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infrastructure development, etc.,’ lamented Yeang. What we will be
bequeathing to future generations is a world that is polluted with
enormous constructed artefacts that are estranged from nature.
“We have to build in harmony with nature, not simply to retard
the present rate of environmental impairment, but to eliminate
it entirely”, to bring nature back into the built environment. Ecoarchitecture is designing in such a way that the human-built
environment or our design system “integrates benignly and seamlessly
with the natural environment.” It is about designing human-made
artefacts in the context of site characteristics (location), its ecological
features and integrating at three levels, namely, physically, systemically
and temporally:
s Physical integration - of the location, its topography, ground
water, hydrology, vegetation and the different species on the site.
s Systemic integration - of human “processes”, i.e., use of water,
energy, waste, sewers, etc., and nature, to ensure no pollution and
no waste.
s Temporal integration - of the rate of use of resources and
replenishment thereof.
To this end, Yeang advocates that the platform for green design
or eco-designing is the integration of four basic components or ecoinfrastructures (colour-coded in parenthesis):
s Eco-technology/Engineering
(grey), “which
we
need
(indispensable) to maintain our standard of living”, encompassing
concerns and issues in energy system, clean technology, renewable
energy, smart grid/IT network, transportation systems, waste
management systems, carbon neutral, recycling;
s Water Management (blue), “what life is all about”, i.e., rainwater
harvesting, “closing the loop”, grey and black water re-use,
acquifier recharge, sustainable drainage, constructed wetlands and
wastewater treatment;
s Nature’s Utilities (green), “what you cannot see but it’s there”,
opportunities and options in resource conservation, ecological
corridors, reconnecting nature, rehabilitation, habitat creation,
biodiversity;
s Human Behavioural patterns (red), “laws have to change because
we cannot live the way we have been doing for the last 100 to 200
years”, with the focus on lifestyles, activities, economic systems,
industries zero impact, regulations/legislations, mobility/
transport concepts, penalties/incentives, materials/enclosures,
products/food.
With any of the four components/infrastructures as a starting
point, green design, the Yeang approach, when looking at a site, is
to look at latitude, “where we are at” and its diversity, two factors to
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28 Building & Investment | www.b-i.biz

THIS PAGE:
Dato’ Dr Ar Ken Yeang psoing with students and attendees after his
presentation.
OPPOSITE PAGE CLOCKWISE (from top right):
Ar Sonny Chan of CSYA Pte Ltd, Ar Lim Take Bane, Principal of Arkitek
Shilpa and Ar Chris Wong, Director of C’ arch; (From right to left)
Dr Judin, Dr Yahaya Ahmad, Dean, Faculty of Built Environment,
University of Malaya (UM), Ar Hijjas Kasturi of Hijjas Kasturi Associates
Sdn Bhd and Professor Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud, Deputy
Vice-Chancellor (Academic & International), UM; (From right to left)
Professor Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud, Ar Tan Pei Ing and Dr
Judin; Dato’ Dr Ar Ken Yeang give speech to audience.

consider before start of design - different regions of the earth have
different ecology, being more intense in tropics than higher or lower
latitudes. For example, in a master plan project in India, next to a
forest reserve, ‘the first thing we did was to create a spine between
the development and the reserve and collect all the species to stretch
across the site. Then we laid the other infrastructures, the red, the grey
and the blue - “closing the loop” in water management where grey
water and black water is recycled with construction of wetlands.’
Citing projects successfully undertaken at home (DiGi Technology
Operations Centre) and abroad (Solaris Singapore and SOMA
Masterplan India), Yeang illustrated examples of eco-structures, i.e.:
s ECO
BRIDGES TO LINK WHEREVERWHENEVER NATURE IS DISCONNECTED
e.g., the green infrastructure ‘bifurcated by roads and highways
– vegetating bridges so that the species can move from one
disparate piece of land to the other and becomes one single
habitat, integrating the four eco-infrastructures into the single
whole.
s VERTICAL URBANISM OR URBAN DESIGN OF hPARKS
IN
THE
SKYv WITH
ecologically-linked vegetated pedestrian walkways/ramps
weaving up from ground level to sky gardens and winding do