NOW CONFERENCE – SEASON 1
1 JULY 2011 – 2 JULY 2011

The conference, previously known as DATUM:KL, remains the principal anchor event for the Festival, but shall from this year onwards be re-conceptualised as the NOW CONFERENCE. NOW implies an immediacy, a moment in the present to define new positions and potentials, an architectural status update! At a time when architecture seeks new directions and new beginnings, the debut conference will seek to examine and describe key trajectories of thinking and practice, and to underline the essential transformative aspects of architecture as a critical instrumentality to engage a continually changing world.

NOW CONFERENCE / SEASON 1 will feature a series of lectures by a selection of both established and emergent architects and designers with divergent range of approaches and interests from the region and internationally. In addition to introducing a new set of exceptional talent to the Datum community, this year we welcome back some of our original speakers who over the years has also risen in stature and profile alongside Datum. The new conference will also have a refreshed and updated format but will leave intact the things that have worked well.























SPEAKERS (in alphabetical order)
YB SENATOR DATO SRI’ IDRIS JALA PUTRAJAYA
ALFREDO BRILLEMBOURG CARACAS
PITUPONG CHAOWAKUL BANGKOK
FLORIAN IDENBURG & JING LIU NEW YORK/BEIJING
ZHANG LI BEIJING
LAURENCE LOH PENANG
JÜRGEN MAYER BERLIN
HIROSHI NAKAMURA TOKYO
OLE SCHEEREN HONG KONG/BEIJING
MARC SIMMONS NEW YORK
CAMERON SINCLAIR LONDON
ALAN TAY & SEETOH KUM LOON SINGAPORE


LAURENCE LOH PENANG
ARKITEK LLA www.lla.com.my
LECTURE TITLE: WIRED HERITAGE

Laurence received his architectural training at the Architectural Association in London. He has been practising since 1973 and started his own the architectural firm of Laurence Loh Akitek, later Arkitek LLA Sdn.Bhd.

In the area of conservation of cultural heritage, his expertise and contributions have been acknowledged locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. His projects have been the recipient of numerous awards for conservation.

Protecting, Conserving, Managing & Sustaining the Cultural Heritage of Malaysia and the region for present and future generations has been Laurence's core passion for the past 27 years. In the arena of profession, society and politics, he has consistently created best practice exemplars, led community action and education programmes, lectured and written papers to position heritage conservation as a critical activity for maintaining the spirit of place, the preservation of knowledge and the continuity of artistic expressions. Laurence views conservation as a dynamic process for creating change and for promoting cultural diversity and cultural rights as fundamental concepts that engender prerogatives of freedom and enlarge democratic space. He promotes the premise that investment in conservation promotes the concept of sustainability because it embodies the preservation and harbouring of human and natural resources. It minimises impacts on the environment because the emphasis is on maintenance, recycling and sharing of existing building resources in their natural and historic built settings, especially in the context of cultural landscapes.

Laurence actively promoted, through the local heritage trusts, the concept of listing the historic core of George Town as a World Heritage Site and was involved in UNESCO missions to mainstream the idea with government and community. In 1997, he arranged for the UNESCO Advisor for Culture in Bangkok, Mr. Richard Englehardt, to pay an official visit to Penang to speak about heritage matters with the State Government in order to promote the idea of listing George Town as a World Heritage Site. Eleven years later George Town was finally inscribed.

He has served as a director and subsequently as the Deputy-President of Badan Warisan Malaysia since 2000, where he has spearheaded numerous cultural and built heritage projects and built capacity by creating a subsidiary called Badan Warisan Heritage Services Sdn. Bhd. to offer technical advisory services to the public and to train in-house experts to serve in the field of conservation. Laurence also acts as a technical adviser to the Penang Heritage Trust and is now its Trustee.

Presently, he writes a monthly column on heritage for the Edge Financial Daily under the section called “Penang Pulse” He sees this as a vehicle to keep heritage matters and concerns alive by taking a position in the public arena. He sits on the editorial board of “Heritage Asia”, a regional magazine that serves as the literary flagship of Badan Warisan Malaysia. He is the author of the book ‘Suffolk House” which describes in intimate detail the conservation process undertaken for the only surviving Anglo-Indian Georgian Mansion in Malaysia.