Events

Singapore’s tropical equatorial context has enabled unique urban design approaches. This guest lecture invites everyone to understand how well-being in our city can be planned and designed for.

Around 15,000 Malaysian students from Johor Bahru spend close to a third of their day crossing the Causeway every morning to attend local public schools in Singapore and making the same commute back home at the end of the day. Yet so little is known about their border commutes, and this talk is an effort to make legible the temporalities and spatialities of their lives in motion.

As cities confront climate change, urbanisation, and environmental degradation, sustainable development is increasingly urgent. Landscape performance, which evaluates how outdoor spaces function socially, environmentally, and economically, offers a valuable framework for building resilient, equitable, and livable cities. Grounded in ecosystem services science, it enables planners, designers, and policymakers to make informed decisions based on measurable outcomes rather than aesthetics or tradition. This presentation examines three case studies from the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Case Study Investigation Program, where researchers, practitioners, users, and stakeholders assess long-term design impacts. Findings show how performance metrics inform planning—enhancing biodiversity, reducing runoff, and improving health and walkability—while also guiding integration into education and practice to promote environmental and community well-being.

Discussions on AI veer from comfort in its promises of abundance for all human lives, to discomfort that we will abandon all that makes us human. In this talk, we unpack this polarisation.

As Asia experiences rapid urbanization – home to over half of the world’s megacities and projected to account for 40% of global smart city investment by 2025 – governments and businesses are increasingly turning to smart city solutions to manage growth. These technologies offer opportunities to improve urban services but also raise important  concerns, including

This paper examines how people evaluate the creativity of AI-generated versus human-made artworks. Using commissioned works in three styles (charcoal animals, minimalist logos, and watercolor landscapes) researchers generated AI versions with Stable Diffusion. Participants rated each artwork’s creativity (0–10) and bid in auctions to assess monetary value. AI-generated landscapes were rated more creative and received higher bids. Creativity perceptions were influenced by detail, scene composition, and color use. Interestingly, visual errors did not reduce, and sometimes enhanced, creativity ratings. The study concludes that participants often preferred AI-generated art, particularly landscapes, due to their higher aesthetic appeal and creative presentation.

[PEB & SIP CPD points] With stable climates and global ecosystems in peril, Malthus’ proverbial predicament is as important as ever: How do we sustain a growing population within the carrying capacity of the Earth?

The Healthy City project bridges the disciplines of urban health and planning through a structured three-step framework: (1) Urban analytics to identify gaps and opportunities in the built environment; (2) Digital tools, such as behavioral nudging, to promote healthier commuting choices; and (3) Data-driven urban design to reimagine neighborhoods that support active lifestyles. Focused on quantifying health outcomes from Walk-Cycle-Ride (WCR) modes and access to amenities like parks and transit, the project prioritizes inclusivity and sustainability. Through a combination of location intelligence and behavioral strategies, The Healthy City aims to cultivate equitable communities that advance well-being, mobility, and overall urban livability.

This talk will identify trends in contemporary Muslim societies in Southeast Asia, focusing primarily on Indonesia and Malaysia. Drawing on two and a half decades of studying political Islam in the region, the talk will explore the prevailing schools of thought in the study of Islamism in the region and what scholars have identified as the “conservative turn” in Muslim socioreligious mobilization, examine these developments against larger transnational sources of Islamist activism, and discuss how and why these dynamics have resonated with and empowered political Islam in the region in the last four decades.

How can we make better decisions in climate-sensitive domains like health and urban design, when the data we rely on is noisy and uncertain?