Urban theories assignment

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SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING & DESIGN
Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Architecture)
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM
[ARC61303]
PROJECT 2: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ESSAY
NAME: ONG SENG PENG
STUDENT ID: 0319016
TUTOR: MR. NICHOLAS NG

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The objective of this comparative essay is to study the similarity and
dissimilarity of between two different urban contexts, given with one local site and
one international site. This student’s research paper will focus on the comparison of
social activities patterns and types of contact points, including its intensity of contact,
one in local site, Jalan Tar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and another in foreign urban site
context, Hguyen Hue Street, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The final outcome of this
comparative essay study will leads to understanding of relationship between the
different human contact points, social patterns and its corresponding site condition.
Trace back to its historical context, Jalan TAR was once named Jalan Batu
(Stone Road) as it was a path to a limestone and tin mining area around Batu
Village. Around 1950s during the Malaysia’s Independent period, the street then
changed to Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman, named after the first prime minister of
Malaysia. The place was once a downtown popular spot backed then during the
British colonial period, with the Coliseum Cinema and Coliseum Café both
frequented by the high-ranked British officials. It was a sprawl development
community until the influx of development happening after the nation’s
independence. More high-rise buildings were built at the site and some old houses
were demolished for development. Due to more available housing in suburban
areas, more people moved out for a better living standard. Many of the former
businesses left from Jalan TAR, making the influx of textile businesses available to
the area due to local demands. Today, besides SOGO malls, Coliseum Cinema and
Café, Jalan Tar also known for textile commercial.
On the other, Nguyen Hue Street lies in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City. It
belongs to District 1 which is regarded as an animated central urban district with
highest living standards of this city in every aspect. This street is one of the city’s two
main commercial centres (the second is Dong Khoi Street). This is the reason for
extremely high prices of land using right in this street. On this street, there are many
multi-storey buildings, luxuriant trade centres, and crowded restaurants. For many
years, Nguyen Hue Street was a main spring flower market for citizens of Ho Chi Minh
City. Now, this market has been moved to 23/9 park, however to commemorate the
traditional market, The Nguyen Hue Flower Street Festival has been held for seven
years as an annual event of Tet holiday. Every Tet holiday, the street is flooded with
flowers of all kinds and all colours which are decorated splendidly and impressively
according to each year’s theme. On this occasion millions of visitors come here to
enjoy the beauty of Nguyen Hue Flower Street.

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According to Jan Gehl’s “Life between Buildings”, the human contact point in
an urban context consist of three main forms, which are the necessary activities,
optional activities and the resultant activities. As long as there is interaction which
allow people to exchange idea and experience, there is a contact point. To briefly
explain each of the 3 categories of contact point, necessary activities are those will
going on everyday regardless of the quality of the outdoor space such as the working
class commuting to work or students studying in school. Next, optional activities are
those take place only when the surrounding condition is optimal. For instance, when
the cleanliness of park and weather is good, couples could go on to take a stroll in
the park. And then there is resultant activity or social activity that is sparked from the
precious mentioned categories. It could be one talking to co-worker during working
time or joining the crowd to watch street performance while strolling in the park.
The path of Jalan TAR Street is bent along its way, spanning approximately
1870 meters starting from the junction of Jalan Tun Perak and Jalan TAR at the
South up until Chow Kit Railway Station. The south end is near to the tourist
attraction like Masjid Jamek and Dataran Merdeka. This area has a low intensity of
contact point as it is mostly intentional activity will be happening around this area.
Dataran Merdeka
Figure 1. The location of Jalan TAR

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The shoplots in the south access has no apparent attraction point to the visitors.
There is inadequate open spaces for public activities and little signs of human
activities. Most of the activities stay indoor which are within the shoplots compound.
Thus the functions offered by Jalan TAR seems very much limited to intentional
purposes, such as getting certain service like accommodation or buying textiles.
Figure 2. View towards the access of Jalan TAR at the junction of Jalan Tar and Jalan Tun Perak. The w ide road makes it
inconvenient for people to access to the site and there is no any sort of public space or activities made visible to people.
Figure 3. This is the view in the southern section of Jalan TAR, the road divide the
flank of shoplots, preventing people fromgoing around the shoplots easily. The
Northern part of Jalan TAR is know n to more popular w ith many higher intensity
contact point, yet for the south section, as a pathw ay for touriststo accessfrom
tourist hotspot, it is hard for them to know behind the street and the surrounding
conditions further prevent the tourists fromfurthering explore of more w hat’s
behind Jalan TAR due to its lack of socialactivities happening around the area
and a few of close downshops. In Jalan Tar, one is hard to expect w hat’sblocked
behind the buildings due to its bent pathw ay.
Access to Jalan
TAR

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Besides,there are some part of Jalan TAR that makes it obsolete to the locals
as well as the visitors. As mentioned earlier, the southern part of the shoplots has
lesser intensity of contact points due to its distant from the gathering hotspot and the
homogenous functions and activities it offers, which is mainly textiles shop. When
their demands has already met around the hotspot area which is Lorong Tar and
Jalan Masjid India, this area of shoplots become indifferent to them. In addition to
these points, there are some shoplots have been closedown in the southern part
Jalan TAR and homeless sleeping at the street which further make the space
unwelcoming to the users.
Whereas on the other hand in Nguyen Hue Street, it is located in the
downtown city centre of Ho Chi Minh City, with a length of 900 m, width of 60 m. It is
situated among all the famous tourist hotspot and other high-end restaurants and
shops. Nguyen Hue Street is near to the iconic Bitexco Financial Tower Skydeck-
Saigon, City Hall as well as other cultural hotspots which makes it a place not only
for the local but to the foreigners as well.
City Opera House
Nguy en Hue Street
City Hall
Bitexco Financial Tower
Figure 4. View to the access of Jalan TAR at the junction of Jalan Tar and Jalan Tun Perak. The w ide road makes it
inconvenient for people to access to the site and there is no any sort of public space or activities made visible to people.

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Besides, there is also restriction on vehicle traffics on Nguyen Hue Street.
According to the official schedule, on week days, vehicles are still allowed to run
along Nguyen Hue Street, but from 6pm to 1am on Saturday and Sunday, all kinds of
vehicles are banned to travel here. This measure further encourage more human
activities around the street, drawing people from all classes come together at the
open space.
Figure 5. In Nquyen Street, the city hall and the statue of the former prime minister of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh serves as the
datum of the street, attracting countless people fromvisitors w ho come to travelas w ellas local people w ho come there to enjoy
the public space. With its 60 meters w idth, it could also held many event during public holiday and festival, attracting more
people to come by. During a normal day it w ould be a favourite spot for tourists to come regardless of the exposed sunlight.
City Hall & Statue
of Ho Chi Minh
Figure 6. During night time, more people w ould come by for the goods and services provided around the place. Even
though there are no adequate seating around, people still like to go there due to the fact that it being located in the city’s
centre and functioned at city’s public open space. Some people w ould even w illing to seat on the floor and do social
activities w ith their friends and family. This is a high intensity contact point, especially w hen during night time. According to
Jan Gehl’s Life betw een buildings (page 17-23), this scene has become one kind of attraction spot as people attracts
people, more kinds of activities can be observed in such space. It opens the possibility for people to make people interact
w ith each other and its environment allow s people to receive surrounding socialinformation easily and get inspired from
other’s activities.

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Nguyen Hue Street serves a more significant function to the city. It serves as
a city’s public open space where as Jalan TAR mainly serves as commercial
districts, especially for textile businesses which dominate the businesses in the area.
This also very much limiting kinds of activities that could offer by Jalan TAR as
activities are mostly restricted to shopping around textile shops. So unless the
visitors intentionally wanted to buy textiles, there is little motivation people would like
to go Jalan TAR for optional activities.
In fact, the favourite hangout spot for the locals who live near to Jalan TAR
would actually be somewhere where street scale is made friendlier to them, and its
functions suitable to them. For example, Lorong TAR and Jalan Masjid India are
some of the favourite spot for locals which is near to Jalan TAR. Both of the streets
are more ideal to human scale compare to Jalan TAR.
Many stalls will be open for
business in these two street. Besides,
these streets are also close to the
residential area of Malayan and
Selangor Mansion, which also makes
them a favourite hangout spot for the
family. Every weekend, there will be
morning markets open by the stall
owners at the street, which makes a
higher intensity contact point in that
area, encouraging more interactions
among the locals.
Figure 8. Street view during a morning market on w eekend.
Figure 7. Location of Jalan Masjid India and Lorong TAR

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Similar to Jalan Tar, there is also some place that belongs to locals to perform
their daily life’s routine. Such as one in the street at Ton That Dam, a residential
area, near to Nguyen Hue Street. Every morning, many stall owners will open for
business at the street, the locals will buy their daily supplies from them. It is a higher
intensity contact point for the locals. With frequent meeting between the local
residences, the contact network are maintained in a far simpler and less demanding
way than if friendships must be kept up by telephone and invitation. People could get
Nguy en Hue Street
Ton That Dam Street
Figure 9. Location of Ton That Dam Street.
Figure 10. View towardsthe normal day in Ton That Dam Street’s market. The visitors consist of mainly the locals and the
nearby residence. With the shophouses align along the street, flanking the road, the pedestrian-friendly creates sense of
intimacy in the community. This area belongs to the high intensity of contact point. This area has one of the good
characteristic of contact point, according to Life betw een buildings’formof contact point, enabling “the possibility of
meeting neighbours and co-w orkers often in connection w ith daily comings and goings implies a valuable opportunity to
establish and later maintain acquaintances in a relaxed and undemanding w ay.”

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to familiarise themselves with the stalls owners and other people who happened to
work there, chit-chatting among neighbours is very likely to happen due to the
closeness bring together by their everyday routines.
To sum up both comparison, Jalan TAR is a really long and narrow street
compare to Nguyen Hue Street, both of them have a different purposes and
functions. One is a street with open space spanning through all its way, serves a
city’s open space allowing public to stay and another is a street flanked by
commercial districts, mainly to cater the consumer needs.
In conclusion, the social pattern, public amenities and urban planning play an
important role in creating a pleasant and ideal environment for people. A place with
low contact point does not necessarily means bad but it just reveals the social
pattern or conditions around that community. In a peaceful side of alley or other
more private places, the intensity of contact point would be lesser but does not mean
it is a bad place, it just reveals that part of characteristic of that area one can infer,
which that place can reveal to the people either to be more private or cater more
towards intentional activities.
In Nguyen Hue Street which is situated right in the city centre, it is meant to
be a public space so the intensity of contact point is expected to be higher, with the
optimal surroundings. Jalan TAR however, is segmentalized zone by zone by the
vehicle road. It would be more pedestrian friendly perhaps by simply enhancing the
public infrastructure such as making sure the street is in clean condition and provide
enough seating and greeneries to glue the gap between it and Lorong TAR as well
as Jalan Masjid India.
(2269 words)

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Reference Lists
Gehl, Jan and Jo Koch. Life Between Buildings. 1st ed. Washington, DC: Island
Press, 2011. Print.
Nguyen Hue Walking Street In Ho Chi Minh City. (2015, July 22). Retrieved July 3,
2017, from http://visavietnam.net.vn/travel-news/nguyen-hue-walking-street-in-ho-
chi-minh-city.html
Nguyen Hue Street. (n.d.). Retrieved July 3, 2017, from
https://www.vietnamonline.com/maps/ho-chi-minh-city/nguyen-hue-street.html
Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman & Masjid India. (n.d.). Retrieved July 3, 2017, from
http://www.visitkl.gov.my/visitklv2/index.php?r=column/cthree&id=112&place_id=971