If you are opting for LKW, I'm persistent to say that take the degree course! The faculty currently is more towards the degree course, and the teaching / output quality is immensely improving as the tutors team is much more coordinated now.

The diploma course is still available and there are still few students enrolling into diploma. In my point of view, diploma in LKW isn't that worthy compared to the degree course; since some of the diploma subjects are actually part of degree subjects itself. For example diploma students take design subject alongside with the foundation students and diploma's architectural history subject shares some classes with degree culture subject. In the end, the diploma holders end up taking second year degree.

It's acceptable if youre taking the diploma from other LKW campuses like Kuching, but if youre going straightaway to Cyberjaya, my advice is to enrol in the degree course.

some quote architecture is mother of all arts. and some say architecture is the field with the highest level of creativity there is.

what do you think?

well I suppose there is a reason an architect's profession is enshrined in the ring of heroism. if it werent for architects we wouldnt have the list of seven wonders of the world.

I dont think without any experience any firm would want to hire you; even as interns. I guess the best way to spend your free time directly after SPM is to learn few softwares like autoCAD and sketchup to gain a step ahead of your coursemates. And you should also do some research and readings on architecture topics so that by the time you enrol you wont have a blank mind that architecture is all about drawing plans and stuff like that.

ps: if you meant the free time directly after form 5; that is

This post has been edited by yangsquare: Aug 6 2009, 08:59 PM

azarimy hit it right. there's nothing much you can do. my previous view still stands; well if you need some excuses for your parents, I guess there are short courses for autocad, I think you should take those.

Hi all. Been awhile since I last posted in this thread. Let me briefly introduce myself: I've been a Limkokwing architecture student before I left for Curtin in my third year. Well I have been getting myself posted on updates from Limkokwing and knew about the new B.Arch program they launched.

Let me be honest here, there are some good tutors (I mean really good) in the design unit, but somehow the faculty did not appreciate them. I was the VP for the student association and we did try our best to appeal to the school to retain the best albeit part-time tutors. In the wake of the termination of the tutors early this year, I decided my best course of action is to disagree by quitting Limkokwing and joined Curtin one year earlier.

Personally I do not recommend anyone to take up their B.Arch program and to those who wished to apply, take up the Curtin program instead.

BTW, ask me anything.

Yes, I'll be finishing my masters (previously B.Arch) in Perth, after learning thatt the ones that are teaching us the coming semesters are charismatic and knowledgeable tutors. Forgive me but if you might not be aware, the current Limkokwing's B.Sc (Arch) program is offered together with Curtin, so it was not a big hassle for credit transfer from Limkokwing to Curtin. I finished my third year which is B.Sc (Arch) and will be graduating in Curtin this February, albeit my first two years was done in Limkokwing. Since my results are well above the requirements for M.Arch, I will continue for two more years as in the common 3+2 approach.

Most Limkokwing students are already aware that their Part 1 is not accredited by the time they graduate with B.Sc (Arch) but some tried to take comfort in thinking that it borrows some credence from being a Curtin program. Though I doubt fresh joiners would have any idea of that. In this point one does wonder if there is anything wrong with the extremely stringent accreditation process in part by LAM, but well this is for another debate.

In obvious sense, yes I've seen Limkokwing students get accepted to other universities, either if it's Australian or UK. I've seen some went to RMIT, Deakin and Tasmania. Universities in UK I heard most have to do an extra year although both heavily depend upon student's portfolio.

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Added on December 24, 2010, 7:29 pmIf there is a person you can point to, let's just say I won't deny that. Azarimy you seems like you have a good source in Limkokwing.


This post has been edited by yangsquare: Dec 24 2010, 07:29 PM

Never depend on any unaccredited institution's claims that it will soon get accredited in future no matter how close they may have come to be accredited. Make sure you understand where you study in is unaccredited and you carry a big risk of being unrecognized for Part 1 even though your Part 2 is done at accredited institution. You can always try to apply for final B.Arch program in local universities no matter where you're from, but make sure you have a strong portfolio.

Never get into architecture because of the pay. You will regret it and it will be a long investment before you can get your Part III and be eligible to be paid according to the construction rate. You will have to endure seeing your friends getting huge salaries while you are lugging yourself a low salary in a firm. Understand that architecture is a life you subscribe to.

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Added on January 5, 2011, 11:16 amI still resent the idea of business mindedness in the field of architecture. Unlike a business, architecture's final purpose is not getting the biggest profit or building the biggest towers. The realm of architecture belongs to a social philosophy under humanities. This has been very well discussed in my website's quest of Malaysian architecture.

Azarimy, after comparing the professional architectural scene in Malaysia and Australia, I do have few questions to ask. What is your opinion on LAM's stringent accreditation procedure? We have noticed that LAM do not recognize any other qualifications out of Malaysia, UK, Australia and New Zealand. How about students from a bigger part of Europe, USA or even Japan?

This makes me wonder how many 'graduate architects' from overseas get away with submission and approval by parking their name under other professional firms or partnership despite being the real designer of a project. I guess this leads to the speciation of architects species into design architects and project architects. In all actuality PAM only protects project architects while many design architects are derived of their rights. This is especially the case for a lot of local scene 'design architects' such as John Bulcock, Ernesto Bedmar, Kevin Mark Low and Ng Sek San. I wondered what really guarantees the rights of 'design architects'.

This post has been edited by yangsquare: Jan 5 2011, 12:02 PM

Your definition of 'Visionary Architecture' actually have its origins in Romanticism, in due influences from philosophers like Rousseau and Burke. Powerful stimulation of the mind and the senses are pretty much what they regard as the sublime. For me, it's simply called poetic or phenomenology in architecture. Fret not though, there are some well-known practitioners of phenomenology to this day.

I'm glad that you do subscribe the same philosophy as I do. I'm duly very interested in the sublime powers of architecture. However there are several schools of architecture that put much more priority in other instances like architectural tectonics or architecture as a language. The only thing that irks me is the over commodification of architecture, particularly in Malaysia. A bigger part of Malaysian society still think architecture is simply facial aesthetics and unfortunately quite a number of mainstream architects subscribe to this mindset. Some think there's no point of going through all this sketching and modelling, heading straight to CAD to accelerate delivery. I hope you do not lose this integrity and most importantly what we've learned in all these years in studio do not be thrown away mindlessly.

Just remember this quote:
"Do whatever you can to keep money from being a major influence in your life. It will control you. It allows others to control you."

The history period between Renaissance and Modernity is probably a succession of reactionary movements against one another, and I'm afraid you might have misplaced some labels. The movement labels although might overlap each other in periods of time, but their philosophies are quite distinct from each other.

For example, Romanticism is a movement in reaction AGAINST Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. Age of Enlightenment or alternatively known as Age of Reason advocates the immutability of human reason over faith and superstition, which in part derives from Descartes' philosophy. Descartes mentioned that reason is the utmost important nature of human being, and despised human senses because sometimes they fool us.

Romanticism on the other hand, advocated feelings and emotions over reason, where Rousseau states that feelings cannot be quantified and analyzed by reason, therefore the importance of the feeling of awe and wonder, which they regard as the sublime. Romanticism is also a reaction against Industrial Revolution as cities like London and Paris become overcrowded, and that we have forgotten about the beauty of nature.

Art Nouveau although might share Romanticism's affinity for nature, it is quite distinct in that Art Nouveau embraced Industrial Revolution's invent of the wrought iron. Nevertheless, the main characteristic of Art Nouveau is the embrace of non-geometric, organic forms that are derived from nature. Some of these can be found in works of Victor Horta and Antoni Gaudi.

Rococo on the other hand is simply reproductions of Versailles' opulence and grandiosity in European art and architecture. It may lack a general philosophy but this is a testament to how influential Louis XIV's Versailles palatial architecture can be.

Baroque on the other hand predates Rococo, and it is about the dynamic reaction against Renaissance's static and linear development of Classical architecture. The popularization of opera and theater also influenced Baroque's overt emotion and highly dramatic characteristic.

There may be some truth in that Romanticism tries to take inspiration from darker realms, such as ruins and the now ancient Gothic architecture. However, what they are really looking upon is the feeling of mystery that is evocative in all ancient things. However Gothic Revival is a totally different scene altogether, since the movement (like the Westminster you mentioned for example) tried to sought justification in being a Christian identity, since Gothic is much more 'Christian' than Neoclassical that owes its origins in pagan foundations after all.

Beaux-Arts on the other hand upholds Neoclassicism, but the label itself derives from Ecoles de Beaux-Arts, the academy of architecture in France that is probably the most famous school of architecture in classical education. Well, I suppose that reputation predates what AA have now.

In short, Romanticism doesn't really have much output in architecture in that period, maybe the most famous being Etienne-Louis Boullee, where his paper architecture does evoke the sublime feelings, but I doubt any architectural historian will put it that away. Now that Romanticism has past, the current philosophy that upholds importance of feelings and senses in architecture is probably Pallasmaa. Like I've said, there are some works and practitioners in this era, probably labelled phenomenology or poetic architecture.

Books might have been the best primary source for general history in architecture. But some specific thesis are best found in journal databases, and I base most of my research on them. If you enjoyed architectural history, you might wanna read A Global History of Architecture, A World History of Architecture, Gardner's Art through the Ages and of course the most commended Frampton's Modern Architecture. I've given them a cover to cover treatment, and it does increase your knowledge and understanding tremendously.

This post has been edited by yangsquare: Jan 9 2011, 11:51 PM

I don't think you quite get it. Romanticism is one of many movements between Renaissance and Modernism, and it does not encompass Art Nouveau, Rococo, Beaux-Arts or Gothic Revival. Age of Enlightenment also do not really overlap into Industrial Revolution, it probably begins with Descartes' treatise and ends with French Revolution in the end of 18th century. Romanticism probably begins almost at the end and in reaction against Age of Enlightenment. After French politics started to crumble, the European power mostly shifted towards Britain, which is the scene of Industrial Revolution. Neoclassicism do not spark-off Romanticism as you said but rather started as the reaction against Age of Enlightenment's nature of overdependent on reason.

Urban planning in Paris is significant due to Hausmann's aggressive renovation. In a way it massively transformed how the Paris skyline by demolishing older sections of the city and attracted huge controversy. The opposition is so great that many people doubt if the renovation is influenced by French authoritarian and militarism policy. I doubt the renovation is influenced by Baroque urban planning maybe except for the fact that Hausmann tried to strengthen some prominent axis in the city.

There is no doubt that Modernism attempted a tabula rasa treatment of all the decorations and ornamentation of previous influences. But to say the same thing on Romanticism is different altogether. Since Romanticism believed that feelings and senses are much more supreme, I think that this philosophy is closely related to Pallasmaa's phenomenology.

Also, the 'murderous' ornamentation that you mentioned have somehow been resurrected in the name of Post-Modernism though I believed historical architecture should belong to their time. In essence, why we have been learning about these classical notions of architecture despite the modern condemnations is to understand the philosophies behind it and try to judge for ourselves what is our design philosophy in our time and age, rather than treating history as a retrospective past that we should resurrect again and again.

The foremost problem is how to convince them to come back to Malaysia after they've graduated. Looking at the issue of corruption alone is enough for me to seriously consider migration. If corruption is never tackled as a real issue, Malaysia will always stuck being the manufacturing-base country rather than a knowledge or professional base. The government should address the serious issues rather than just singing songs of the rather never coming future.

I'm beginning to worry to see how you're okay with the rampant corruption in Malaysia. I understand that there will always be lobbyists in politics or every other example in Freakonomics but saying that Malaysia is good with corruption is a different thing. I am at least opposed to corruption and pretty much aware of how it is slowly destroying our country. Since you're knowledgeable in economics I believe you've heard that we lost RM 10 billion annually to corruption. So, you are complaining how bad the roads are (federal and rural roads to me at least), it should be obvious to you that where the money has gone to. Removing corruption isn't all that hard, all it needs is just a government that is honest in pursuing a transparent bureaucracy.

I hope I get you wrong but you seemingly underestimated the role of architecture in society in that we never look beyond architecture itself. An outlook of how design affects our daily life can be found in de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness, although it is a very general opinion on the wide-ranging spectrum of architecture, at least for me. Nevertheless, it is a great read for those who are outside the architectural sphere.

Also, professionals like engineers and architects doesn't always have to go for public projects, but rather most of them do private projects. In fact, I think it is important that the government do off-source public works to architects, therefore raising the standards for good design, well hopefully. There are some good architecture done by locals compared to our seemingly 'foreign' landmarks in our country, but I wouldn't blame much on that. I mean most national landmarks overseas aren't designed by locals anyway. Sometimes it is the Malaysian public that is uneducated on architecture. For example how many of you still see houses with Corinthian columns under construction?

I agree with azarimy's critical mass of good designers needed to kickstart the transformation of built environment. But then again see how many architects are there in Malaysia, I mean qualified and licensed ones to leverage the current situation. Australia for example have at least 13,000 architects with their total population of 21 million, Malaysia barely has 2,000 architects out of 28 million population. The brain drain Malaysia is currently having compounds to this problem. However, just wait around and doing good design isn't enough- I think advocacy of good design AND its process is particularly important, hence the article in my blog.

@Benjamin911
I'm glad that there has been quite a lot of questioning in the search of Malaysian architectural identity. For starters, Putrajaya and KLCC is rather a political shout-out than a true Malaysian architecture. Since masonry times architecture has been used by politicians for propaganda. Malaysia therefore being a Islamic nation although constitutionally secular, leaders has adopted the Middle-Eastern forms. Like what Azarimy said, such forms - domes for example - has been questioned for climate compatibility for Malaysia, reason being a tropical country. Is Taj Mahal Indian architecture? Certainly not, Mughal yes, Islamic yes.

@azarimy
I agree that the National Mosque is a quintessential Malaysian architecture, rather than Putrajaya or KLCC duds. The umbrella rather than the domed roof explains that Malaysia does not always equal Islamic. However, such change from National Mosque to Putrajaya forms can also tell us that Malaysia is moving from being a secular country to an Islamic one, though many of you may disagree with that. See for example our original independence buildings like the Parliament, and now look at contemporary Malaysian governmental buildings.

Yes, it is no doubt that Hijjas Kasturi experimented a lot with what Malaysian architecture should be. However I am for one that is very critical of his works. Hijjas' works are rather overtly emblematic, and architecture should not be treated the same as sculpture. You'll learn that much of his works resemble Malaysian motifs; keris, songkok, bamboo shoot and so on. Hence, I doubt his works are pretty much equivalent of Malaysian architecture.

Ken Yeang's works, although an approach to resolve Malaysian climate; is rather under the connotation of sustainable architecture rather than Malaysian architecture. Nevertheless, I applaud his efforts on exporting climate sustainable architecture outwards, in essence establishing Malaysia as a perfect experimental grounds for sustainability. Also, amongst all Malaysian architects - Ken Yeang is probably the most internationally acclaimed, probably chipping in that climate architecture can equal national architecture; as what Glenn Murcutt did for Australian architecture.

@KVReminem
Your outlook is very broad among the general populace, heck especially the Malaysian public. Inviting foreign architects to design in their own country has been true for many countries; developed or developing nations alike. Examples include the Danish Jorn Utzon for Sydney Opera House, Swiss Herzog & de Meuron for few Beijing Olympic landmarks, even Le Corbusier and Louis Khan have their massive works in India and Bangladesh. Bringing in foreign architects to design landmarks, even national ones sometimes can import newer insights into the local architectural scene. Sometimes their remarks surprise local architects or builders on what can be done other than following the conventional manner. However this is a double-edged sword, while it might increase local architecture awareness, it also prompts criticism against the local context; climate and culture for example.

@tehtmc
While I agree that architectural identity is much more resilient when it has been developed for centuries, your view is rather retrospective than forward-looking. There is always opportunity to experiment on Malaysian architecture and it should be encouraged. I rather believe that architecture moves us, both emotionally and historically. Take a look at Japanese architecture for example, and look at how their vernacular architecture progressed into magnificently modern, often minimalistic homes. Theirs might have been influenced by western modernist ideals, but both vernacular Japanese and western modernist ideas has culminated into something that is architecturally distinctive Japanese architecture. Even the Japanese contemporary context of the lack of space has been factored into their architecture.

It is true that the Malaysian identity should embrace the multiracial context rather than the purely Malay influence. I think that the common spaces among Malaysians such as shophouses and housing communities should be a great experimental ground for Malaysian architectural identity. However it should not be viewed as solving the housing problem as mentioned by KVReminem. In my opinion architecture should not be viewed as single-handedly as social solutions, as it will always result in disregarding other important elements. Low-cost housing solutions in particular devaluates architecture. In fact they are mere buildings, not works of architecture.

Malaysian pavilion for the recent Shanghai Expo is obviously a blow to the reputation of Malaysian architectural scene. I doubt it that the politicians properly consulted with local architects on what should be done. While all other pavilions have shown the progressive view towards the future, Malaysia and China too has offered a poor hindsight that the past is the best we ever have done message.

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I think that the quintessential Malaysian architectural identity will result by encompassing multiple values of Malaysian culture. It should strike us deep in heart that this is Malaysian, not just Islamic, Malay or even sustainable architecture. Like what Azarimy mentioned, I too agree that the National Mosque is a good but not perfect example. Works like Kevin Low's do particularly strike me as particularly Malaysian. The bare concrete and perforated bricks resonate very well to the Malaysian materiality. I think that concrete in itself has a huge potential to be recognized as Malaysian materiality, thanks to the pervasive usage in Malaysian construction in general. Well only if the Malaysian public can recognize the beauty of bare concrete.

This is a very interesting discussion on Malaysian architectural identity. I might post this on my blog, if any of you wants to object - please let me know.