Past Events
22Mar2019

Failure in Urban Planning & Development Control

Penang Institute is proud to host “Failure in Urban Planning & Development Control” which is scheduled as follows:

Date: 22 March 2019, Friday
Time: 8:00pm – 9:30pm (registration starts at 7:30pm)
Venue: Conference Hall, Penang Institute

Background to the Talk

According to the Deputy Director of the Human Development Report Office, UNDP, cities have been the main centres of learning, culture and innovation, therefore it is not surprising that the world’s most urban countries tend to be the richest and have the highest human development. However, rapid urbanisation is like a double-edged sword when urban planning and development control was done in a reactive manner. A comprehensive and balanced spatial planning, as well as a full review of development control, is deemed necessary to ensure that the urbanisation is benefiting the cities with the technology and effective spatial utilisation. Unfortunately, failure in urban planning and development control is prevalent in many cities and countries. The speaker will be sharing some consequences of failure in urban planning and development control from a global and local perspective.

About the Speaker

Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat has had an active career as an Architect and Urban Designer in the firms he founded: Malayan Architects Co-partnership and Architects Team 3/ Jurubena Bertiga.
He was born in Penang, studied at the Penang Free School, obtaining professional degrees from the University of Manchester (B.A. Hons Arch, first class) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.Arch.); he won several awards including the Heywood Medal, Rome Scholarship Finalist and the Commonwealth Fund (now Harkness) Fellowship. He helped to establish the first school of Architecture in Singapore and was President of the Singapore Institute of Architects, also serving on several public boards including the Singapore Housing & Development Board, the Lands Appeals Board, and the UN Panel for State & City Planning, and in Malaysia: the National Art Gallery, Penang Museum and other public committees, including the Botanic Gardens. He has also served as President of the Penang Ratepayers Association, and was the founder Chairman of the Penang Heritage Trust. He was also the founder Chairman of ARCASIA (Architects Regional Council Asia), and Chairman of the Commonwealth Association of Architects Board of Education. In 1995, he was appointed as a Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester, and also as Quatercentenary Visiting Fellow to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 1997, he was conferred an LL.D. (honoris causa) from the University of Manchester, and the prestigious Gold Medal of the PAM. (Malaysian Institute of Architects). In 2015 he was conferred the SIA Gold Medal.
He was involved in the planning work of CAPU for central Georgetown, and in the design and implementation of Komtar as director of the Development Consortium.

He maintains an active interest in Architecture and Environmental Design, Art, Anthropology Botany, Music and also in the work of his great friend Richard Buckminster Fuller. He has served as the Chairman of the Malaysian Forestry Research & Development Board (FRIM) in 2001-2004, and has taken part and contributed to the findings of many expeditions by the Forestry Department and by the Academy Sciences Malaysia (to Maliau and Lanjak-Entimau). He is the publisher/editor of the botanical journal Folia malaysiana, and has established the Suriana Botanic Conservation Gardens at Balik Pulau (and at Bellevue on Penang Hill), which feature rare collections of native palms, gingers and other Zingiberales. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

Note: In June 2010, the speaker had presented a related talk at Penang Institute: “Critical Issues in the Planning Process: with special reference to Penang”.