This document provides an analysis of the urban space of Section 3 in Petaling Jaya Old Town, Malaysia based on Kevin Lynch's theory of urban legibility. It summarizes cognitive maps created by local residents that identify landmarks, paths, edges, districts, and nodes in the area. Key landmarks included the Menara Mutiara Majestic tower, mosques, schools, and a community library. Major roads formed strong edges and paths for movement. Districts were distinguished by their residential, commercial, religious, and academic uses. Busy intersections and gathering places like bus stops and markets acted as prominent nodes in the urban fabric.

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SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Architecture
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC2224) (ARC61303)
PROJECT PART B
NAME : …GARNETTE DAYANG ROBERT…………………………
ID:…0315491………………………………………
LECTURER:…MR LAM SHEN FEI……………………………………

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Site Introduction
Figure 0.1 – Location of Section 3 PJ, Old Town
Source: Google Maps
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia’s first planned town, PJ has become a huge
and a very busy commercial and residential hub in its own right with over
450,000 inhabitants. Massive progress and development, and today
contributed significantly to Selangor’s economy.
Petaling Jaya Old Town is basically a very ancient and treasurable
area, famous for coffee at old style coffee shop, as well as the place to buy
essential items from sundry shops that sell kitchen stoves and school
uniforms under the same roof.

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The buildings may not have been the most inventive for its time, but to
the locals, Petaling Jaya Old Town is a functional town centre with a divergent
character, one that has outlasted the massive and modern developments
taking place around it.
The town’s first settlement consisted of over 800 houses in Petaling
Jaya South, areas covering what is known as Section 1 to Section 8 in and
around Petaling Jaya Old Town. The first two main roads were called Jalan 1
and Jalan 2, which were renamed Jalan Temper and Jalan Othman
respectively.
Figure 0.2 –Menara Mutiara Majestic, Jalan Othman
Source: Google Maps
So this is my selected significant urban space assigned to me by my lecturer,
Section 3 in Petaling Jaya Old Town.

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1.2 Cognitive Mapping
During my visit to the site, I asked a few people to help show me directions to
a certain places by sketching out a map. This is also known as cognitive
mapping. Tolman introduced this kind of mapping in his article called “The
Cognitive Map in Rats and Men” (1948), which refers to the encoding of large-
scale environments into the memory and the use of such memories to aid
navigation.
Figure 0.3 –Local passer-by’s cognitive map

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Figure 0.4 – A local worker’s cognitive map
(He drew it based on another map that he remembered)
A clear map gives people an important sense of emotional security, as
it is the framework for communication and conceptual organization, and
heightens the depth and intensity of everyday human experience.

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2. INTRODUCTION
2.1 Illustrated Essay
An American urban planner named Kevin Andrew Lynch wrote a utilitarian
book called “The Image of The City” that provided with much assistant in this
research. In city planning, Kevin Lynch used mental maps or sketched them
out to reveal human knowledge of significant or large-scale complex
surroundings. During the interview, asking people of the location of places
and asking them to help sketch it out is an easy way, which would help
everyone to understand the layout of the place. To understand the layout of
this area, people make a mental map, which contains mental images around
this area. These maps are called cognitive mapping that shows what are
important and what are not.
However, a place can be viewed or seen differently based on the
difference in personal perception and experience around the site. From the
two contributors who were a local worker and a passer-by (referring to figure
0.3 and 0.4), we can see that the local worker has a broader image of Section
3 compared to the passer-by. The local worker also looked more confident
with the area as he was more familiar with it. From the map drawn by the local
passer-by, certain landmarks and paths can be identified. As Kevin Lynch
wrote in his book, The Image of The City, landmarks has its point of
reference, it makes one orient oneself, usually an easily identifiable physical
object in the urban landscape. Also, the junctions that the passer-by had
sketched show routes along which people move throughout the area and
paths. According to Lynch, paths are especially important as they organize
urban mobility.
Nonetheless, from both of those maps there are similarities in identifying
the landmarks, districts and paths. The common landmarks are Menara
Mutiara Majestic, University Teknologi MARA Kampus, Sekolah Rendah
Kebangsaan Petaling, Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Aziz, Hockey Stadium, and

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the Community Library. To elaborate more on landmarks, Kevin Lynch
mentioned that landmarks should have a clear form, contrasts with their
background and some prominence of spatial location. Section 3 is a great
example of this theory stated by Kevin Lynch. The buildings that become
landmarks appear to be depended upon how familiar the observer is with
ones surroundings.
For example, the Menara
Mutiara Majestic and the Masjid
Jamek Sultan Abdul Aziz as shown
in Figure 0.5 and Figure 0.6
respectively, marks as a landmark
for me because I’m not familiar with
this place, and I tend to remember
something that I frequently see in
those places that I visit. These
landmarks are usually part of the
districts, which can also be used as
guidance or direction. Like when I
asked the passer-by, how do I get
from 3M (Menara Mutiara Majestic)
to Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Aziz,
she tried to remember the shortest
way to get there and by sketching them out it helped her to help me get the
directions more clearly. By pointing out the major landmarks, it helps to lead
users to their respective destinations. Also, the path makes an immediate
impact for the users to find that certain location. However, the local worker
had a different route because he doesn’t usually take the route through the
housing area, as he tends to only use the main road. So he uses the traffic
light as a node, where people usually gather to turn into the different
junctions.
Figure 0.5 – Menara Mutiara Majestic
(Own source)

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As we refer back to the districts,
being areas characterized by
common characteristics. Here in
Section 3 districts are very easily
divided. There are 4 districts in
Section 3. For example, the
residential districts dominate Section
3, with a pinch of religious, academic
and commercial areas. The
commercial consists of restaurants,
market, clinics, car workshops and
shop lots. I find that these
commercial areas tend to form along
the fringes of Section 3, resulting
them to have higher visibility to the
outsiders or customers. The religious area consists of two Masjid buildings
only, and the academic area consists of 3 school buildings and a Community
library towering above the blocks of residence. As Lynch mentioned, districts
are the relatively large city areas which the users can mentally go inside of,
and which have some common character.
Figure 0.7 – The fringes of Section 3
Figure 0.6 – Masjid Jamek Sultan
Abdul Aziz
(Own source)

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In addition, another similarity from the local’s cognitive mappings is the
strong edges formed by the roads. Edges provide the boundaries that
separate one region from another and can be differentiated into man-made
edges and natural edges. To the contributors, the road that is called Jalan
Templer and Jalan Othman, (referring to figure 0.7) these are the edges
dividing lines between 2 phases.
Figure 0.7 – The edges of Section 3
(Google maps)
Kevin Lynch states that edges are the liner elements not considered as
paths: they are usually, but not quite always, more of the boundaries between
two kinds of areas. They act as lateral references, so the roads are strong in
Section 3 showing edges. These edges seem strongest which are not only
visually prominent, but also continuous in form and impenetrable which
doesn’t make the act of cross movement made easily. This is also very much
reflected in the size of the road which create difficulties for pedestrians to walk
across. It would be interesting to see how many locals would begin to draw a
map of their own area by putting down something other than the roads (Jalan
Othman and Jalan Templer).

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Now going onto the nodes, the streets in front of the Community Library,
Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Petaling and University Technology Mara are
the most prominent nodes in the area. The bus stop next to the school is an
invitation for people to stop by. In addition, the bustling crowd that comes in
and out of the university throughout the day is also contributing to the
prominence of the nodes also a concentration point for pedestrian and
vehicles. The residents believe that the academic facilities are the arteries of
the area, giving it a sense of development and liveliness and an area where
the children can gather within. Furthermore, the masjid also acts as a
concentration node as it occasionally crowds the area with worshippers and
fellow Muslims. This area has a high density of human and vehicle
circulations. These nodes also acts as landmarks due to their scale in
comparison to the residence. For example, the bus stop is a very important
node where all the bus and taxi gathers. Nodes may be both junctions and
concentrations of places. The traffic light in between Jalan Othman and Jalan
Templer is also a recognizable node where most of the users pass through
because of its location in between the two main areas there. Somehow, there
is two types of nodes that I can recognize in this area, one is the vehicle node,
primarily, it is at the roundabout and intersecting junctions, this places are and
will be very busy daily. The secondary junctions are only during a certain time
of the day. The other node is the pedestrian node, primarily, it is at the bus
stop, the market and the shop lots, this place are most of the time very busy
daily. Secondary, the religious and schools districts, only during the weekends
and during a certain time of period during the day. Lynch stated that although
nodes are conceptually small points in the city image, they may in reality be
large squares, or somewhat extended liners shapes, or even entire central
districts when the city is being considered at a large enough level.

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As for paths, the local passer-by showed me a quicker path to go
through, it is the secondary paths where lesser vehicles are on, and its more
to a housing area and where entering different district. This secondary path is
accessible by all type of vehicles except big and heavy ones. For example,
buses, lorries and trucks. As for the local worker, he showed me an easier
way but not a quicker one, this is the primary path, Jalan Othman to Jalan
Templer. This primary path is very congested during the weekdays but lesser
vehicles during the weekends and it is accessinle by all types of vehicles
throughout the day and night. However, there is one more path, that is the
pedestrian paths, where it is mainly used for getting to the bus stops and
commercial districts. As Kevin Lynch mentioned, paths are channels by which
people move along or routes along which people move throughout the city.

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3. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Kevin Lynch contribution was to provide experimental
research on city planning, studying how individuals perceive and navigate
the urban landscape. Therefore by using his guide for this research has
been really helpful and beneficial for us as young architecture students.
The various techniques for enhancing and creating the “perfect city” using
these specific forms are defined as physical attributes and are
distinguished as these unique “five elements” are “paths, edges, district,
landmarks and nodes”.
Based on that, Section 3 is quite clear on the overall five elements that
Kevin mentioned. This is important as mental maps or to say cognitive
mapping helps look at how people orient themselves in these cities. The
maps that the locals drew were images of immediate sensation and of the
memory of past experience, and it is used to interpret information and to
guide action.
A few things that Kevin Lynch declared was that “people’s perception
of the city is important” and elements like those makes a city. By
understanding these problems and opportunities, we as young architecture
students could use them in designing a great city.

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6. REFERENCES
CANNIFFE, EAMONN, EAMONN CANNIFFE, and View profile.
"ARCHITECTURE + URBANISM: Kevin Lynch: The Image Of The City
(1960)".Architectureandurbanism.blogspot.my. N.p., 2010. Web. 28 May
2016.
"Image Of The City". Slideshare.net. N.p., 2016. Web. 28 May 2016.
"One-Way Streets To Help Ease Traffic In PJ Old Town - Community | The
Star Online".Thestar.com.my. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.
"Review: Kevin Lynch – The Image Of The City | The Mobile
City". Themobilecity.nl. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.
Teams, Malaxi. "Understand Petaling Jaya History And Area
Overview". Malaxi.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.
Tolman E. C. (1948). Cognitive maps in rats and men. Psychological Review,
55, 189-208.
Downs, R., & Stea, D. (1973). Image and environment; cognitive mapping and
spatial behavior. Chicago: Aldine Pub.
Kevin Lynch (1960). The Image of the City.

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A3 COGNITIVE MAPPING