By Associate Profesor Dr. Alice Sabrina Ismail (Director Architecture program)
The UTM Architecture Program has successfully conducted five series of International Architecture Webinars online, which gathers prominent experts from the architecture field and related design disciplines to discuss a wide range of issues faced by the present societies from different continents. These five webinar series was conducted on the 1st November 2021 (1st Webinar Series); 15th November 2021 (2nd Webinar Series); 23rd November 2021 (3rd Webinar Series); 20th December 2021 (4th Webinar Series), and 28th December 2021 (5th Webinar Series). These five Webinar Series involved five lecturers from the program of Architecture UTM and ten lecturers from five universities representing four countries (Indonesia, India, United Kingdom and Spain). These five universities are Vellore Institute of Technology and Sasi Creative Architecture School, Chennai, India; Universidad Alicante, Spain; Sheffield University, UK and Universitas Tanjung Pura, Kalimantan, Indonesia. These five international webinar series have attracted many audiences and participants worldwide, locally and abroad, providing new exposure and knowledge dimension discussing real-life matters faced by developed and well-developed nations. An estimation of thousand participants attended these five online webinar series. The response is optimistic and overwhelming. Each webinar series session, which took about 4 hours, did impact the architecture students and triggered new thinking approaches for them to have intelligent design solutions. This activity increases collaboration and peers learning among students and academicians, which is valuable in building linkages and strengthening the relationship between the UTM architecture program and prominent international universities. Many participants gave much positive feedback, and the UTM Architecture program will organise more international webinar series in the future.