LECTURER : MISS SALVI

STUDENTS’ NAME STUDENT ID

LIM JIAN JUN 0316867

LOO MEI CHUEN 0316379

[ARC 1413] ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

PROJECT 2 : NATURE & US

GROUP ESSAY : GETTING BACK TO NATURE OR GETTING NATURE BACK? LOO MEI CHUEN 0316379 & LIM JIAN JUN 0316867 Malaysia being the „Asian tiger‟ in economies has progressed remarkably over the last few decades, having the sectors of industry, agriculture and tourism playing the leading roles in this progress. But now, despite a relatively positive environmental record, Malaysia now faces serious problems of deforestation, air pollution, water pollution and waste disposal. This varies types of pollutions and environmental issues began to arise ever since the existence of civilization. Rapid development of the country and increased growth of population ( without having clear awareness and taking consideration of the environmental issues, have further increase the impacts done to our environment. They are few reasons that cause these problems, mainly the ignorance and irresponsibility attitude of humans and human activities. Damages are done to our nature either consciously or subconsciously because we, human communities are selfish human beings, care only about the profit gains, are willing to sacrifice nature for extravagances and comfort.

We are part of the nature, not apart. We should start taking actions in preserving and protecting our nature. All living creatures including human, should coexist with each other in the Mother Nature in order to maintain the balance of the whole ecosystem. The concept of getting nature back is much more an ideal way to have nature walk side by side along with the countries development, living harmoniously together with the development and reclaiming what that are taken from the nature. The famous Architect Frank Llyod Wright‟s design principle: to have dwellings as part of the nature, is a good example and inspiration for the future generations.

Very often, people travel away from the hassle city with suffocating environment, visit and go back track to the nature, to relieve from all the stress caused by the unhealthy environment they are living in. Taman Negara, or more specifically the Mutiara Taman Negara Resort and Woodland Resort, were built to improve our country‟s ecotourism. Is constructing tourism structures in the middle of a forest for us to get back to nature the right way of doing it? It is undeniable we are able to appreciate and enjoy the forest, but every day we are dealing great damage to the nature and the ecosystem in the forest ever since the ecotourism in Taman Negara started. In the end, we have forced nature to adapt to us rather than us adapting to nature. Due to the ecotourism that are supported by the government and the human communities, development happens inevitably in these places. This development is bringing more new buildings and human traffics in and has subsequently results many environmental issues.

First and foremost, deforestation. It is caused mainly by land clearing, illegal loggings and by chopping down trees for the structures to be built on for example the Mutiara Taman Negara Resort. In every 30 second, an estimated 13 hectares of the world‟s forest are lost. Within a minute, humans are able to undo 1,000 years of natural evolution (WWF-Malaysia). These are sad and horrifying, yet true facts. Many years ago, Malaysia was covered with forest

Fig 1 Photograph of Woodland Resort taken by Loo Mei Chuen

mostly entirely. Now, forest only covers 60% of the land. According to the interactive forest map powered by Google, Malaysia had the highest forest loss rate between 2000 and 2012, 14.4% of its year 2000 forest coverage, which is 47,278km2 (Rhett A. Butler).

Deforestation is a main concern for many countries, including Malaysia, as our country is still a developing country and we can safely say that, the forest coverage percentage will only drop every year if we do not start taking actions now. We should not sacrifice natural forests as newly planted forests which are far less efficient in carbon storage and biodiversity than the original natural forest, can cause. Malaysia to suffer decreased natural capital base and they are net loss of the world. We should fully support WWF Malaysia‟s Forest for Live Programme which helps to increase protected forest coverage areas, maintain constant supply of sustainable timber by improving forest timber production management and restore the forest, in any way that we can.

The main causes of air pollution in Malaysia are industrial and vehicular emissions. Although public transportation is introduced, yet utilization rates are still very low in Malaysia. With Malaysia being ranked at 38th in vehicle ownership per capita, 378 Malaysians having vehicles out of every 1000 and 43th in CO2 emissions per capita, 7.7 metric tons of CO2 (World Bank) has further worsen the air quality of Malaysia. Furthermore nowadays, it is rather impossible for us to run away from consuming petrol due to the distances we want to travel. For example, the consumption of non-renewable energy required to arrive Taman Negara from Selangor, it covers 230km, which is about 20 liters of petrol per student. In the end, we have dealt double the damage to the environment, great petrol consumption before arriving Taman Negara and pollution inside at the Taman Negara.

Furthermore, Malaysia is also affected by haze events for duration of days or even up to weeks every year due to the periodic fires, which usually coincide with the el Niño (The Star Online) and the irresponsible and illegal use of fire in land clearing, burning thousands of hectares of forests in Malaysia and other countries. The haze originated from these events has harmful health effects on us, besides causing air pollution. Before we are choked from the air we have polluted by our hands, the world should focus more on bringing cleaner

energy for the demands, replacing the oil exploitation and charcoal extraction which damage the environment and is likely to inflame civil unrest. Renewable energy such as solar panels, wind and water turbines, and biogas should be encouraged to the community and many industries to help reducing the environment impact (SEDA Malaysia). Introduction and usage of bioclimatic

Fig 2 Forest loss in varies countries (2013)

Fig 3 Image of Klang Valley taken from The Star

architectures, vertical farming, and zero CO2 emission vehicles with green energy will together be able to achieve a better green index and healthier life especially in the developing cities.

Even if we are going to construct buildings inside of the forest or anywhere else, choosing the right building materials are important as they have different amount of embodied energy in them. Embodied energy comes in two forms, initial embodied energy and recurring embodied energy, where both of them we have to keep in mind to considerate upon choosing the right materials.

Materials with low embodied energy and should be used in the construction to prevent dealing more damages to the environment. These terms were not

applied into the building construction in Woodland Resort. The buildings are made majority using concrete and it is proven that concrete structure has one of the highest embodied energy of 2MJ/KG compared to other raw materials such as wood, which has lower embodied energy and are environmental friendlier (Chris Reardon by Australian Government).

The design of the building which are tightly enclosed room with low ceiling, further increase the demand of artificial ventilation. Bad ventilated designed building and low adaptability of human encouraged the use of air-conditioning, artificial lightings, and other non-environmental friendly products, has greatly increase generation of more GHG. The design of the building and the choices of the construction materials will ultimately cause different amount of operating energy in a building. As we can see from Fig.5, we can conclude that people are relying too much on air-conditioning, and this should be avoided as the emission of the use of it can cause ozone depletion and subsequently cancerous diseases.

Disruption of ecological life system caused by the human activities in the nature, and other types of pollutions that are cause by the humans‟ greed and laziness should be avoided at all cost, because that will disturb their resting, breeding and also their food chain, further endangering the species. During nightwalk of the forest, we can clearly observe that barely none of the animals and insects prefer to stick close to the human crowds. The loud noises we made and pollutions like garbage throwed had scared them away or even killed them. In the end,

this way of us getting back to nature has us damaging the ecological life system again.

With vast exploitation of lands for development, it can never bring back the original nature with rich biodiversity and its resources, losing the quality of soil and geographical benefits. These environmental issues have been a concern and we humans have been suffering from

Fig 4 Photograph of Woodland Resort taken by Loo Mei Chuen

Fig 5 Chart by CETDEM

it for many years. Us getting back to nature will only lead us to damage it again. Who is going to be responsible with all the lost and the changes in climate which brings disastrous catastrophes to the environment? What are the costs to fix all the damages done to the nature which cannot be undone, and the consequences are much often unpredictable? Us getting nature back will be the starting point of the whole nature recovering process.

Architecture is the key answer for the issues we are having right now. Its important role in regaining back the green, acts as a driver to bring the world to a greener future. Architecture revolves many industries, covering wide spectrum of specific areas to tackle the impact done to the nature, such as materiality, engineering, sustainable development, environmental management, constructions and much more. It is good there are green organizations to increase the awareness of the environment in Malaysia. Green projects and architectures led Malaysia development to a greener direction. Green modern architecture is now a new trend, and there will be more interesting green architectures to be built to replace the old way of building cold industrialized buildings, by then this can reduce the impact done to the environment.

With the direction of a greener future, designers have brought interesting influences and changes to improve the living quality of mankind. By using new technologies and green materials, designers and engineers are able to construct more environmental friendly shelters, spaces and public utility areas. Big inspiration from an honorable local architect Ken Yeang, his influence has brought the awareness of all generation toward environment to a new level. In Malaysia, there is not many green projects, but it is starting its baby steps to pioneer in changing concrete jungle into a harmonious community with existence of nature, which is the very first step in bringing nature back. With a green standard index to achieve in every city, the future of nations is bright and that mankind will no longer be living in despair and will be start living a healthy lifestyle.

Institution and organizations provoke awareness among to all generations to educate and bringing them close back to the nature again. With advanced technology influence, Medias and publicity applications are able raise awareness across the globe, uniting the people in the world to celebrate events that help to save the planet. Earth Hour is a wonderful example of one of the many events and governments should encourage such activities to be carried out in every corner of their nations. Increase the coverage area of protected natures such as forests and seas. Competition on different green ideas as contributions for the society is a great way to promote awareness and reminds all generation how important is the environment we are living in.

Being “green” means being aware of the responsibility implied in the construction and use of modern buildings with minimal impact to the environment, and there are many ways to express this rising consciousness. Eventually, the most exciting new creations in the world will be more environmentally aware, sustainable, and conceived to consume far less energy than ever before. This will greatly help in getting nature back to us while shaping a world where humans and other living organisms are able to live together peacefully in Mother Nature.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY by LIM JIAN JUN 0316867

The greatest foe of the beautiful nature is ironically but no doubt the most intelligent specie on Earth – Homosapiens. With built environment and human communities, human has demanding control over the nature and manipulate it with greed as they seen the nature as the beneficial source in terms of monetary values. The eyes of man will never content, but rather be ignorant about the damage done to the Mother Nature. The moment when we all realized it, it is most probably the time when the worst disastrous natural catastrophes kill life of millions in a swept. And only that time, it was all too late.

A trip to Taman Negara in Pahang and an opportunity to merge into the woods gives realization of how important is the nature in the working of balanced ecosystem. Nature encircles life elements with water, earth, woods, light and ores, together they play the essential yet intrinsic roles for plants to grow restlessly and for animals to live in as a habitat. By observing and having the real experience to immerse in the nature, it gives more than words to describe the learning values through sensations and experiences gained first handed.

It was a blessed to be able to witness the legendary, near to extinction mammal, the Tapir which used to be appeared on primary textbooks. Its huge body showed up just right in front of the crowds, with its small steps getting closer in a hand reachable distance. It was truly an unexplainable moment to see the little intimacy sparkles in between human and the nature. The scene was pretty much like, answering to a real nature call. How fascinating, is it not? Followed by the sight hunting trail for night glowing scorpions and snakes in the dark gave this spine-tingling excitement, like any chances of having them fall off from trees and onto our body or sneaks across our legs… The only thing I felt disappointed was, the trail ended too soon.

Figure 2 : Glowing Scorpion Hiding in Tree Bark

Photography by Lim Jian Jun

Figure 1: Tapir at the Resort

Photography by Lim Jian Jun

The morning air would never been this fresh and chilly compared to the one back in city. The morning dawn is always imperishably beautiful, celebrated with the rhythmic chirpings of birds and insects, echoed in the woods. It was indeed an anticipating way to kick start the second day. The guided tour with the knowledgeable ranger was a trip full of surprises and tips of survival in the woods. There were “magic” tricks turning an ordinary leaf into a mosquito rebellion liquids and antiseptics to accompany us along the journey into the deep forest. Standing tall on the canopy walks triumphed the fright of height, and brought us to a new level where breeze crossed through the cheek, trying to catch my attention to view out of the trees. The views were unquestionably breathtaking. The sky was so close and so blue, the green has never been this green to me. My soul was moved in that instant. Till then I hesitantly moved my steps to the end of this trail.

The peak of the day was the rapid shooting races along the strong streams, pushing our way to clasp to the nature‟s bosom, and into the shelter of the indigenous people in the forest. There was demonstration made by the villagers about their hunting as well as survival skills. It is observable that the villagers have impressive adaptability and strong bonds with the Mother Nature. But what hold us back was, the cold glance from the villagers with an unwelcoming vibe in the air. Sad but true that the visiting have made us the intruders and invade into their territory and interrupting their daily routines. All those were merely for the sake of goods trading from the outside in return, the villagers might have been living like this for quite sometimes and even became acquaintance for them.

Not just that, this incident led me to ponder about how human activities has brought disturbance to the tranquility of nature, bringing damages to preserved forest while getting back to the nature. The jungle walkway put an ease to the visitors during visiting, but meanwhile exploitation was inevitably required to construct the canopy and footpaths in the woods, cutting down trees and destroying the shelters for animals. Noise pollution brought by the crowds has broken the peace of the nature, disrupting animal activities. Rapid shooting was indeed fun, but despite of that the gasoline generated mechanism had released invisible chemical contaminated gases into the atmosphere. The existing structures such as the chalets and the resorts are each installed with green gases emitting air conditioners. And that made me question myself how environmental friendly it is a preserved forest can be with all these phenomena happening within?

This reminds me of the future development planning of a country as it will never stop and with just a blink of an eye, cold heavy dwellings are built everywhere, occupying the green patches with occurrence of heat island due to the high emission of green gases in the city. Would you imagine if the development keeps going on with so little solution taken to face the intensified catastrophes and environmental issues when time goes by? Now it is a doubt of having a good quality of life with such developments, not just affecting the plants, animals and the environment, mankind will be greatly influenced as well.

I personally think that all individuals should have be looking for a wiser development where civilization can still take place with minimal impact to the environment, same goes to how mankind can appreciate the nature without putting it at risk. This trip to Taman Negara has never fail to inspire me and even to challenge myself to make changes to the world, as one of the many to shape a better and a greener future.

Figure 3 : A Glimpse of Nature

Photography by Lim Jian Jun

REFLECTIVE ESSAY by LOO MEI CHUEN 0316379

(All photographs are taken by Loo Mei Chuen, except the very last photograph) I love the mountains, I love the clear blue skies, I love big bridges, I love when great whites fly, I love the whole world, and all its sights and sounds. Boom de yada, boom de yada, Boom de yada, boom de yada! I love the oceans, I love real dirty things, I love to go fast, I love Egyptian kings, I love the whole world, and all its craziness. Boom de yada, boom de yada , Boom de yada, boom de yada! I love tornadoes, I love arachnids, I love hot magma, I love the giant squids, I love the whole world, It‟s such a brilliant place. Boom de yada, boom de yada, Boom de yada, boom de yada!

This is the lyrics of the famous The World Is Just Awesome (Boom De Yada) by Discovery Channel. This song has been my all-time favourite despite it is a short 1 minute song, because it can describe how I feel about the earth.

In May, Taylor‟s organized a trip to Taman Negara and it is my second time travelling there in year 2014. I have always preferred natural sceneries over urban towns, a trip to Taman Negara again excites me as much as those that have not been there before. We urban kids, rarely have chance to travel and enjoy the nature, thus I‟m glad that Taylor‟s organized and encouraged us to go for this trip.

It was so hot there, but not long after that, it rained and the weather changed from clear sunny hot to foggy and chilling. It shows how can the nature change drastically and how it can affects our feeling and senses and also how human beings adapt to these climate changes. The mornings in Taman Negara is very refreshing and cold, yet I realized many of the hostels‟ air conditioners are still switched on.

The night jungle walk is amazing and watching the flora and fauna at night further intrigued me. We saw how insects and amphibians trying to hide themselves in the trees and we occasionally get the chance to get off the trails and see rare creatures like snakes. The nature has its own communities and ecological life system. Life and death should happen in balance in this forest naturally by its own. But chopping down trees to build the wooden trails for us to walk, flashing of our cameras and making loud noises inside the forest have disturbed their resting and breeding and caused impacts to the nature, and realized this night jungle walk is one of the causes of flora and fauna extinction.

Fictitious scenery after rain

Plantations being cut down for the trails to be built An amphibian resting on a branch

We went for the canopy walk the next day. While waiting in front of the registry office, one of the students did not wear appropriate shoes and had caused him to fall down. It is saddening to also see people were even smoking inside the forest. When walking the canopy bridge, I am surprised to see how tall trees can grow and how long they have been sustaining the forest. Seeing those carvings on tree trunks and thick nails on tree trunks that caused

opening wound for pests infection on the trees have showed me how ignorant and irresponsible humans are. Learning different types of woods are used to make different things shows how creative humans can be and how our ancestors survived in the past centuries. The Mother Earth has been taking care of us ever since human beings existed, thus we should appreciate and protect our nature, not taking nature for granted.

We are lucky to see the most famous animals like wild boars and tapir in Mutiara Taman Negara too. It is a different and special feeling to be as close to them here in Taman Negara than in the zoo. I was able to touch their backs and feel their furs. It was a rare opportunity and an amazing experience!

We had our lunch at the floating restaurant and it is a very rare and pleasing experience. We can feel the restaurant move slightly every now and then, it did not affects our appetite, but greatly enhance the nice experiences of it. I will always treasure the memory of having a meal on a floating restaurant. When I walked around the restaurant, I realized that the cleaning of wastage are not managed properly, dirty water are not disposed correctly. I have soon learnt that, some things, are just not as nice as the surface we see.

Clean water being distributed to restaurants through small pipes, but where does the dirty water goes?

Workers dispose contaminated water into the river after washing dishes

Carvings on tree trunks

Wild boar Tapir

The next we did was rapid shooting. We got ourselves wet and enjoy the small wars between the boats and it was indeed fun and exciting. We screamed quite loudly and I‟m not surprised if the animals in the forest were shocked by us. We arrived Orang Asli Village later on, I suddenly felt depressed because I felt like we were actually not welcomed to their village, which is understandable, I myself would not like others to look at my privacy too. I saw many advanced man made products are being simply disposed onto the ground, like plastic cups, plastic sheets and cigarettes. I learnt that they survived by trading goods which is beneficial to both sides, but we can see that with incorrect ways of wastage disposal, there will be impacts done to the environment.

Then we swam in a river. The water current flow was so strong that people were nearly washed away by it. One of my friend‟s eyeglasses was lost in the river while swimming too. Swimming in a river is not a risk-free activity, thus we have learnt to be more careful next time. In fact, the nature and natural disasters have been dealing collateral damages and taking lives away ever since living creatures are born.

That night was the last night staying at Taman Negara. Some of us were having diarrhea while others have enjoyed their fun night until midnight. Before hitting the hay, I had my time refreshing all the good memories and think about what future lies in front of us. It is true that we enjoyed our trip to Taman Negara and really immerse ourselves into the nature, but there are many pollutions and environmental issues happening there and some of that we don‟t even realize ourselves. We as part of the nature, should have been protecting and preserving our Mother Nature, but we are damaging it sometimes without realizing it. I am glad that I am studying architecture and am striving to become an architect and hope to make changes to our built environment. Everyone knows basic sustainable designs in architecture, using low embodied energy materials, building designs that suit the climates to lower the operational energy, increase the protected forest coverage area, well planned urban development that really takes in consideration of the damage that will be done to the earth, or at least basic knowledge like recycling materials and correct way of wastage disposal. The problem is not only how many ways we have damaged the earth, but why still damage the earth even knowing what will happen in the future?

Acts that prevent pollutions and impacts made to the nature should be implemented, not on the surface, but humans inner self such as greed and way of thinking should be changed too. What I saw and what I have learnt during the trip may not teach me the technical and practical way of protecting the earth, but I realize, understand and have felt the damages done and the causes of it, and we should all together put a stop to it.

References (group essay)

Motor vehicles (per 1,000 people and CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita). Retrived from The World Bank website: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.NVEH.P3?order=wbapi_data_value_2011+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?order=wbapi_data_value_2010+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc In-text reference: (World Bank) Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia. (2013, June 12). Retrieved from Malaysian Investment Development Authority website: http://www.mida.gov.my/env3/uploads/events/Sabah04122012/SEDA.pdf In-text reference: (SEDA Malaysia) WWF-Malaysia. Forests. Retrieved from WWF-Malaysia website: http://www.wwf.org.my/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests_main/ In-text reference: (WWF-Malaysia) WCPJ. Retrieved from Centre for Environment, Technology & Development, Malaysia website: http://cetdem.org.my/wordpress/?page_id=43 In-text reference: (CETDEM) HazeL Klang Valley air at unhealthy range and Is the Boy back? El Nino could appear this year. Retrieved from The Star Online website: http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/03/haze-port-klang-unhealthy-other-KL-areas-moderate/ http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2014/04/08/Is-the-Boy-back-El-Nino-could-appear-this-year/ In-text reference: (The Star Online) Malaysia has the world‟s highest deforestation rate, reveals Google forest map, Rhett A. Butler (November 15, 2013). Retrieved from Mongabay.com website: http://news.mongabay.com/2013/1115-worlds-highest-deforestation-rate.html In-text reference: (Rhett A. Butler) Your Home Embodied Energy, Chris Reardon (2013). Retrieved from Australian Government website: http://www.yourhome.gov.au/materials/embodied-energy In-text reference: (Chris Reardon by Australian Government)