Comparative Analysis Essay

1. CONTENTS
1.0 INTRODUCTION
2.0 BACKGROUND
3.0 SIMILARITY AND DISSIMILARITY
3.1 URBAN LANDSCAPE/PATTERN
3.2 CULTURE AND ACTIVITIES
3.3 CONTACT POINTS
3.4 BUILT ENVIRONMENT
4.0 CONCLUSION
5.0 REFERENCES

2. In succession to Project 1 which is the Case Study on foreign site of a urban
context, this project aim to follow up with a more detailed analysis and make
use of the skills we learnt from project 1 directly by comparing it to our
Architecture Design Studio V site, which is similarly an urban context site
except it is local.
Although the layout of urban context sites mostly appear the same, but there
are still quite a lot of difference when the site is being observed and studied in
a closer perspective, and also a wider perspective. Every urban context site
have different elements and their respective level of success-ness.
Elements that are commonly different, and is able to bring impact to the
success-ness of the urban site are for instance:
- Urban walls
- Enclosure level
- Open spaces availability and comfortability
- Speed of circulation
- Building height and levels
- Building purpose
- Accessibility
The analysis and study of this subject can be best executed with the
comparison method, finding similarities and dissimilarities of both site and
later to be concluded to reach a better understanding of urban context
Urban Context Site for the study of this project are among:
Foreign Site : Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong
Local Site : Kajang Old Town, Malaysia
1.0 INTRODUCTION

3. FOREIGN URBAN SITE - SHAM SHUI PO, HONG KONG
Sham Shui Po was a cape and had been inhabited a long time ago. With
large-scale reclamation, what used to be the coastline is now considerably
in-land Sham Shui Po's unique topography as a cape has been lost in the
human built-up city on top of it.
Due to the lack of urban planning in the early years, a lot of old and illegal
buildings are found to have the lack of fire protection and safety design within
them, resulting quite a lot of fire-related cases happening around the area.
The Sham Shui Po street today is filled with a variety of activities, where one
could witness elderly chatting on the pocket park bench, rows of local
delicacies and fabric shops, loading of goods at the shopfront and signages
over the building facades.
LOCAL URBAN SITE - KAJANG OLD TOWN, MALAYSIA
Kajang started as early as a tin mine and later the first batch of brick buildings
built by the chinese migrants. Being ignited by the chinese migrants, the
chinese community inevitably grew and not far later a few earliest batch of
shop lots are built.
The tin mining in Kajang was quite successful and therefore it brought
attention to fortune seekers from all over, resulting the increase in area
population. With the passing of several decades, the activities around the area
starts to decline as majority of the community are migrating to the city for
more and better job opportunity, where also resulted in the failure of
traditional business and the loss of inheritance skills.
As of today, Kajang Old Town have can be seen to have lower intensity of
population and the streets look dull with activities rarely going on, some
people say it is due to the migration of community to find better job
opportunities while some say it is due to the invasion of foreign worker that
displaced the community.
2.0 BACKGROUND

4. 3.1 URBAN LANDSCAPE/PATTERN
To study an urban context site, one would often begin by looking at its figure
ground for a big picture of the site, and of course it would be the first step in
this research to search for the similarities and dissimilarities of both sites.
SHAM SHUI PO, HONG KONG
3.0 SIMILARITIES AND DISSIMILARITIES
The figure ground of Sham Shui Po shows a rigid and repetitive arrangement
of its context, alike that of a grid arrangement. Although Sham Shui Po was
developed way before the induction of urban planning guides, the site appear
to be more arranged than expected, with smaller roads happening between
every lot and a bigger road after 4-5 lots. Such arrangement are beneficial for
the movement of people in town, in such a way they would not lose their
sense of direction due to numerous different angled exits.
Figure Ground of Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong
Nam Cheong Street of Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong
In one of the main street of Sham Shui Po, the Nam Cheong Street have a
pocket park in the middle of the big street, creating an open space for
recreation activities of the people living around the place. The pocket park
succeed in giving a positive impact to the compact town of Sham Shui Po.

5. The figure ground of Kajang appear to be organised with compromisation of
aligning the contexts with surrounding elements such as the river. Some of the
streets are angled otherwise than a right angle, with risk of the lost of direction
when people travel through here due to confusing exits of streets.
Some of the streets also appear to be in varied dimension along its span. When
closely observed, two parts of the urban context pattern can be seen, which one
located on the left appearing more distorted while the other part on the right
is more organised as it is a later development.
Figure Ground of Kajang Old Town, Malaysia
NEW
DEVELOPMENT
OLD
DEVELOPMENT
SIMILARITY AND DISSIMILARITY
The figure ground of both sites are seen to be similarly aiming for a better
organised arrangement, except Kajang being around a site with context to
obey. Both sites are also dissimilar for the allocation of recreation space, where
Kajang lack so. The allocation of open space or recreation space is quite
important for a development of an urban site.
KAJANG OLD TOWN, MALAYSIA

6. 3.2 CULTURE & ACTIVITIES
SHAM SHUI PO, HONG KONG
Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong have a very dense level in terms of buildings and
population in the area. The whole area are filled with high rise condominium,
within are the locals, struggling to live in their cramped apartment.
Due to the overly dense population of the area, the authority or the police
have their hands full, leaving quite a lot of illegal activities go free as they have
no hands for it. Therefore, there consist of an amount of crimes happening,
varying from drugs, black market, gang fights, robbing and prostitution.
The rest of the general culture and activities are categorised under such as:
Necessary Activity - eating at nearby hawker stall or restaurant, standing by
the road to wait for traffic light, crossing the streets
Optional Activity - walking by the pocket park, sitting and chilling at the
roadside stall or the pocket park,
Social Activity - walking by the pocket park and talk to fellow users in the
park, play chess under roof of the pavilion
People eating and chilling at the roadside stall
Waiting for their turn to cross the street

7. KAJANG OLD TOWN, MALAYSIA
In Kajang Old Town, the activities happening on the public areas are
minimum, as the community is not really united anymore and the population
is low. Some of the standing strong stores are still open and they manage their
business as usual but customers are harder to find nowadays. Some restaurants
and the famous ‘spicy soup’ still have quite some customers as it is a
necessary activity for people to consume food. In addition of the lack of open
space or recreation space, some people staying in the area would prefer staying
at home rather than coming out to nothing. And since the community is weak
here, authority have less attention on this area, resulting the occurrence of
some sort of illegal activities around the area
The rest of the general culture and activities in the area include:
Necessary Activity - eating at nearby hawker stall or restaurant, standing by
the road to wait for clear of path to cross the road, waiting for bus under the
bus stop, necessary shopping for general needs, religious activities at nearby
temples
Optional Activity - sitting and chilling under the bus stop, grabbing cendol as
after meal dessert at nearby stall
Social Activity - passerby conversing with old store owners by the store front,
talking to each other around the bus stop and open space area
Waiting for bus and casual conversation at bus stop
Optional activities in the alleyway

8. SIMILARITY AND DISSIMILARITY
It can be concluded that both the foreign and local urban site have more or
less the same type of activities going on, with varied intensity due to the
population of the area of course.
In Sham Shui Po, the presence of the recreation park sparks more
activities(mostly social activity) to happen among people, whereas Kajang have
a very limited availability of open space for people to socialise so.

9. 3.3 CONTACT POINTS
According to the case study from project 1, Sham Shui Po have quite a lot of
contact points, with sufficient evidence for 6 point found. Contact points are
where most of the activities of an area happens, therefore it is a best topic to
compare on to find their similarity and dissimilarity and later on to be
analysed what elements can bring what outcome to an urban site. For this
paper we will take 2 contact points for analysis which are:
SHAM SHUI PO, HONG KONG
Contact Point 1 - POCKET PARK
The pocket park of Sham Shui Po is located in the middle of Nam Cheong
Street. This pocket park acted as the mutual gathering space for the residents
of the area. Due to the limited amount of space they have in their respective
home with no living rooms, the pocket park is almost seemed as a ‘living
room’ for the residents.
The pocket park is quite successful for its purpose with residents actually
using it efficiently, with some social activities going on. The main attraction for
people to use this space is quite simple, simply providing shades and benches
for seatings and residents eventually will make use of those facilities and
benefits. With some residents making use of those benefits, the rest of the
residents will be attracted through the concept of ‘people attracts people’
mentioned in the book of Jan Gehl.
Whenever they see their friends or even strangers hanging around the park,
they would shed off their reluctance and also participate and experience what
is in the park that makes people stay.
Section showing the visual interaction of the park and the upper floors of building
Although the street between the building and pocket park may seem big in a
human perspective, it is actually appear narrow in relation to the high height
of surrounding buildings. Despite that, the surrounding buildings have
openings faced toward the pocket park, providing visual interaction to the
space and meanwhile making them feel involved in the activities happening
around the park. The tall building height also provides shades, comforting the
pocket park.

10. Benches are also allocated within the pocket park, giving opportunity for
people to take a break and rest in it among the street of continuous movement.
The arrangement of bench are in such a way the frontage of bench is distance
away from the street of vehicles, and this distance also allow better visual of
users to the upper levels of the facade of building they are fronting.
Benches with views aligned to the facade of surrounding buildings
Contact Point 2 - FOOD STALL AND FABRIC WHOLESELLER
The following contact point is located at a food stall named Keung Kee Food
Stall and it is also located nearby fabric wholesale shops. Fabric wholesale is
one of the primary industry in Sham Shui Po, and some customers from
foreign places come here to get their hands on quality materials. The
customers evoke discussion on the fabric on around the shops and interact
among one another to know better regarding fabric.
The Keung Kee Food Stall have shading extended out of walkway boundary, it
may seem as it is illegal to do so, but the extended shading is exactly what
made it a comfortable place for people to sit by and enjoy their meal under
shade. The food stall is also have been there for quite some time, becoming a
heritage location, also providing heritage food to be discovered by visitors.
Keung Kee Food Stall along with the shading have provided people a comfortable place

11. KAJANG OLD TOWN, MALAYSIA
Contact Point 1 - BUS STOP
The contact point of Kajang Old Town is located on an open space, which may
seem to be the only open space in the area, with a bus stop near the edge of
the space. The bus stop that look like it is not contemporary to the place, as it
was built later by the authority, and probably that is what makes it a node and
a contact point to the people, or maybe it is purely because it provided shade
for people to rest under.
The open space also have benches made of steel in it, but people do not really
use it due to the lack of shade. The open space have a few trees planted
around it aiming to bring some natural shade to the benches surrounding itself
but the purpose is quite off because the trees are not big and dense enough to
provide sufficient shade.
Some people are there around this contact point for the purpose of waiting for
a bus, some are merely sitting around for shade, some are undergoing cleaning
activity, but social activities are nowhere to be found.
The open space, insufficient size of tree, and the out-of-place bus stop
Contact Point 2 - ALLEYWAY OF SHOPS
With most of the streets of Kajang Old Town that seem to lack activity
happening around, surprisingly there is an alley with shops protruding out
from the shoplots and some activities are going on in there. People sitting by
the shops having a conversation, children playing nearby the drain, and
passerby coming in with some taking pictures of the alley.
The narrow alley have that of what exactly a people need as a resting place:
seatings, shades, food, and a decent amount of activity going on around them.
The alley have all those elements, instead of the mentioned contact point of
bus stop. However due to the displacement of community by foreign
immigrants, the activity happening in the alley have been reduce to minimal,
with the some faces of shop owner appearing to be dissapointed. In addition,
the alley is not a space designed for one to station there as it might be
dangerous, therefore passerby mostly only walk through the alley and almost
none of them are willing to stay longer.

12. The open space, insufficient size of tree, and the out-of-place bus stop
SIMILARITY AND DISSIMILARITY
From the analysis of these contact points, there are a level of similarity derived
from them. The key elements that have made all these space to be a contact
point are mostly the same and they revolves around features that contributes
to comfortability. And these few features are nonetheless: Food, shade, seating,
space availability, human concentration, enclosure and such. With those
features considered, the space could be a potential contact point where human
activities happen around it.
There are still dissimilarity however, which is the intensity of activities that is
depended on that population of the area. Sham Shui Po is an area of immense
density of population where even with dozens of high rise condominiums
some still struggle to find a place to live in, but Kajang is a place with its
community slowly fading out as it is being displaced slowly if no
countermeasure is taken.

13. 3.4 BUILT ENVIRONMENT
SHAM SHUI PO, HONG KONG
Referring to the figure ground of Sham Shui Po, the buildings seems to be in
an organised pattern, but it is otherwise when the perspective changes. Sham
Shui Po from an eagle eye view perspective, it is a very dense with buildings of
different height and different architecture style, to a level ‘chaotic’ one would
judge from first impression.
View from a street in Sham Shui Po, Hong kong
As shown in the image, the sky can hardly be seen with the high rise
buildings enclosing into the streets. But these high rise buildings are beneficial
in a way too, providing shade that is. The tall building enclosing the streets
are able to provide shade for people walking down on the streets. And these
shade improve the comfortability of walking along the streets.
Facade wise, the faces of the buildings are arranged chaotically, air-cond
external unit at all sort of places, residents laundry hanging by the windows,
rusty window steel bars and variation of floor levels.
Shade provided by the high rise buildings to the Pocket Park

14. KAJANG OLD TOWN, MALAYSIA
From the figure ground of Kajang Old Town instead, the town look less
organised where the orientation of buildings could varies from lots to lots.
Changing the perspective, the town actually appear more organised than
expected. The heights of the buildings around the town are more consistent,
some might vary more but staying in a range of 2 to 5 stories. As the town
was developed by fortune makers of individual will, buildings were designed
with no restriction and the developer went with just any style and any height
they wanted, resulting different appearance of every shop lot.
View from an intersection of street in Kajang Old Town, Malaysia
Referring to image, the streets of Kajang Old Town look spacious, with a huge
visual coverage of the sky within sight. The proportion of buildings to the
streets are also more even, giving a subconscious feeling that the streets are
oversized. With such proportion, shade to the street are compromised. The
street would be exposed nakedly to emissive sunlight. There are still shade at
certain timing of the day however, but it would only cover half of the street at
best condition.
The faces of the building, are of styles scattered around, as it was developed by
different individuals of different shop lot. Some facades have high transparent
to the streets or the public realm while some are more shut in with minimal
openings or are covered up by signages.
SIMILARITY AND DISSIMILARITY
Both the site have quite a decent amount of space for streets of vehicular
movements, while human walkability are kept within the 5 foot walkway of
the shop lots on ground floor.
Styles and building height are different between the two sites, but that is totally
depended on the culture of an area and their respective purpose. Respectively
they have their own purpose and benefits.

15. Every urban context city have a sort of similarity that ties them together to be
categorised as an urban city, with some sort of dissimilarity too to differentiate
that they are from different city and their target group users could be different.
In this paper, it is obvious that Sham Shui Po would be denser in terms of
building density or even higher in building heights, and that is due to the
immense amount of demand and population of people living in the area,
whereas Kajang Old Town is less dense due to lesser demands and the
population of people that seems to be decreasing by time.
Filtering out what is affected by the location of place and what not, the
elements that seemed to work at the other site could be incorporate into this
site to improve the quality of life of the urban site. For instance, the idea
similar to pocket parks can be incorporate into the local site of Kajang, where
it seemed to work in Sham Shui Po.
4.0 CONCLUSION

16. - Gehl, J. (2006). Life between the buildings. Copenhagen: Danish
Architectural Press.
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- South China Morning Post. (2017). Living conditions in city’s poorest
district getting worse. [online] Available at:
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/208
9939/survey-hong-kongs-poorest-district-finds-living [Accessed 25 Jun.
2019]
- Diva-portal.org. (2014). Investigating the Small Public Urban Open
Spaces at High-density Cities: A Case Study of Hong Kong. [online]
Available at:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:729680/FULLTEXT01.pdf
[Accessed 25 Jun. 2019]
- Repository.hkbu.edu.hk. (2015). High Density Development and
Spatiality of Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong: A Lefebvrian Approach. [online]
Available at:
https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=e
td_oa [Accessed 25 Jun. 2019]
5.0 REFERENCES