Overview

Urban Conservation Planning in Southeast Asia seeks to enrich planners and architects in the region with additional methodologies, tools, and techniques to help their work. Partnering with Think City, we offer short, intensive, and practical courses from instructors who share their expertise related to the conservation of historic places.

Background

This undertaking developed from the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) project Built Heritage in Southeast Asia, and a 2005 assessment of the project’s work, which identified a need for professional training and guidance on dealing with rampant urban development in the region.

The vast Southeast Asia region faces formidable challenges to the conservation of its urban cultural heritage from population growth, intensifying tourism, economic and infrastructure development, and, in places, lack of institutional or legal frameworks to mitigate destruction of historic urban fabric.

Malaysia was specifically identified as needing regional conservation planning because of urbanization along the Straits of Malacca from Singapore to Penang. Also, in 2008, George Town (Penang) and Melaka were added to the World Heritage List, underscoring the need for effective conservation and management practices in the area.

Additionally, Malaysia enacted the National Physical Plan-2 in 2009, stating that the "multi-cultural and historical heritage of the country shall be conserved ... towns with special features shall be identified and development projects enhancing their special features shall be supported with appropriate infrastructure."

Response

In 2011, we developed a series of intensive, short courses for mid-career urban planners and architects in collaboration with Think City (a division of Khazanah Nasional) and Badan Warisan Malaysia. These courses, Urban Conservation Planning in Malaysia, were organized so their content could be adapted to the needs and uses of other countries in the region.

In 2017, we began to apply lessons learned from the experiences in Malaysia to a new series of urban conservation planning courses launched in September 2018 for participants from the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, to help regional urban conservation practices.

Page updated: May 2021