The presentation purposely to highlight the theoretical finding base on literature reviews from previous researcher in Malaysia and the globe

1. THEORITICAL ASSESMENT IN FACTORS INFLUENCE
ON CONSERVATION OF HERITAGE BUILDING IN MALAYSIA
Mohd Hanizun Hanafi,Mohd Umzarulazijo Umar,
Arman Razak, Zul Zakiyuddin Abdul Rashid
School Of Housing Building And Planning (Hbp)
11800, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang

2. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION
• INTRODUCTION
• OBJECTIVES
• LITERATURE REVIEW
• RESULTS & FINDINGS
• CONCLUDING REMARKS
• REFERENCES

3. INTRODUCTION
•Heritage buildings are part of human creation, which
produces icons for a country, provides local identity,
reflects the cultural values and background, represents
a source of memory, historical events, and also
contributes to the tourism business industry
(UNESCO, 1972)

4. INTRODUCTION: WHY CONSERVE…?
• Conserving the ‘living ’ heritage, therefore, offers the
potential ways of conserving a building
• Conserving the unprotected architectural heritage and sites
ensures the survival of the country’s sense of place and its
very character in a globalising environment
• This ‘living ’ heritage also has symbiotic relationships with the
natural environments within which it originally evolved

5. INTRODUCTION
• However, abandoned and ruined heritage buildings are still an evident generally,
including in Malaysia. These indicate the visible symbols of failing Cultural Heritage
Management (CHM) processes of conservation in retaining the heritage of a
human-made architectural legacy.
• The abandoned and ruined heritage buildings all over the world, for example, can
be seen in Penang’s Macalister Road Mansion, Malaysia (Circa, 1920), Surrey’s
Cane Hill Asylum (Circa 1882), Michigan Central Station,USA (Circa 1913), and
Japan’s Hashima/Gunkanjima Building (Circa 1930).
• No conservation works were carried out on these iconic physical building which
were rich in Cultural Values Heritage Buildings (CVHB). Without a systematic CHM
process, the future generations will be unable to see and appreciate the CVHB of
these buildings.
• Because of that it is important to study what factor that influence the
conservation of building heritage in Malaysia

6. OBJECTIVE
•The purpose of this paper is to highlight, explore and
review the Decision Making Theory and potential
factors that have significant impact towards
Conservation of Heritage Building in Malaysia.

7. LITERATURE REVIEW

8. HERITAGE
• Heritage is defined as:
“Property that is or may be inherited; an
inheritance”, “valued things such as historic
buildings that have been passed down from
previous generations”, and “relating to things
of historic or cultural values that are worthy
of preservation”
Oxford English Dictionary (1989)

9. HERITAGE BUILDING The Definition
• “An historic building that gives us a sense of wonder and makes us appreciate
culture and our heritage” (Feilden, 2003)
• “Buildings built in the past which have high historical and architectural values
and require continuous care and protection to preserve their aesthetic,
archaeological, spiritual, social, political, and economic values” (Kamal and Harun,
2002)
• Heritage building fells under tangible cultural heritage and can be defined as
a building or groups of separate or connected buildings ages more than
100 year with a unique value of an architecture, homogeneity or their
place in the landscape and have outstanding universal value from the
point of view of history, art or science (Malaysian National Heritage
Act,2005)

10. HERITAGE BUILDING CONSERVATION
The Definition
• “Includes all the processes of looking after a place so as to retain its cultural
significance which encompasses the activities that are aimed at the safeguarding of a
cultural resource so as it retains its historic value and extends its physical life”. (Article 1.4 of
the Burra Charter of ICOMOS, 1999)
• “The process of managing change to a significant place in its setting in ways that will best
sustain its heritage values, while recognising opportunities to reveal or reinforce those
values for present and future generations”. (Under Principle 4.2 of English Heritage, 2008)
• Heritage building conservation includes the process of maintenance, preservation,
restoration, reconstruction, or adaptation or combination of any mentioned process
to safeguard the physical conditions of the heritage building with reference to its cultural
significance such as social, historic, aesthetics, and scientific values. (International Council
of Monuments and Sites, ICOMOS, 1956)

11. Figure 4: The Process of Heritage Building Conservation
according to the Burra Charter

12. METHODS OF BUILDING CONSERVATION

13. CONSERVATION OF HERITAGE BUILDING IN MALAYSIA
• In Malaysia, conservation of heritage buildings is initiated by the
government and the private sector (Harun, 2011).
• The establishment of the National Heritage Act 2005 (Act 645) and the
National Heritage Department (JWN) of Malaysia in 2006 has shown
the government’s efforts to enhance the conservation of heritage
buildings.
• The National Heritage Department (JWN) will ensure requirements in
the National Heritage Act 2005 will be complied with the respective
authorities.

14. CONSERVATION OF HERITAGE BUILDING IN MALAYSIA
• Basically, the conservation in Malaysia is guided by the three types of laws
and regulations relating to the conservation of historic buildings:
I. Johore Enacment 1988
II. Malacca Enacment 1988
III. National Heritage Act 2005
• Before the National Act Heritage 2005 was gazetted on 31st of December
2005 and came into effect on 1st of March 2006, only the Antiquities Act
1976 (Act 168) was adopted for the conservation and preservation of
National Heritage relating to treasure trove, monuments and cultural
heritage in Malaysia (Ministry of Information Communications and Culture,
2012).

15. EXAMPLE OF BUILT HERITAGE IN MALAYSIA
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded and
gazetted George Town and Melaka as a Worlds Heritage Site by 07 July 2008, this awards
indicated that our built heritage in Malaysia is highly appreciated and recognise at a world
level.
• According to UNESCO(2008) and Jabatan Warisan Negara (JWN), The recognition base on
3 major Outstanding Universal Values (OUV) criteria which are;
i. Criterion (ii): Exceptional examples of multi-cultural trading town in East and Southeast
Asia, forged from the mercantile and exchange of Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures
and three successive European colonial powers for almost 500 years.
ii. Criterion (iii): Melaka and George Town are living testimony to the multi-cultural
heritage and tradition of Asia and European colonial influences.
iii. Criterion (iv): Melaka and George Town reflect a mixture of influence which have
created a unique architecture, cultural and townscape without parallel anywhere in East
and South Asia.

16. GEORGETOWN, PENANG
• George Town shows the world that its heritage buildings, art and culture can
co-exist alongside modern development. The recognition by UNESCO to
acknowledge George Town as a heritage city means that the initial heritage
core zone and buffer zone should be preserved from further development
that would change the skyline of Penang Heritage City.
• The Historic City of Georgetown focuses its conservation efforts on pre-war
buildings. The government's effort to put the old city or historic centre on
the World Heritage List is an example of this.
• The Nomination Dossier submitted to the UNESCO (outstanding universal
values) includes: “As an outstanding example of a traditional multi-cultural
settlement which best represents the culture of tolerance, peace, diversity,
conflict and continuity in the face of modernisation and social change.”

17. Figure 1: A bank in Beach Street Penang
that occupies a heritage building
Figure 2: Garden of the E&O Hotel, a great
example of a heritage hotel
Figure 3: Fort Cornwallis, in the middle of
George Town Penang

18. MELAKA
• The historic city of Malacca has successfully met the requirements to
uphold a World Heritage City status by UNESCO which represents a
“unique architectural" and "cultural townscape” without parallel
anywhere in East and South East Asia with the fusion of multicultural
trading towns, in East and South East Asia.
• Malacca has been inscribed as having World Heritage Sites by UNESCO
since July 2008 (Conservation Management Plan, 2011). Malacca is one of
the remarkable examples of historic colonies that have demonstrated a
succession of historical and cultural influences.
• It bears testimony to a living multi-cultural heritage tradition of Asia, where
the many religions and cultures met and coexisted. It reflected the coming
together of cultural elements from the Malay Archipelago, China, and India
as well as Europe and constitutes a unique architecture, culture, and
townscape (Harun et al., 2010).

19. Figure 5: The Surviving ‘A Famosa Fortress’ (Porta de
Santiago) in Malacca.
Source: Adopted from Wikipedia Pictures
Figure 4: The Most Famous Stadhuys or Red
Building in Malacca.
Source: Adopted from The Star

20. METHODOLOGY
• The study will give special emphasis to a secondary data collection
related to the objective of the study.
• Information collected systematically according to the suitability of the
data obtained from previous researcher in a form of a journal, article,
books, dissertation and etc.
• Evaluation of the secondary data will emphasize on Decision Making
Theory and theoretical assessment in factors influence to the
conservation of heritage building in Malaysia

21. RESULTS & FINDINGS

22. OBSTACLE OF HERITAGE BUILDING CONSERVATION IN MALAYSIA
• The demolition of the historic Metropole Hotel (built in 1900) in
George Town, Penang in 1993 was a classic example of the inadequacy
of the Malaysian laws to protect heritage buildings (A. Ghafar at el
2008).
• The losses of heritage value is not tolerable, the movement and
escalating development pressure need to be neutralized.
• Awareness, understanding and input for authority need to be furnish
by professional and relevant organization to make sure that decision
making by relevant authority base on heritage law is precise and
parallel with international and national code of heritage building
conservation law and policy.

23. OBSTACLE OF HERITAGE BUILDING CONSERVATION IN MALAYSIA
• Government concern of heritage building been demolish and been replace by new
development lead to a searching for heritage building in Malaysia. Nearly 39,000
historic buildings built between 1800 and 1948 throughout the country which are
worthy for preservation and conservation.
• Buildings built within these periods are classified as ‘pre-war buildings’ due to their
year of build, ranging from 1800 to 1948 (Syed Zainol Abidin Idid.1995).
• Recently until 2016, only 223 heritage building (National Heritage Department,
2016) are in the loop and meticulously been taking care off. Beginning at 1995 to
2016 , clearly show that until to date , only 223 from 39000 or not more than 0.57
percent of historic building in Malaysia are been taking care and under the radar of
National Heritage Department (JWN).
• Most of them, remain its status quo with their original function or been neglected
and others have been converted to become premises for bank, hotel, restaurant,
office, museum, information centre and storage building without a proper
guidelines and policy.

24. DECISION MAKING THEORY
• According to Hastie (2001) the field of human judgement and
decision-making as: ‘How people (and other organisms and machines)
combine desires (utilities, personal values, goals, ends etc) and beliefs
(expectations, knowledge, means etc) to choose a course of action’,
‘Decision-making refers to the entire process of choosing a course of
action.
• Input from relevant stakeholder namely authority, profesional, owner
and private sector will be the core foundation for output in decision
making process.

25. DECISION MAKING THEORY: PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
• One example of decision making process is involvement of public
participation. Public participation is widely practiced in the decision-making
process. Public participation can benefit agencies by supporting their
decisions, and by bringing new ideas and solutions to the process (Smith &
McDonough, 2001). Public participation in the decision-making process is
aimed at bringing fairness to the process.
• The Charter for the Conservation of Historic Towns and Urban Areas 1987
(Washington Charter) clearly stated that: “The participation and the
involvement of the residents are essential for the success of the conservation
programme and should be encouraged.
• The conservation of historic towns and urban areas concerns their residents
first of all” (ICOMOS 1987, Article 3). The Burra Charter emphasises that
heritage conservation cannot be sustained without community
participation (ICOMOS, 1999, Article 12).

26. Arnstein (1975) used eight different
forms of participation according to
the degree of participants’ power to
influence decisions and illustrated the
hierarchy in a ladder pattern
(Diagram 1) called “a ladder of
citizen participation”.
In the ladder, the lowest rank, in this
case, “manipulation”, represents the
least citizen power and the highest
rank, “citizen control”, represents
total citizen control over decision-
making.
Diagrame 1: A Ladder of Citizen Participation
Source: Arnstein (1975)

27. DECISION MAKING THEORY: LOCAL GOVERNMENT
• The state government with the advice from the federal government
has formed a regulatory committee namely Technical Review Panel
(TRP) to advice and decide on any matters relating to heritage
property subject to the jurisdiction of the Heritage Act 2005 at
relevant local government.
• The existing of TRP objectively to safeguard the heritage building
from being replace with new development. This is where the factors
and its substantial criteria input will potentially take part to
enhance the quality of a decision making by committee.

28. Diagram 2: Procedure and Practical decision making process in Local Authority, where the factors influence in heritage
building can take place to be consider as an input to the Technical Review Panel (TRP)
Source : Georgetown World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), 2017
Input from
the
RESEARCH :
factor
influence in
heritage
building

29. FACTORS INFLUENCE IN DECISION MAKING FOR HERITAGE BUILDING
Factors Criteria Relevant Research Study
Physical Physical Character, interior and exterior integrity, Structural
integrity, durability of materials, workmanship, treatment,
design, originality,
Ahmad, A.G. (2006); Harun, S. N. (2011);Umar, M. U. et al (2015);UNESCO 2008; H.R.Hasbollah
(2015); Z.Shehada et al(2015); Conejos et al., (2011); Osbourne (1985); Douglas (2006); Yudelson
(2010); Langston et al.(2008); P.Bullen and P.Love (2011);
Economy Population density, market, site access, disclosure, design
constraints, the size of the plot, location,
Ahmad, A.G. (2006); Harun, S. N. (2011);Prowler (2008); Osbourne (1985); Douglas (2006);
Grammenos and Russell (1997); Russell and Moffat (2001); UNESCO 2008; Conejos et al. (2011);
Langston et al.(2008); P.Bullen and P.Love (2011);
Function Flexibility, compartmentalisation, disassembly, stream
room, function ability , atrium, grid structure, channel
services and corridor, rental,
Ahmad, A.G. (2006); Harun, S. N. (2011);UNESCO 2008; Conejos et al., 2011 ; Russell and Moffat
(2001); Prowler (2008); Douglas (2006); Langston et al.(2008); Shaw et al. (2007); H.R.Hasbollah
(2015); Z.Shehada et al(2015); Langston et al.(2008); P.Bullen and P.Love (2011);
Technology Scientific approach, Orientation, glazing, insulation and
shading, natural light, natural ventilation of the building
management system, solar access, complexity,
Ahmad, A.G. (2006); Harun, S. N. (2011); UNESCO 2008; Conejos et al., 2011; ICOMOS (1994);
Jokilehto (1996); Prowler (2008); Fournier and Zimnicki (2004); Shaw et al. (2007); Langston et
al.(2008);
Social Image, aesthetics, landscape, history, facilities, human
scale, the neighbourhood and the environment,
Ahmad, A.G. (2006); Harun, S. N. (2011); ICOMOS (1994); Jokilehto (1996); Fournier and Zimnicki
(2004); UNESCO 2008; Conejos et al., 2011; H.R.Hasbollah (2015); Z.Shehada et al(2015); Langston
et al.(2008); P.Bullen and P.Love (2011);
Environment Carbon emission, renewable energy, climate change, waste
management, ozone depleting substances, temperature, air
velocity, humidity, pollution source,
Prihatmanti Rani (2015); Pilowtowiez.G. (1995); W.Zahrah, A.D.Nasution(2015), Ahmad, A.G. (2006);
Harun, S. N. (2011);UNESCO 2008; H.R.Hasbollah 2015; Z.Shehada et al(2015); P.Bullen and P.Love
(2011);
Finance Financial resources, Financial planning, acquisition budget, Mahmoud Sodangi et al. (2014), Jim Smith, (2005), Adair, A et al (2003), P.Bullen and P.Love (2011);
UNESCO 2008;

30. FACTORS INFLUENCE IN DECISION MAKING FOR HERITAGE BUILDING
Factors Criteria Relevant Research Study
Law and Regulation Heritage Management plan, fire protection,
internal quality, occupational health and
safety, security, comfort, convenience of the
disabled, energy efficiency, acoustics,
conservation plan,
Ahmad, A.G. (2006); Harun, S. N. (2011);Brit Anak Kayan
et al. (2013); Osbourne (1985); Prowler (2008); National
Heritage Act 2015, Mahmoud Sodangi et al. (2014);
UNESCO 2008; Z.Shehada et al(2015); Kit, T.E (2001);
Conejos et al., 2011; H.R.Hasbollah (2015);Langston et
al.(2008); P.Bullen and P.Love (2011);
Politic The adjacent building, site ecology,
conservation, public, urban master plans,
zoning, ownership,
ICOMOS (1994); Jokilehto (1996); Fournier and Zimnicki
(2004); Douglas (2006); UNESCO 2008; Conejos et al.,
2011; Langston et al.(2008);
Infrastructure Transport, utility and services, UNESCO 2008; P.Bullen and P.Love (2011); Langston et
al.(2008);

31. • Base on assimilation from
literature review, potential
factor that have a very
significance impact directly and
indirectly on heritage building
namely physical, social,
economic, technology, law
and enforcement, function,
environment, infrastructure,
politic, finance
• Consist of a total 68 criteria
being indentified to be consider
in the decision making process
for TRP in local autority.
(Diagram 3)
Diagram 3 : Existing criteria in factor influence that can be consider to contribute to
heritage building in Malaysia base on literature review.

32. CONCLUDING REMARKS
• Decision making procedure need to be equip with a rightful
information in order to have a very best outcomes.
• Input establishment need to be meticulously study to ensure that
research subject have a strong foundation and can stand alone.
• Practically, clear grip from professional, local and federal authority will
help to maintain and enhance this elements by prompt decision
making by authority at local, state and national level.
• Further investigation is compulsory to narrow down factors and
criteria listed.

33. REFERENCE
• UNESCO. Available online: http: //www.whc.unesco.org
• Cane Hill Asylum. (1882). Abandoned Britain. (Available online: http://www.abandoned-britain.com/PP/canehill/1.htm
• Kamal, S.K. and Harun, S.N. (2002). Building Research Methodology in the Conservation of the Historic Buildings in Malaysia.
Proceedings of the International Symposium Building Research and the Sustainability of the Built Environment in the Tropics,
University Tarumanagara, Jakarta, Indonesia. 14-15thOctober 2002
• Feilden, B. (1982). Conservation of Historic Buildings. Great Britain: Architectural Press.
• ICOMOS. (1956). Charter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage. ICOMOS (International Council on
Monuments and Sites): International Cultural Tourism Committee, Paris, France
• Harun, S. N. (2011). Heritage Building Conservation in Malaysia: Experience and Challenges. Procedia Engineering, 20, pp. 41-53.
• Harun, S. N., Ahmad, A. G., Kayan, B.A., Kamal, K. S., Abdul Rashid, R, Mohd Isa, A. F., Ab Wahab, L., Salleh, N. H. (2010).
Pemuliharaan Bangunan Bersejarah (Historic Building Conservation). UPENA: UiTM.
• Hashima/Gunkanjima Building. (1930). Hashima Island, Japan’s Abandoned City. (Available online:
http://thehiat.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/hashima-island-japans-abandoned-city.html
• English Heritage. (2008). Conservation Principles: Policies and Guidelines. London: English Heritage.Malacca and Penang. (2011).
Conservation Management Plan: Historic Cities of Straits of Malacca. Unpublished
• The Burra Charter (1999). The Burra Charter 1999. Sydney: Australia ICOMOS
• The Oxford English Dictionary. (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

34. THANK YOU
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