On 14 to 17 December 2010, a group of five staff from Department of Landscape Architecture attended IFLA Symposium on Cultural Landscape organized by the Seoul National University, South Korea.  The theme of the symposium was Identity of Traditional Asian Landscapes that enabled academics from Asian universities to share viewpoints on cultural landscape issues and its meaning. Dr.Hamidah Ahmad, Dr. Sirima Nasongkhla, Dr. Sapura Mohamad and Assoc. Prof. Dr Ismail Said, presented their paper at the IFLA Symposium. In addition, landscape architect Mohd Za’i Kandar fromTropics Design and tutor, Lee Yoke Lai joined the symposium group.

Generally, there are 21 papers were published on the IFLA symposium proceeding which encompassed papers from Seoul National University Korea, Tsinghua University, Chinese Cultural University from Taiwan, Sala Design from Cambodia, University of Indonesia, Trisakti University from Indonesia, Hanatoyo Landscape from Japan, CEPT University from India, and Shahid Beeshti University from Iran.   During the technical tour at symposium, all the participants provided wonderful experiences to visit Changdeokung Palace (Biwon Garden) and Hahoe Village (Korean traditional village). At the end of symposium workshop, all the committees decided to have the paper to be published in a book. In addition, the symposium discusses the establishment of a journal, Asian Landscapes. The theme for the next IFLA Symposium on Cultural Landscape is Redefining Cultural Landscape.

For those who wish to access to the content of the proceedings of the symposium, please contact Lee Yoke Lai at lylai@utm.my or Dr. Sapura Mohammad at b-sapura@utm.my.