MLA Options Studio Field Report: LA4702/LAD4010 | MLA Studio City/ Design 8: Highland Tapestry: Weaving Ecology, Community, and Economy in the Cameron Highlands

From 22 to 28 February 2026, the Highland Tapestry option design studio conducted fieldwork led by tutor Yun Hye Hwang. This studio engages with the socio-ecological complexities of the Cameron Highlands, a high-altitude plateau on Peninsular Malaysia’s Main Range renowned for its exceptionally fertile soils and rich biodiversity, now under pressure from deforestation, overtourism, and industrialised agriculture.

The fieldwork engaged a wide range of local stakeholders to examine key landscape settings within the Highlands’ socioecological territory. Led by REACH (Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands), the programme began at Gunung Brinchang with a climb to a high elevation mossy forest. The group learned about two decades of community-based forest restoration, joined a tree planting session, and visited an organic farm. The students interviewed residents along the forest edge who had recently experienced landslides, as well as local entrepreneurs and tourist guides. They also visited Orang Asli communities and walked jungle trails to learn how Indigenous knowledge supports mountain life.

For the remainder of the field trip, students were divided into three groups, each focusing on one area in Tanah Rata— a residential complex at the forest edge; the commercial and social heart with tourist accommodation, local markets, and a stream that shapes daily life and visitor flows; and agricultural lands and greenhouses on a Tanah Rata hill earmarked for government initiated infrastructure within the next decade.

The trip gave students firsthand insight into the ties between ecology, community, and economy, and reaffirmed the role of landscape architects as critical observers and stewards of socioecological systems and cultural heritage in the region.

The students will present their final projects on 22 April 2026 at NUS.