OPEN IDEAS COMPETITION (OIC) 2022 - Prize Award Ceremony

Once again MSSA and CIDB have taken the joint initiative to run the Open Ideas Competition (OIC) after taking 2 years break due to Covid-19 outbreak. The competition is  to showcase students from civil engineering and architecture fields in a building design that practicing steel as the main structural and finishing material. In reality, building design would necessitate both the structure engineer and the architect to an understanding that in constructing a building of equal measures of sturdiness and aesthetic appeal would necessitate their concerted joint collaboration. From this point of view, this Competition presents an opportune occasion in providing these students with the opportunity to collaborate in a building design and bridge the gap that should achieve the goal of modernization with regards to sustainability, construct-ability and functionality.

This MSSA Open Ides Competition 2022 themed “Designing Future Society for Our Lives” was captured by the World Expo 2025 at Osaka as the backdrop, to sees nations of the world exhibit the product, culture, identity and branding and could represent themselves into the world. This competition is to design the Malaysia World Expo that are mountable and dismountable buildings are meant to be structures on the site or be dismounted to be relocated at different venue that could be suitable at Osaka Japan.

This meant that contestants needed to focus on the pavilion Malaysia World Expo criteria which are to be a large scale complex buildings that manage to provide various functions and activities to promote Malaysian products, culture, lifestyle, aspirations, contributions and uniqueness of the country. The pavilion need to be reflected the effects of the global climate changes in adopting zero energy or near zero energy building design approaches, climate adaptive building, the use of resilient and smart structures and materials and other sustainable approaches. The students also need to prepare an area of approximately 3000m2 not including the external areas of the site that must be includes welcoming access and lobby areas, product exhibition, cultural and performance areas, showcases, visitor and participation areas, retail and dining experience area and appropriate areas for delivery, toilets preparation and building services area.

The Competition comprised of three stages:

For Stage 1, each participating university would hold its own in-house judges to shortlist a maximum of five groups to be forwarded to Stage 2. All participating groups need to prepare a A3 size project report that consist of architectural and structural proposal, scale drawings of plans, 3D modelling buildings, implementation of green building strategies, conceptual analysis of entire structure and summary of the design. All in all, 8 universities, 30 groups registered and 19 submission of participation in the competition.

At Stage 2: the Semi-Final, the shortlisted groups by each universities would submit to the OIC-2022 Secretariat a preliminary report on the design proposal and structural system, and five A1-sized portrait presentation boards. The ten finalist teams selected would subsequently each receive a RM 1,000.00 grant to refine and improve on their submissions, as well as to build a scaled physical model of their design. The universities managed to be ten finalist are International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). 

For the Final Stage 3, each team would conduct a 20 minute verbal presentation before the panel of judges to present the finalised report of their design proposal, the refined presentation on five A1-sized portrait boards, an animated multimedia presentation, as well as a scaled model of the Malaysian World Expo. In concluding their presentation, each team would submit to the judges their finalised report on CD, the animated multimedia presentation, the five A1-sized portrait presentation boards, digital photographs of the model at various angles, and at least ten digital photographs of the team at work on the project.

Stage 3 concluded with the judges headed by Mr Tony Liew Voon Fun, Dr Ibrisam Akbar, Mr Goh Joon Sai, Mr Shah Iskandar Siow and Pn Amna A. Emir deciding after much  deliberation on five teams from the ten teams shortlisted at the end of Stage 2. The five teams selected were from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

Ultimately, the event proved to be an excellent platform for the architectural and engineering students to learn to collaborate in a project in preparation for the industrial world they would face upon their graduation.