is practical. The structural Engineers will have to crack their head on how to make it possible to be build.
Having said so, to have beautiful architectures, sometimes we need to let the architects dream flow unrestricted. Once there is a concept, both parties can sit down and work together.
If I'm using a human anatomy as example, Architects will be doing your flesh and form, Structure Engineers will be doing your bones, M&E engineers will be doing your organs. ID is the makeup (You can do without them if your form is good 😉)

Do u need to be good in maths? What private uni have architecture?

Can I come and promote software for real time rtx render? :3

ohh ok thanks...good info...existing akitek renew lesen not thru PAM ah? LAM also?

So why arch I deal with always so selfish. Change dwg without informing other consultants, end up dwg not tally ask engineer why u all never update, ask qs why got vo

What's the difference between Archidex and Datum?

U met bad arch, not all like that

you got part 3 already ka bro?

how about career to become architecture lecturer..can talk cock sing song with student..lolz

Not as much as selling insurance, I'm afraid . A fresh grad earns around RM2.5k. Although the starting is low, once you get the hang of it, it should go up to RM5k within 5-7 years, and around RM8k in 10 years. You'll break the RM10k barrier faster if you get your part 3, and you can do this 2 years after graduating the masters.

This highly depends on the current economy, though. Coz we all know the first thing people stop doing when the economy shows some sign of going down is building.

If you score B+ in SPM maths, should be good enough. No need addmaths or physics at all. But having them is a bonus.

You can check the list of accredited schools (public and private) here:

http://lam.gov.my/index.php/accreditation/...programmes.html

Hahaha ask the organizers lah. My slot is only 40min including Q&A. Tak cukup!

All practice and licensing issues are under LAM. It's the governing body of the profession. PAM is a club of architects. We do clubbing stuffs, karaoke, minum2, social events etc

Probably a bad one. Proper architect would know how to deal with consultants. My suggestion, go find a different architect to work with.

Archidex free, Datum bayar? Haha.

So you review the accreditation of universities?

Why are there so few approved foreign universities in LAM's list?

you got your ar alrdy TS?

Yes, I review accreditation of architectural programmes.

For foreign programmes, it depends on them. If they want to be validated (the term we use for accreditation of foreign programmes), they can write to LAM and request for their programme to be validated. We then will send appointed examiners to their schools to evaluate their programme and students. If suitable, then we give them the validation status. If not, try again.

Because we have no jurisdiction to impose validation on overseas programme, it is totally up to those schools to apply voluntarily.

Nope. I'm fully in the academic line. I want to eventually, but at the moment I don't have time to practice to fulfill the part 3 exam requirements.

Why should good foreign Architecture schools bother to apply to be validated unless they are the less desired schools hard up for the income for Malaysian students?


Essentially LAM is setting an unhealthy barrier to foreign trained architects.

This rent seeking, Lembaga stamps, etc. is to protek rice bowl la. If anyone without the Lembaga cert can sign off approvable plans, the value of Architects and other related professions go down la.
They limit the approved insitutions = less board approved archs = more money for the rent seekers.

Got many instances the board approved people just sign on drawings for a living and not actively working in the field. Way more money for less work. That's the value of the board certification.

This post has been edited by seatux: Jun 27 2019, 09:54 AM

LAM is government, PAM is private driven. Lembaga & Persatuan

As long as u can bullshit...ok ajer

I am referring to foreign trained Malaysians here.

For eg: an graduate from London school of architecture will not be recognized by our glorious LAM.

Like you say: Many rent seekers. Everything in Malaysia seems to be created to SUCK.

When I was in highschool we toured your department along with other engineering department in utm in 2009. Most of my class got discouraged from taking architecture because one of the student there said that by the final year the student count is significantly smaller due to the harsh grading.

how true is this today?

Actually, it's not like that at all. Let me give you the context: Back before 2014, there's a list of foreign programmes approved by LAM, and it's quite a long list, but only limited to 3 countries: UK, Australia and New Zealand. However, nobody knew where this list came from, who wrote it, and how to remove or add more schools to it. Somehow it got chartered by the board in the 70s and never changed since. Even the schools in those list didn't know they're accredited by LAM.

We wanted the list to be more inclusive to other countries. US is pretty well established; Japan, Korea and China now have strong architectural schools; European in general have many cutting edge schools as well. Heck, Singapore and Thai have strong architectural schools too! Based on the old list, we cannot add these schools or remove the old ones. Even local private schools struggled to get accredited. LimKokWing took 15 years to accredit themselves!

So in 2011, we wrote a memorandum to change how architecture education is conducted in Malaysia. Then followed by the Accreditation Manual in 2014.

This forms the groundwork for the new architectural education scene in Malaysia, targeted in 2020. 1st step was to undo the old list and setup a new one. We demolished the old list in 2017, and since then the list of schools grew. Now we have more accredited schools than before.

We now have 17 accredited local schools (old list was 8 schools), and 24 foreign schools (previous was 20).

And there are still new schools joining the list (we are scheduled to visit them later this year). And at the same time, Malaysia is signing a Mutual Recognition Agreement with Australia. This MRA would simply mean that we recognize all Australian graduates from their recognized schools (regardless of citizenship), and they recognize all Malaysian graduates from our own recognized schools (regardless of citizenship).

If you must know, foreign students with LAM accredited degrees are already working in the industry. Some of them are gearing for part 3.

Does this spell protectionism?

Harsh gradings are generally true forever in architecture. It was harsh, it still is harsh, and will continue to be harsh forever.

Would you visit a doctor who's not rigorously trained?

Same here .

Heck...." nobody knew where this list came from"
Typical Malaysian Governmental administration!

But it is good to know that you are having Mutual Recognition Agreement with Australia.
What about other countries like UK, USA, etc?

In the meantime, graduates from foreign non LAM accreditated degrees continue to suffer or stay back in their country of graduation.
So what would a grad with Masters from Uk or Australia have to do in Malaysia to gain recognition to practice?

Can u pls list out the degree path/pre-requisite for Arc. degree here? From SPM, what is the best n cheapest route? Do u accept those sijil autocad/draftmen from CIDB/SKM/Kolej komuniti/Giatmara ? Are they equivalent to Diploma? How much overall costs ?

Many ppl with interest but dunno where to start.

Yes.. wanna ask if worth it to pay ? If bayar ribu x worth then we go archidex je, don't know what's the content of datum

Yeah, I was one of the jr architects who cant draw for shit during my studies and in my first 2 years of work. But recently I just realized that I can do simple sketches that can be understood on site and in meetings. Guess it is by experience.

Orang sudah lupa LAM la, skrang semua orang tengok PAM saja...

Title england RIP

We are open to any MRAs and some countries (cannot be named yet) have expressed interest. For now, only Australia willing to do it, and currently finalizing the processes. Hope all goes well! USA is very unlikely tho, because their architecture profession is governed state by state. So we won't have US-MY agreement. Not sure if MRA can work between nation and state level.

Regarding graduates from non-LAM accredited degrees, there's still way. We don't want to exclude anyone. First, they must enroll and graduate from an accredited programme by the country itself. For example in the UK, ARB must accredit the programme first. If not accredited by its own country, means forever cannot register in Malaysia. So this rules out bogus qualifications.

Then, just come to LAM and register themselves for Part 2. They will do a check and will request you to sit for the LAM part 2 exam. If pass, they get the part 2 and can now practice towards part 3. If not, they will be asked to sit for a preparatory programme for about 4 months, then sit for the exam again. And again, and again until pass.

I don't know. I find it fund and informative and can meet lotsa people in the industry. And usually my practice friends use this opportunity to headhunt for top students from the lecturers. But you have to find what's worth for you.

LAM has always been in the background,lah.

Haha sorry topic typo. But the official one is correct.

One question, why those famous Architect outside of our country you hear them earn millions ...... is it because they include pre-pos-process-end production? I remember some news that only the design it self cost like millions ..... how is that possible if they only makan gaji?

Event done! Thanks for those who came!

*bump*

This post has been edited by Iruga6000: Sep 15 2020, 01:23 PM

Having worked in archi practice for some years after Part 2, here are some of my genuine advice:

1) You don't do architecture for the money, you do it for the passion. This has been verified by many well-established architects AROUND THE WORLD.

2) Please don't take yourself seriously in this profession. You need to put down your ego before the client, consultant, authorities etc.

3) You are a glorified draftsman (if its D&B project) or glorified scapegoat when everything goes haywired.

4) Again, you don't become architect for the money. You just need to pursue your passion hard enough so that it can feed you.

*TBC*

you create new dupe just to post this ka?

im a civil eng. basically architects are our sworn enemy.

you guys need to consult psychiatrist from time to time just to get your common sense back on track.

utm-bred eng btw.

What is Part 2 exam all about? How long does it take?
To be honest, this 'validation' thing confused me a lot. AA and UCL dont bother to apply this anyway.
Did LAM take reference from RIBA? I remember they charge a lot to the schools as well if they want to get RIBA 'validated'.
What about Singapore? They recognised a lot of schools from Europe, Japan, China, USA, UK etc.
Do they visit and charge each school as well?
I understand this 'validation' is to make the whole things more organised and systematic.
However, some of the established schools dont even care about this validation.
And you said this move was to recognise more good schools across the world but now you said the recognition of USA unis is impossible...
Good schools? They dont even bother to get validated.
Only mediocre schools that are too hard up for tuitions fees of international students will apply.

Part 2 exam is to certify those who graduated from non-LAM accredited/validated schools, to ensure they've gone through the proper education and have achieved the minimum standard required to practice as a graduate architect in Malaysia. If you come from LAM accredited/validated schools, you don't need to sit for this.

But if you come from any other schools, you'd have to sit for this if you want to practice in Malaysia.



Validation is not needed if students can sit for the LAM Part 2 exam independently, sure enough. But Malaysia is one of the few countries where people spend A LOT OF MONEY for education. And we give a whole lot of scholarships and loans to study overseas too. Even by today's standard, where the government have reduced the number of out going scholarships, there are still numerous private scholarships and fundings per capita as compared to most other countries.

But here's the catch: They won't sponsor you if you go to non-accredited or non-validated schools. This is where the LAM overseas validation comes in.

When a programme is validated, the students can get sponsorship to study there. If not, they won't. They have to self-fund. Imagine schools in Australia who used to have over 100 Msian students intake per year, suddenly reduced to zero new intake!

And actually, LAM refers to ARB, not RIBA. RIBA is equivalent to PAM. ARB is equivalent to LAM.



Yes, because they use RIBA as a benchmark. SG do not have their own benchmark, so they adopted RIBA's. Hence any schools accredited by RIBA, will be automatically accredited by SG.

Do note that SG recognizes LAM too.



Like I mentioned earlier, it's not compulsory. Validation is more about recognition that their programme follows what LAM needs, so that the graduates (even their own international students) can come and practice in Malaysia. This has happened as a small number of international architects graduated from LAM validated schools have received employment in Malaysia.

If the schools do not have a lot of Msian students, they won't bother. I graduated from Bartlett. There's barely 5 Msian architecture students there at any one time. Even less in AA. But if you compare this to Leicester, for example, where they have up to 30 students, you know they'd do anything to secure that GBP300k worth of fees per year!



There are two things we need to be clear here. So far, we're talking about LAM-to-school recognition. We don't have limitations to go to US or Japan to validate them.

The one I mentioned above is MRA (Mutual Recognition Agreement), and this is a government-to-government agreement. This one is hard to do with US, because each state is independent. If we sign with federal government pun, tak guna.

It depends on how you define "good" schools. If looking at top 100 schools, there's already a number of them validated by LAM. Unless you're saying those rankings are rubbish... well...

Remember, good schools also have exorbitant fees. Because they can! And they usually are beyond the amount allocated by Msian sponsorships.

This post has been edited by azarimy: Dec 26 2020, 02:15 PM

That is why I said this recognition thing is just disappointing the Malaysians who got into AA/UCL/Cambridge/Bath/etc because they are the minority, they are self-funded and they are not sponsored. They probably wont come back after finishing their studies. "If the schools do not have a lot of Msian students, they won't bother." is very self-contradictory because good schools certainly would filter the students and choose the best ones. It can't be a whole lot of Malaysian students in any good schools. Good schools, stricter admission, less students. That's it. I am not saying the rankings are rubbish but clearly some of the top schools of architecture (objectively based on QS & Guardian Ranking) in the UK, like AA, UCL, Cambridge, Bath are not recognised.

This, exactly it is. Ask me get accreditation from a uitm architect who sits in their panel? Joking or pulling my legs? Simplicity as in choice of architecture materials, codes we are exposed to, doubt they know what is that

This post has been edited by jojolicia: Jun 19 2022, 04:42 PM

Don't underestimate how much money government spent to sponsor Msian students to study overseas.

BTW, I sit in that panel, and I'm from Bartlett. The rest of the panels are also UK and AU graduates. We know exactly the stuffs UK schools teach and do not teach.

Sure is, i am not saying the panel consisting only local architects. Surely from many foreign Architecture Schools.

I am questioning its accreditation. Registration & Accreditation is two different matter

This post has been edited by jojolicia: Jun 19 2022, 04:51 PM

I think you misunderstood. The good schools don't need to go for Msian accreditation because we only make a small minority of their student population. Read = we are not their pot of gold.

You have to think about their ROI. Why spent massive hours of paperwork and money to get accreditation relevant for 5 Msian students when they have 1,000 from other countries?

They will still get good students from Msia, but it will only be from those who can self-sponsor or get private sponsors.

I know exactly what they are. I'm just responding to what you wrote.

Nice thread TS. Good read. Need to keep options open for my kids future career. Meaning non engineering

Then just enlighten me, why a foreign trained architect needs LAM accreditation?

This post has been edited by jojolicia: Jun 19 2022, 05:08 PM

If they want to practice in Malaysia, they need to get registered with the board. In order to do so,

i. coming from an accredited school means you just need to show up at the board, isi borang, show all sijil and BAM, you're registered.

ii. coming from unaccredited school means you have to sit for LAM part 2 (and part 1 if you still don't have one) exam, show all your sijil and portfolio and pass it. If you fail, you have to do a short design project to prove your worth. This will take between 4 weeks to 6 months.

This applies to anyone from any background or nationality to practice in Malaysia.

Remember, previously (before 2014), only Malaysians can become architects, and only if they graduated from Malaysia or a handful of schools listed in an old accredited list inherited since the 70s. The old list was fixed, it could not be changed to add or remove entries.

Ok, thanks for the detailed headups

boss.. as engineer i go there kakacaucau

This was last year's topic laa bang.