UKM News Official Portal

By Abdul Ghani Nasir
Pixs Courtesy of FEBE

BANGI, 23 Nov. 2011 – Two futuristic architectural designs blending usage of the environment won a platinum, a gold and third prizes for two UKM architectural students in international competitions recently.

STRATA the name given to a community library designed by Lim Min Syn for Bandar Sri Putera, Bangi, is a building pictured as a multi-layered strata of information and visually seen as settling into its landform giving the impression of it being fused with the sky, trees and the land.



The futuristic design not only won Min Syn, a UKM architectural graduate of 2011, the Gold Award. It also won him the overall Platinum Award of the Nippon Paint Young Designer Award (NPYDA) 2011. The NPYDA 2011 was held in Kuala Lumpur last week.

He beat more than 500 Malaysian entries to win the Malaysian Gold award. Min Syn then had a close fight against the Gold award winner from Thailand to walk away with the regional Platinum Award as the Top Young Designer of the Year in the Architecture category.

Another graduate Leong Kim Leng won the third prize at the International Green Building Conference (IGBC) 2011 Tropical Architecture Design Competition in Singapore last month.



The inaugural IGBC competition is the first of its kind design competition for architecture students from institutes of higher learning (IHLs) in the Asia-Pacific region that focuses on tropical architecture and building design solutions.

For the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment (FEBE) UKM, the three awards were in addition to a Gold Award received by three of its other students - Chow Khoon Toong, Ong Tien Hyee and Beh Sii Cze –in the 2010 On-Line Skyscraper Design Competition.

The Coordinator for Architect Students who is also a Senior Fellow, NurAkmal Abdullah Goh said: “In this particular  competition in the United States we did not compete only with students but professional international architects.”



Nur Akmal’s encouragement and close supervision of her students also brought her recognition when she was awarded the NPYDA Gold Award for lecturers in architecture.

“My objective in encouraging my students to take part in national and international competitions is to increase their portfolio and give them an advantage during interviews since the awards would give them better chances of landing a job,” said NurAkmal.

However she pointed out appreciation should also be given to Dr Kamarul Afizi Kosman and Dr Nik Lukman Nik Ibrahim (Head Architecture Department) as Min Syn is their student in design.

She said Lim’s submission titled Strata is a community library architecture designed as a solution to the decreasing availability of land in cities and suburban areas for development.

Its earth-sheltered architecture allows the maximisation of space while maintaining public green lungs at ground level. A sunken courtyard is incorporated to reflect natural light into the building while greenery above and around the building lowers its thermal mass and reduce the need for mechanical cooling.

Running for the fourth consecutive year, the NPYDA themed “Eco design for better living”, was an opportunity for students to propose creative and innovative ideas that integrate sustainability into our evolving lifestyles, to promote environmental responsibility and improve the quality of life.

This year, the NPYDA received 707 submissions from Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. For Malaysia alone there were including 502 entries from aspiring interior designers and architects from 43 colleges and universities nationwide.

For Leong his Student Green Centre was designed to blend with the campus environment at UKM.

It was based on his final year architectural thesis and it took him a year to complete.

“I started with my research, idea, design, concept and the necessary technical aspects like electrical wiring, piping and water supply followed by making a model of the centre,” said Leong.

On the Evolo Competition, Nur Akmal said the project examines the possibility of creating a vertical prison in the sky where inmates will work and live in a community that will contribute to the host city below.

The prison will have agricultural fields, factories, and recyclable plants that will be operated by the inmates.

The vertical prison has its own transportation system which consists of different “pods” for officers, prisoners, firefighters, and other workers.