14/09/2025
Looking at the recent saddening flood incidents happening throughout our beloved state, Sabah, we would like to share our principal - Ar. Tan Young’s proposal presentation slides, which he presented during the DBKK Advisory Board Meeting back in July 2025. The topic discusses about “Tackling Future Flooding in Our City: Flood Resilience & Urban Sink Design Strategy for Our City - Leveraging Open Spaces with Underground Stormwater Infrastructure.”
We believe some of you might be wondering — why is an architect here to talk about flooding, which is traditionally seen as an engineer’s domain? That is a fair question. However, our principal presented the proposal slides not just as an architect, but as a citizen of Sabah — someone who, like many of us, is deeply concerned about the future livability of our city in the face of increasing flood events.
To clarify at the outset, there is absolutely no intention from our principal to encroach upon or offend the professional boundaries of our engineering counterparts. Rather, the presentation is meant to share ideas from an architectural perspective — particularly how we can re-imagine and re-purpose our existing open spaces as dual-function areas that not only serve the public but also support underground reinforced concrete detention systems to help manage stormwater.
Why do our principal, as an architect, feel the need to raise this issues? Because architects are often also the ones tasked with designing and planning the very open spaces that populate our developments. These are not just recreational fields or passive landscapes — they are potential assets in our city’s long-term flood resilience strategy.
More importantly, this is not about working in silos. The future of flood mitigation in our city demands close, cross-disciplinary collaboration between architects, engineers, planners, authorities, and the public. We each bring unique strength, and together we can envision smarter, more integrated, and context-sensitive solutions.
So what you see here is not a fully engineering driven proposal, but an architecturally driven presentation — a conceptual framework on how our city’s existing and future open spaces can evolve into infrastructural assets while maintaining their community value.
Our city is growing. Our weather patterns are changing. And with that, flooding is no longer something that only happens once in a while, and it is starting to affect more lives, more often.
This proposal presentation is also a reminder that while our city is beautiful, it is also vulnerable. If we do not start thinking ahead, and if we keep treating floods as just temporary inconveniences, we will be caught off guard when the many next ones hit harder and harder.
The good news? We do not need to wait for disaster to act. We already have open spaces, and we already have ways to design solutions that are beneficial and sustainable. Let’s not wait until it is too late. Let’s use what we have to build a safer future for everyone.
All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: This presentation is based on personal research, interpretations, opinions, ideas, and publicly available information. It is intended solely for conceptual discussion purposes. There is no intention to infringe upon, challenge, or override the views, standards, or authority of any relevant professionals, institutions, or governing bodies. Every effort has been made to ensure the information is presented respectfully and accurately.
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