Tan Loke Mun

Biography

Born and raised in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, Tan Loke Mun obtained his architectural training from Deakin University, Australia in the 1980s and later received his doctorate from The University of Melbourne, Australia. His doctoral studies was in social and self-help housing and he has worked in many urban and rural parts of Australia, Uruguay and Argentina.

His interests are wide and varied just as are the commissions that his studio has undertaken. From home renovations and interior designs, green houses to new shopping retail malls, convention centres, corporate offices and master-planning of neighbourhoods, cities and townships. He founded ArchiCentre in 1994 and it has grown to become an innovator and design leader in architecture. Tan Loke Mun continues to be the key driving force for the practice that now has offices and projects around the South East Asia region.

He is a past president of the Malaysian Institute of Architects 2005-2007 (PAM), team leader who set up Green Building Index Malaysia (GBI), past chairman of the LAM-PAM Green Building and Sustainability Committee, past member of the GBI Accreditation Panel (GBIAP) and also a member of the Board of Architects Malaysia.

The S11 House is Malaysia’s first Green Building Index Platinum rated work for domestic architecture. It won the Tropical Building Category of the Asean Energy Awards in 2013, the Futurarc Green Leadership Award 2012, Gold medal in the Edge-PAM Green Home Award 2011, Gold Medal for the PAM-Edge Residential Award 2011, Winner of PAM Architectural Steel Colourbond Award 2011, Gold winner for Residential and Sustainable Categories of Asia Pacific Design Excellence Awards 2011 and Finalist for World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards 2012. The S11 House while not the firm's largest project, it has been one of the firm's biggest ideological successes.

Dr Tan’s works are widely published and he has received numerous Architectural Awards for his works. He lectures widely on Architecture and Design, and is Adjunct Professor at University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, and also industry advisor to Taylors University and Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

Life and career

Dr. Tan Loke Mun, is the founding Director of ArchiCentre Sdn. Bhd. The practice was formed in 1994 and has grown to become an innovator and design leader in the field of architecture. Loke Mun continues to be the key driving force for the practice that now has offices and projects around the region.

Zeitgeist and Social crafting

His interests are wide and varied just as the commissions that ArchiCentre has undertaken are equally diverse. From small alterations and additions, green houses through to new shopping retail malls, convention centres, corporate offices through to master-planning neighbourhoods, cities and townships. Whilst ArchiCentre’s works are often said to be clearly recognisable, there is no clear distinctive style of expression or materialist. There is however a common thread of contextualisation, social crafting and craftsmanship in their works. The patterns of their early works were sometimes derivatives of time tested typologies often imploded or expanded for new modern day uses. A common thread throughout their work is the search for innovative expressions to enhance the sanctity of the golden rules of regionalism, climate and culture. The practice seems to be driven by an almost unquenchable quest for modernity and innovative solutions for age-old needs.

The art of building

The School of Architecture at Deakin University in the 1980s was the training and feeding ground for an architecture that was buildable yet socially and environmentally responsible. A turning point came through the appreciation of the values of modern architecture that reinforced the notion that great innovations and ideas are closely related to the abilities and technologies of the age. With this enlightenment the last two years in Deakin were characterised by design adventures that stretched beyond size, scale and location. Professor Nick Beattie who later became the head of school supervised his final dissertation. The thesis “The Princess Gate Transport Museum” won him the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Prize and also the RAIA Arthur Collins Award in 1987. His first project as a designer upon graduation was in collaboration with the populist Gee long permaculture cooperative architect and activist Peter Lockyer on a city hotel for a Vietnamese restaurant owner client. They worked together in Lockyer’s home office in the centre of Gee long City. Lunch was simply plucked from Lockyer’s garden and lightly tossed over the stove. Lockyer was a living testimony to his advocacy that permaculture was the way communities could prosper whilst living in harmony with the earth.

To do for one-self what one is able

Armed with some level of skill coupled with an insane desire to pursue a more excellent built future Loke Mun pursued post graduate architectural studies in Melbourne University’s School of Architecture and Building. There under the tutelage of Professor Allan Rodger and economist- planner Dennis Ingemann from the Victoria Ministry of Housing and Construction, he developed and launched the Group Self Build Housing scheme for low income families seeking home ownership. His dissertation work involved setting up a new Government enabling scheme that was based on people participation in design and construction transforming into sweat equity value. In the course of the research, he worked with John F.C and Bertha Turner who were the foremost proponents of self-help enabling strategies for housing. This involvement in social housing left an indelible mark as to the basic need for shelter and the importance to do for one-self what one is able to do. Whilst developing the new program Loke Mun worked first as a consultant and then later as the Team Leader at the Ministry of Housing and Construction’s Special Housing Branch. During the same time he obtained his professional Architects registration and also obtained his Builder’s License. The framework of the new housing program was also exported through technology transfer to Uruguay in the early 1990s. The development of Group Self Build Housing in Victoria earned him his doctorate in Architecture in 1992. Professor Rodger continues to be a strong ally and adviser on sustainability and green building and they teamed up again in 2008/09 to develop the Green Building Index (GBI) for Malaysia.

Maverick forever

Upon returning to Malaysia in early 1992 Loke Mun worked in BEP Akitek under the late Dato’ Kington Loo. Ever the maverick, Dr Tan left BEP Akitek to heed the call to move on and find his own architectural expressions. ArchiCentre Sdn. Bhd was founded in 1994 by Ar Dr Tan Loke Mun and Ar Lim Wei Hong. Loke Mun’s architecture embraces and interprets regionalism in a modern social context. In a rapidly changing world landscape, he believes that well designed buildings and spaces can create value for all its users. As such he seeks to find the balance between modern standardisation and the subliminally crafted detail that can create the requisite emotional experience for his projects.

Mod-Trop and more

The early experiences with self-help housing and social architecture is evident in the strong emphasis on buildability, economic realism and craftsmanship. There is no specific evident style or formulaic solution. Each commission is site and brief dependent. He has worked comfortably with the whole plethora of materials and systems. Buildability and simplicity is achieved through a good grasp of materials and available technologies. Issues of climate and locality are addressed through a keen desire to work with the land rather than to go against the laws of nature. The modernisation of tried and tested typologies led to the Mod-Trop (Modern Tropical) period in his works. A successful example of this is the exclusive and highly regarded Duta Tropika (2005) housing development in the outskirt of Kuala Lumpur. Here he took the tropical resort villa typology and translated it into modern terrace homes. A wider 26 feet frontage was used to “open up a host of planning opportunities” and the villa master bedroom with outdoor bathroom on an entire floor helped define the garden resort feel of the homes. The Mod-Trop period culminated and is most evident in SetiaHills (2008) where the villa or pavilion concept with accompanying pool was translated into a housing development set on a hillock. Setia Hills would form the apex of his experimentation into the Mod-Trop approach and he has not returned to this period of works again. Sizes of projects grew in tandem with growth in the size of the practice. Master planning became an integral part of his interests as he began to work on eco cities (SetiaCity, KL EcoCity, Aeropod) and eco townships (Ecolakes HCMC, Hanoi Parkcity) both in Malaysia and abroad. A fundamental key to his master planning concepts were the need to create sustainable and sufficient neighbourhoods, towns and cities. The key was to find the “sweet spot” when the three key elements of building a great environment, coupled with bringing a community to live and work there and support the businesses to prosper the place. Added to these are the importance of nodes, landmarks, paths, linkages and edges.

Building a strong green foundation

In 2008/09 Loke Mun lead the team of professional and academic volunteers under the Pertubuhan Arkitek to set up Malaysia’s own green building rating tool known as the GreenBuildingIndex or GBI. The rating tool was officially launched on 21 May 2009 and has since then changed the way cities and buildings are designed and constructed. It raised the awareness that we could no longer take the world and its resources for granted. Architecture and building had to change. Loke Mun’s leadership in the development of GBI was in some sense the culmination of his belief that something drastic had to be done for the environment and the rating tool would provide the template and recipe to guide would-be developers and builders and end-users to do the right thing. When asked if the “green” movement would be just another fad or style, his response would be that it is the “right thing to do”. An underlying DNA thread through his architecture is the constant drive to innovate and experiment with the available technologies to make his buildings sustainable and stand the test of time. This can be seen in the “radiator sunscreen” that was applied to encapsulate his office in Subang Jaya (AC55) and again in his studio gallery at No.19. Increasingly his buildings have become akin to “machines for living in” as they are now required to provide more than shelter. The multi award-winning S11 House achieved GBI Platinum certification and is a testament to the opportunities available to build green. This has since been replicated in the S14 House and other commissions of private homes. The constant experiments done on these private homes eventually find their way into the larger consumer and mass market projects that the office undertakes. This has been his process of taking a theory and testing it on a lab project (usually a house) and then finding a larger mass market application for the idea.

An underlying DNA thread through his architecture is the constant drive to innovate and experiment with the available technologies to make his buildings sustainable and stand the test of time. This can be seen in the “radiator sunscreen” that was applied to encapsulate his office in Subang Jaya (AC55) and again in his studio gallery at No.19. Increasingly his buildings have become akin to “machines for living in” as they are now required to provide more than shelter. The multi award-winning S11 House achieved GBI Platinum certification and is a testament to the opportunities available to build green. This has since been replicated in the S14 House, 23 Terrace, D8 House, Fabric House, Clay Roof House and other commissions of private homes. The constant experiments done on these private homes eventually find their way into the larger consumer and mass market projects that the office undertakes. This has been his process of taking a theory and testing it on a lab project (usually a house) and then finding a larger mass market application for the idea.

Social service and making a difference

Loke Mun has been an active member and contributor to the Malaysian architectural profession from his early days. The late Dato’ Kington Loo invited him to serve on several working committees of the Institute and this expanded to more and more areas through the years. He contributed particularly in the area of architectural education, information technology, heritage and conservation, awards and competitions. He was also the key person who introduced the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program for the profession making it the first mandatory CPD program to be implemented in the Asian region. He was also editor of the regional ARCASIA journal Architecture Asia for several years. Service to the profession culminated with the Presidency of the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) from 2005 – 2007. During that time he put together and launched the highly successful PAM Convention that brought ARCHIDEX and DATUM together.

Major Contributions to Architecture

^1. 1987-92 Developed the Group Self Build Housing program for the State Government of Victoria, Australia as part of my PhD at Melbourne University. The housing program enables low income families caught in the deposit gap to utilise their own skills and time (sweat equity) to contribute towards building their own homes. The program, training and financing model was designed, implemented and launched in 1989 and continues to operate today. It is the only remaining new build public housing program that is still offered by the State Govt of Victoria, Australia. See http://www.housing.vic.gov.au/home-owners- assistance/group-self- build.

^2. 1991-92 worked in Uruguay and Argentina on Self Help Housing projects as part of the Victorian-Mercosur technology transfer for Group Self Build.

^3. 1992-93 Returned to Malaysia and worked in BEP Akitek under the late Dato’ Kington Loo

^4. 1994 Started ArchiCentre Sdn. Bhd. and continues to be the Design Director for most of the projects that the company undertakes. The firm has won numerous architectural awards (and stands as the most awarded architectural practice in Malaysia) . Significant building projects - The Wave (Bali, Indonesia), Armanee Condos, Armanee Terrace 1 and 2, Duta Tropika, Setia Hills, Eco Tower, Canopy Clubhouse, MKN Motorsports, Flora Murni Condos, Matahari Commercial, PJX, the Carat Club, Setia Corporate HQ, SetiaCity Convention Centre, SetiaCity Mall, Saujana Soho, 55 AC Office, SS3 Courtyard and Roof House, Sec 7 Courtyard House, Leong House, No 9 Pavilion House, Chang House, Sec 12 House, S11 House, Sunway Rahman Putra Significant Master planning works - Ecolakes @ My Phuoc (Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam), Hanoi Parkcity (Hanoi), Saigon Ecocity, Duta Tropika, Setia Hills, Setia City Shah Alam, Setia Ecocity (Johor), Setia Ecocity V1 (Hukum Abdullah, KL), Duta Villas, Duta Grande, Aeropod Kota Kinabalu Transport Hub.

^5. 1998-2000 Developed and introduced the Continuing Professional Development program (CPD) through PAM and later made mandatory through the Board of Architects, LAM. Malaysia becomes the first Asian country to implement mandatory 10 CPD points for the annual renewal of professional registration.

^6. 2005-2007 President of PAM. Developed and launched the PAM Convention comprising ARCHIDEX Exhibition, KL Design Forum and DATUM. ARCHIDEX is now Malaysia's premier architectural and interior exhibition with some 30,000 visitors (2010). DATUM has grown tremendously and is recognised as the most successful International Design Conference in the region showing the works of emerging and upcoming architects with some 2500 participants in 2010.

^7. 2007 Developed and launched Architect Centre, a joint venture with RAIA’s Archicentre Pty. Ltd. to provide building inspection services for the Malaysian building industry.

^8. 2008-2010 - Led the PAM team that developed the Green Building Index (GBI) for Malaysia. GBI is recognised as Malaysia's green building rating tool and is specifically designed for the tropics. Continuing to work with Government to offer incentives to promote green building and also preparation of legislation for a better living environment. Achieved the first GBI Platinum (Design Assessment) house in Malaysia. In the first year, there are more than 100 projects that have applied for GBI certification in Malaysia.

^9. Continuing to do NGO and Church work to help poor people and Orang Asli to build their own homes and buildings through the techniques and processes that were developed in my early days in self-help housing. Strong believer in the need to “enable” people with the aim to help people “do what they can do for themselves”

Professional Qualifications and Affiliations

B.A (Arch), B Arch (Hons), PhD (Melb), APAM, RAIA (Hon. Member), ASA (Hon. Member), MIID, MMIArbs

Director, ArchiCentre Sdn. Bhd, DTLM Design Group Sdn. Bhd.

Principal, DrTanLM Architect

Past President, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) 2005/2007

Board Member, Board of Architects Malaysia (LAM)

Board Member, Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM)

Adjunct Professor, Department of Building Management, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Industry Advisory Panel, Taylors University

Industry Expert Advisory Panel (IEAP), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College

Fellow Member, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM)

Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University Putra Malaysia (2010 - 2014)

Board Member, Green Building Index Accreditation Panel (2009 - 2014)

Council Member of Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (1997 - 2011)

President, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (2005 - 2007)

Immediate Past President, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (2007 - 2009)

Deputy President, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (2004 - 2005)

Vice-President, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (2003 - 2004)

Hon. Secretary, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (2001 - 2003)

Board Member of Lembaga Arkitek Malaysia (LAM) (2003 - current)

Disciplinary Committee Member, Lembaga Arkitek Malaysia (LAM) (2005 - current)

Member, Council of Architectural Education Malaysia (CAEM) (1999 - 2001, 2003 - 2004)

Committee Chairman, Continuing Professional Development (CPD - LAM) (2003 - 2007)

Hon. Secretary, Architects Regional Council of Asia (ARCASIA) (1998 - 2000)

Council Member, Malaysian Institute of Arbitrators (MiArbs) (1998 - 2004)

Hon. Treasurer, (MiArbs) (2000 - 2004)

Disciplinary Committee Member, BAR Council (2008 - current)

Council Member, Malaysian Institute of Interior Designers (IPDM) (2005 - 2010)

Hon. Treasurer, Malaysian Institute of Interior Designers (IPDM) (2006 - 2008)

Chairman, LAM PAM Sustainability Committee (2009 - 2011)

Board Member, Malaysian Green Building Confederation, MGBC (2010 - 2011)

Honorary Member, Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) (2006-)

Honorary Member, Association of Siamese Architects (ASA) (2009-)

Asia Pacific Representative of the World Green Building Council (WGBC) (2009 - 2012)

Board Member, Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) (2013/2014) (2014 - 2016)

Planning Advisory Board Member to the Minister of Federal Territories, Malaysia

Fellow Member, Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM) (2015 - current)

Exhibitions

2010, Aug – Nov, The Green Tower – Remixed, Venice Biennale Architettura 2010, Venice, Italy

2012, Aug – Oct, PAX2012, Putra Architectural Exhibition, Galeri Serdang, University Putra Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

2012, Aug – Nov, Air Craft – Malaysian Voices, Venice Biennale Architettura 2012, Common Ground, Venice, Italy

2013, March, Air Craft – Malaysian Voices, Venice Biennale 2013 Malaysia Pavilion, University Putra Malaysia

2013, 26–28 April, Architecture For All, Werdhapura Village, Sanur-Bali, Indonesia

2013, 19–22 June, KLAF 2013 – PAM Model Exhibition “Ineffable Space”, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia

2013, 22–27 October, [KIA] 100 Architects of the Year 2013, Dongdaemun History and Culture Park, Seoul, Korea

2014, 1–4 May, PAM-HOMEDEC Awards for Residential Renovation, Gold Recipient, ArchiCentre Sdn Bhd - A Solo

Exhibition, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2014, 1–4 May, Exhibition Preview of Sufficiency – 14 th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2014 -

Malaysia Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2014, June – Nov, The T-Colony – Sufficiency, Venice Biennale Architettura 2014, Venice, Italy

2015, January, The T-Colony – Sufficiency, VB2014 Returning Exhibition at Taylors University Gallery, Petaling Jaya

2015, 12–15 August, KLAF 2015 – PAM Model Exhibition “Eccentric Spaces Or Details” at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2015, 21-25 Oct, [KIA] 100 Architects of the Year 2015, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul, Korea

2016, 25–30 July, KLAF 2016 – PAM Architectural Exhibition “ Future Communities” at PAM Center, Jalan Tanduk, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (in conjunction with KLAF 2016 and soft launch of new PAM Center Jln Tandok)