The L.S.D. of The S.B.O.
The recent tabling and passing of the Sarawak Building Ordinance(S.B.O.) at the Dewan Undangan Negri (D.U.N.) has brought a big wave of optimism, and relief to many of us. But we must remind ourselves that this is only the beginning. The law is not fully “alive” yet. I have decided to record the S.B.O.'s evolution from my own eyes, in a series of 4 articles detailing our interaction with BOMBA, the Ministry of Local Government and PAMSC - the people, the events and the lessons.
In architecture school, our lecturers liked to remind us that this profession is a marathon. Designs take years to gain acceptance, and even longer to get built. Now, many years later, I find myself repeating the same thing to my younger colleagues — good projects take time, and anything worth doing will test your stamina. Min tells me runners call this type of training - “L.S.D.”: Long, Slow, Distance.
The real marathon starts now; with bylaws and regulations to develop, interpretations to align, and many more discussions ahead. And before we start this next long run, we should remember the partcipants of first marathon that got us this far.
In fact, the review of the S.B.O. started more than 10 years ago, long before I joined the team in 2015. I remember it was a workshop held at the Damai Resort, in a room was filled with senior architects & council officers — many now retired — passionately debating every clause. It was tense, noisy, and sometimes quite funny if you stood at a safe distance. As expected, no conclusion could please everyone, and that was when the group decided we needed a deeper, more structured review of the S.B.O.
I was the “young tech guy”, and automatically assigned the job of projecting the clauses onto the screen while everyone else argued over them. I typed, scrolled, highlighted, and edited live like some kind of architectural court stenographer. But this method worked. Seeing everything on the screen helped us park unclear issues and return to them later. Discussions became clearer, decisions were made faster, we were more productive.
We began meeting every fortnight. Everyone had reading homework (which most pretended they did), and slowly these meetings evolved into regular porridge & salted egg lunches at a corner coffee shop (at Queen's Court) — sometimes every two or three days. Over kopi and kuih, the conversations grew beyond the S.B.O., we talked about the future of practice, our challenges, and ideas that later became part of today’s Practice & Government Liaison Committee. This was the fellowship of the giants whose shoulders we stand on till this day, the unsung heroes who started this journey who quietly and doggedly laid the groundwork because they believed it mattered for future generations.
Many of the fellowship have left us, through retirement, or maybe they were just tired - tired architects subsisting on packages of peanut and bottled water arguing about phrasing, and the placement of commas in a clause. Some of them like Uncle Philip has left for good.
So while we congratulate ourselves this week on the successful tabling and passing of the S.B.O by our Deputy Premier, YB Datuk Amar Prof. Dr. Sim Kui Hian - I would like us to remember those who laid the groundwork, and remind ourselves to carry on their work in the same spirit.
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