JBCityEX Architectural Forum & Exhibition 2016

In conjunction with the 13th JB Art Festival 2016, Architect Society of UTM has organized JBCityEX Architectural Forum & Exhibition 2016 - an exhibition forum which focused on urban design in Johor Bahru City Centre. Architech UTM (acronym from Architectural Association of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia), an association which comprises the architecture student from UTM will never succeed in organizing this event without the very amazing funding aid from Thinkcity’s as the celebrated niche placemaking consulting firm under Khazanah Malaysia Berhad.

“Issues turned Inspirations”. Firstly, lack of public exhibition exposures among students were identified as the student was not given enough insight of the social stage limelight. This was led to such a gloomy adjustment towards achieving main objectives especially in achieving fruitful portfolio review feedback at school. Inadequacy in students’ self-esteem and interpersonal values were exactly the prolonging case in current school. Most of students were not adequately feeling confident in public engagement. However, to be a Responsible Architect, public engagement is a compulsorily element to seek precise and comprehensive urban solution. Next, students of UTM seems not integrated with central social fabrics of Johor Bahru City. Despite of its long history of establishment, students of UTM has not provided a tangible social platform at the alignment of research interests between various group of individuals. This specific program rather it is mainly a student-initiated movement, performed beyond university level or by those who hold the initiative to unite the students and seek solutions to social problems beyond campus. At the end, the inspiration behind this event was observed and the development progress of self-expression through public participation in design were recorded through few snapshots and reciprocal discussion.

Originally, it was initiated at some point by Amirul Hakim along with his close acquaintances; Shu Ern, Raynaldi and Hidayat, and was supported by Dr. Sharifah and Mr. Azari respectively from Faculty of Built Environment & Survey UTM . There were other significant individuals, whose participation were able to draw in more collaborative partaker through social chain reaction, namely Jheeson, Li Hui, Daniel, Sara, Qamarul and Munirah. Not to forget, Fong Shelhiel the very first person to received event curator nomination from JB Art Festival Director, Suzy Yap.

Amirul was programmed as main curator, project initiator, and project director of the event. Next Shu Ern was performed as the main model maker, art director and graphic artist. Raynaldi was acted as main leader for the master of ceremony, coordinator and director for the forum, while Hidayat was in charged as assistant director and technical guy, who was also responsible for providing constructional and technical support for the event.

As per short tentative description, Johor Bahru Urban Sharing Session was conducted during the first opening day with vanue and coffee sponsored by Ali Café, Jalan Dhoby. On weekend, Mr. Stephen Niu and his JB bicycle group attended for informal dinner session with Authority with JBcityEX 2016 exhibition as their guidance. Dato’ Ismail, CEO of IRDA representing the mayor of JB visited the very last day of the exhibition and shared his wonderful insight thoughts of future city plan. Much appreciated to Mdm Faeza and Mr Daniel Lim from Thinkcity Johor Bahru to support the program too.

The main outcome of the event was apparent, which is the substantial need for informative urban design forum to enlighten public and coax in social planning engagement. Moreover, the two-way reciprocal communication that occurred was able to boost the students’ creativity through exploration of various social solutions.

#pocketsociety #pocketneststudio #archisteem #jbcityex

Amazing Contributor cum Organizers:
Chu Shu Ern, Lee Li Hui, Xin Lei Lim, Yap Ting Sing, Ying Wei Chin, Suzy Lee, Raynaldi Tamzil, Koh Jheeson, Sarawayai, Qamarul Shafeq, Noor Hidayat, Sai Fong, Daniel Kan, Haziq Sendra, Aiman B, Saiful, Ashriel.

References:
Picture credit to: https://www.facebook.com/qiuchungho
Social Collective: https://steemit.com/social/@amirulhakimjamil/my-peer-s-review-and-social-art-validation-post-to-shuern-and-dayat
The Iskandarian Press Issue 51 by Hakim Malik: https://issuu.com/waveslifestyle/docs/issue_51_the_iskandarian_nov_2016_w

The event was also viewed as an urgency to advertise the 2017 National Architecture Student Workshop in the next following year.

Co-Authors: Azizah Daud & Amirul Hakim