CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3 : Traditional Malay House

Traditional Malaysia is one of the richest culture components of Malaysia. It is built according to the living culture and habits to suit the users. Generally, Malay House is considered as near-perfect house as they were energy efficiency, environmental friendly to our local climate. Architects now are often looking for new solution for tropical climate design, but Traditional Malay House seems to be forgetting by the new generation. One of the characteristics of Malay House is that they design with deeply understanding of the surrounding condition and it have high flexibility towards expansion depends on the family need. In this chapter, it will be study about the design concept of the Traditional Malay House as to inspire what could we do to improve our modern terrace house to improve the problems that existed in the house.

3.1 Flexibility of the houses

Basically traditional Malay house can be divided into the front and back portions with the rumah ibu (main house) as the centre. At the entrance of the house, there are this anjung(covered porch) lead from the stairs, it act as a transition space between public and private space. It also serve as a guest entertainment area for those unfamiliar visitor. Next is the Serambi Gantung (hanging verandah). This is the place where most of the guest are entertained, the people will sit here and chit-chat or rest at this area, the well planning of having low window and opening for ventilation and views for the people inside to see what is happening outside.

Once enters to the Rumah Ibu (the core house) which is the largest area in the house where most of the activities will be carry at here, they pray, meeting or sleeping at the rumah ibu. One that separated this important area among the house is they raised the floor level to the highest as to highlight and paying respect. Following with the selang is the close walkway to the dapur(kitchen) and dining area. Most of the womenfolk will gather and chit-chat or socialize. Dining area are one level higher than the selang and here comes to the lowest level area in the house which is the kitchen. Kitchen area always the lowest area where washing, cooking, preparation of wet stuff are all done here.

Through the simple explanation of the space planning of traditional Malay House, we saw how they completely planned the uses and the level of spaces to separate the main and secondary space. It also shows the privacy consideration where the visitors been serve at the space with plenty of opening and it’s well ventilated. Moreover, that is not only the good planning of the Malay house, the flexibility of them to add or remove certain space in order to respond to the expansion of members in the house.

              Unlike contemporary terrace house, they have much more option to choose to add in spaces which is needed as well as the orientation of the space. It is obviously where malay house have this opportunity to add in the additional spaces because of the extra land besides, and the problem from the terrace house is that there are limited space for the surrounding.

3.2 Design for Climate Control
- top zone (roof)
- middle zone (body)
- bottom zone (underneath)
- materials

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2 :

2.0 Problems existed in terrace housing

Terrace house is a roll of identical houses that shared side walls. The first and the last houses is called an end terrace, they are mostly larger sizes than the middle houses. It usually has open spaces at the front and back for car porch and wet kitchen or storage purpose. Each roll is consisting of 10 to 12 units depending on the width of the house that have to consider about the Fire Services Department. Statistics shown that terrace house is the most preferable house for the average Malaysian. The demand from the terrace house is also the highest among the other types of properties. However, the quality of the terrace house had seen to be reducing for the recent years. Houses are require to build fast and so causes the creative design efforts are lacking. Most houses were build according to the schemes which was typically planned layout for maximum land use. Therefore, some of the new developed housing area are lack of rationale when comes to the planning of the area or the specific layout of the interior. Moreover, there are aspects like flexibility of spaces, poor ventilation, lighting, vegetation and social and security had become the problems of the contemporary house.

2.1 Flexibility of spaces

It is always important come to the interior planning of a house where different family requires different kind of spaces for their daily needs, while modern terrace house are mostly fixed in their planning of spaces due to the limited land and increases of population for the area. A standard house planning that we could found around the medium income are consist of a living area, dining area, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. That comes to the problems which when there are increases of numbers of family members throughout marriage or  adoption, there will be limited or lack of spaces for them to live in the same house. It will then have the needs to purchase another unit of house as to have their own privacy space and moving space while it will lead to the financial problems because of the unaffordable price for the low income family to purchase another unit.

2.2 Ventilation

For the older century, architect often pay particular attention to the ventilation of a building. Houses were built according to the transition of air or the direction of wind flow because of the temperature of the interior could affect the comfortable of the user. Traditionally architects creates opening like air wells, windows, doors or ventilation panels to achieve better ventilation to the interior. While the importance of ventilation concept seems to be neglect due to the demands of the users when it comes to the security consideration. Young generations prefer to have less opening to avoid the thief from coming in easily as well as having enough privacy. Even nowadays the modern houses designed to have large and wide windows but they were mostly fixed window that doesn’t allow air ventilation. Even there is an open-able window, users would rather covered it with curtains to avoid others view through the condition of the interior. Besides, uses of air-conditioning system are way too convenient to the young generations when the surrounding temperature was increasing day by day. This causes the importance of natural ventilation being ignored or losing attention to the young generation.

2.3 Lighting

Followed by the closed up opening of the interior, it stop the natural lighting from coming into the interior. Without the skylight, the middle part of the house can receive only minimal sunlight and were mostly needed help of the artificial light. Terrace house are built normally having windows at the front and rear of the house, it was mostly connected with both left and right side of houses that resulted of the unavailable of creating opening for the both sides. Due to the limited opening, the usage of the artificial light requires more and thus requires more electrical supply.

2.4 Vegetation

They do have park or playground around or at the middle of the residential area, but we could rarely see trees around the houses. If there is tree, mostly there have only one tree for each 15 or 20 meters. We have learned that the greenery would provide better air quality and helps to filter noise but due to the limited spaces of the house boundary, users would rather transform the small garden beside the car porch into concrete land to park their cars instead of plant some plants on it.

2.5 Materials

No doubt concrete is a good source to use on architecture as it was a sustainable, strong and easily available in our country. 90% of the houses in the country were using concrete as main construction material. Concrete was used as a good thermal mass material in overseas in order to achieve thermal comfort of the interior, the idea of using concrete for both cooling and heating systems was well designed and worked in overseas. In winter, concrete absorb heat during the daytime for cooling down the interior while release heat at the night time to warm up the interior; in summer it release heat at the night and the heat will be carried away by the well ventilated houses. It sounds to be prefect but when it was applied in Malaysia which having hot and humid tropical climate, concrete might not be a good option. It require much ventilation to cool down the interior at the night while it was almost an impossible task as users could just turn on the air conditioning system to cool down the house rather than taking risk of exposes their interior to the outsiders.

Introduction

Architecture is an amazing thing that can reflect characteristics of certain groups, races, place and so to the culture. It has to do with planning, constructing, space, surrounding, aesthetics considerations and etc. Most of the architecture we live in had been through many stages of changes to transform due to the existing factors. While the transformation goes, it somehow weakens the function and created some problems to the new generation. As we can see, contemporary terrace house today have been developed to masonry and reinforced concrete with air conditioning system. It is a common architecture which we can found it all surrounded at our side. Contemporary terrace house actually are not best architecture that designed to suit the warm and humid Malaysia climate. Traditional Malay house that as one of the most significant architecture in Malaysia. It was said perfectly built for the physical condition of Malaysia. Their formal and spatial planning and placement on the site have a strong rationale which is derived from and responsive to the environment. While in the new era, people seems more prefer to stay in the contemporary concrete house as it is more convenient and strong in structure compare to the Traditional Malay House in 21^st century. Traditional Malay House had slowly been eliminate by the new generations as it could not provide better security, sustainability, privacy as well as the problem of vernacular architecture skills. However, the concept and system of Traditional Malay house are still have the opportunity to improve the living quality for the new generations. Where it should not be eliminate by the generations. Therefore, this research aims is to investigate the possibilities of integration of the architecture construction and concept of the Traditional Malay House into the contemporary house. The methodologies of the research are to studies and compare the structure and concept of both Traditional Malay House and Contemporary Houses. The main finding shows the integration of concept from Malay House to contemporary house provides better design solution to the new generation by a model of the terrace house. It shows a possible way that could increase the liveability of the terrace house by the implement of the philosophy of the Traditional Malay House. 

Restructure Reseach Report Proposal

1.  THE CHOSEN SITE & RESEARCH TOPIC/ISSUES YOU WISH TO STUDY

Does the concept and the architectural construction of the Traditional Malay House could be able to apply into the modern houses in order to create a better and comfortable living space for the new generation?

CHOSEN SITE

-       Kampung Raja, Besut Kelantan

-       Residential Area

-       Kampung Warisan

ISSUES

-       Traditional Malay House is creatively built with the bond of nature and environment of Malaysia in order to create a comfortable living space for the people. These concept and structure are gradually disappeared as the development of technologies is improving and the demands of people are different compared to the past.

AIM

To investigate the possibilities of inventing the architecture construction of the Traditional Malay House into the modern houses.

OBJECTIVES

-       To studies the structure and concept of Traditional Malay House and the Modern Residential Houses

-       To compare the advantages and disadvantages of both kind of houses

-       To experiment on the combination of structure of Traditional Malay House and the Modern Residential Houses

2.     OUTLINE OF REPORT AND HOW YOU WISH TO CARRY OUT YOUR OBJECTIVES

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

-  terrace house today have been developed to masonry and reinforced concrete with air conditioning system .  

-  Issue about Malay Traditional Architecture has been disappeared in modern days

-  investigate about the differences of both kind of houses

-  a final outcome will be a prototype of a new design that a modern residential house that

   implement some of the concept or structure from Traditional Malay Architecture.

CHAPTER 2 :

Examining and understanding contemporary houses  

-       Study of the design and concept

-       Problem and issue

- reason causes the issue

-       Solution that had been applied but causes another problem  

CHAPTER 3

Examining and understanding Traditional Malay House

-       Site Visit : Kampung Raja

-       Explain the design and ideas

- top zone, middle zone and bottom zone

-       Visual evidence

-       Interview of the owner

CHAPTER 4

Strategies

Integration or combination of the concept and ides of contemporary house and Traditional Malay House

-       Suggestions of ways or ideas to improve contemporary house

-       Explain the advantages of the suggestion

-       Provide data or information to prove

-       Explain how it works or be install into contemporary house

- environment

- ventilation

- materials

Kampung Raja, Kuala Besut

Kampung Warisan 

CHAPTER 4 : Structural possibilities of combination of both kind of houses
                        -       Foundation
                        -       Walls
                        -       Roof structure
                        -       Windows and doors

CHAPTER 5 : Conclusion

3. RESEARCH PLAN AND METHODOLOGY

No	Methods	Date/Time	Info
1	Research for basic understanding towards Traditional Malay House       and modern house      -Website      -Reference books	1/9/2014	On Going
2	Literature Review      -Reference Books about Traditional Malay houses      -Newspaper article	1/9/2014	On Going
3	Site Survey      -Kampung Raja, Besut Kelantan      -Modern Residential Houses      -Kampung Warisan	10/2014	On Going
4	Photo Taking       (show the construction, material used, and ventilation flow of Malay houses and Modern house)	10/2014	On Going
5	Interview to the owner of the house      (Understand the problem they are facing)	10/2014	On Going
6	Experiment      model making of combination of structure	11/2014	Haven’t Start

Site Visit to Kampung Raja, Kuala Besut

This is the how the entrance looks like . It is just at the side of the main road.

Encik Norhaiza Noordin

When we walk into the boundary, it was this visitor room at the left side. The room that we stay overnight is the upper floor. The room underneath is Encik Norhaiza’s gallery that display all his wood craving panel and kris (keris). We are not allow to take photo inside the gallery. It was just an empty space with the stilts structure for the upper room until Encik Norhaiza decided to change the space into his art gallery, he added on the walls and wood window for the area.

Here is the view taken from the angle of our room. It is the master bedroom but Encik Norhaiza is no longer stay in this house anymore considering about the privacy for him and his family as the house had partly became a gallery for tourist or visitor. 

On the rightside from the entrance, it is this room that originally used as the living room for the owner, and now he is planning to turn it into another gallery for his craved work. He also modified the lower part into his personal workshop area for visitors to learn about some basic craving if they have interests about it. 

using the existing structure(stilts) with just add on some wood panels and transform it into a workshop shows how Encik Norhaiza used his knowledge on wood architecture for this empty space. 

Entrance of the living room

a small pavillion connected to the master bedroom

There are many details of joining that showing the structure is able to disassemble and reassemble depends on the users need. It shows how user friendly and eco-friendly of the Traditional Malay Houses.

Although it is able to to disassemble, but considering about the infinite transform of the weather, Encik Norhaiza added screw on the structure to ensure it is able to withstand the strong wind .

Traditional Malay architecture creatively applied the interlocking concept on the structure .

Even the joining of the door doesn't require any hinge to provide the openable function.

Proposed Research Writing

TOPIC :

Traditional Malay house considered as an architecture that perfectly matched with Malaysia’s weather, geology as well as the materials it used. Throughout these times, most of the elements of the Traditional Malay house had changed or been modified due to the existing problems that causes from many other aspects. Traditional Malay house as a significant architecture for Malaysian should not be forgetting through the transformation of human lifestyle. Somehow the structural or the system should be re-invent to the modern architecture as to help resolve those problems now that had created by the nature. 

CHOSEN SITE:

-       Kampung Raja , Besut Kelantan

(Encik Norhaiza Noordin is the owner of this Malay House. It is originally located at Kelantan. He decided to move to Kuala Besut due to his wood craving workshop and business. He actually disassembled the Malay house and reassembled it again at Kuala Besut. He modified some part of the structure and the space due to the changes of weather ,seasoning wind as well for his craving workshop purpose.)

Aim :

To study about how and what causes the traditional Malay wooden house change to the modern Malay houses.

Objectives :    

• To understand the function of the traditional Malay houses and the modern one                       
• To compare the changes of lifestyle of the Malays from the past to the new era                       
• To understand the materials and abilities of the materials towards the houses

Content

CHAPTER 1 : Introduction

1.1 Introduction about the Malay house

1.2 History about Malay house (Kampung Raja, Besut Kelantan)

CHAPTER 2 : Case Study (Kampung Raja , Besut Kelantan)

CHAPTER 3 : Transformation of Malay house – elements

CHAPTER 4 : Factors that affect traditional malay house to transform

CHAPTER 5 : Finding

• What should we learn from the traditional malay house ?
•  Whether the structure or the system of Traditional Malay house could be able to blend into the modern house?
• Are people still enjoy living in the Traditional Malay House? 

CHAPTER 6 : Conclusion