This document provides an analysis of the urban area of Puchong, Malaysia through the lens of Jane Jacobs' theories in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". It examines Puchong's development and layout, then discusses three key principles from Jacobs' work: the importance of busy sidewalks for street safety, allowing contact between strangers while maintaining privacy, and sidewalks providing a safe space for children to play. The analysis finds Puchong currently lacks interaction between residents and safe public spaces for children. Implementing Jacobs' principles through more businesses and activity on sidewalks could help address these issues.

1. PART
I:
ANALYSING
“THROUGH
THE
EYES”
OF
AN
ARCHITECT
|
CHIN
PUI
MAN
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC2224)
Project One: Theorizing Architecture
Part I: Analysing “Through the eyes" of an Architect
Stage II: Analysis and Interpretation
Name : Chin Pui Man
Student ID : 0310331
Intake : April 2015
Tutor : Pn. Nor Hayati
Date of Submission : 20th
April 2015

2. PART
I:
ANALYSING
“THROUGH
THE
EYES”
OF
AN
ARCHITECT
|
CHIN
PUI
MAN
Puchong is a sub-urban located at the between of capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and
federal administrative centre, Putrajaya. Puchong is separated into east and west part by Lebuhraya
Damansara-Puchong (LDP) expressway which the east side is has mixed development while west side
is more towards commercialize zone. Existence of expressway connecting KLIA, Putrajaya,
Cyberjaya, Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur has become one of the factor
why Puchong become attraction people migrate into this area. Due to this reason, Puchong has slowly
well known for its traffic congestion during the peak hour over the weekday. The east side of Puchong
consist of Persiaran Puchong, Taman Wawasan Puchong and Taman Puteri Puchong. Types of
housing can be find in this area are apartments, condominiums, terraces, semi-detached, bungalow
and shop houses. Majority of the neighbourhood are Chinese and were classified into rich, middle and
poor income groups. This selected area can be identified through major landmarks like Setiawalk,
Giant, Columbia Asia Hospital Puchong, IOI Properties Berhad and Pusat Cawangan MPSJ Puchong
which most of them are aligned along LDP expressway.
Based on “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs’s she talked about
the peculiar nature of cities, she sets the principle of sidewalks by analysing the safety, contact
between people and assimilating children. According to Jacobs, sidewalks serve many purposes
besides carrying pedestrians. Busy sidewalks ensure street safety, encourage contact by bringing
people together and assimilate children into society. In Jacobs point of view towards street safety, it
depends on the ability of street neighbourhood provide safety without conscious. For example, east
Puchong commercial zone is occupied by vehicles rather than people walking on the street and streets
at commercial zone are only busy during the day. Therefore in order to achieve safety street at
Puchong, it is best to have restaurants or other small businesses to add more ‘street eyes’ while
inducing people in the building along the streets to watch the sidewalks. The second use of sidewalks
is contacts. The purpose of this statement is to allow people to have contacts with strangers yet still
maintaining private life of an individual with a clear boundary line between public space and private
space. Contacting actually result strangers to have a sense of responsibility for any incident happen on
the streets. This principle can be applied to Puchong whereby in the current situation, there are less
interaction between people around the same area because most of them communicates when there is a
needs. The third use of sidewalks is to assimilate children. Jacobs discovered that a planned park or
playground is harmful for children because often teenagers fight and thus slowly the neighbourhood is
afraid to go to the park and play. Therefore to the solution of this problem, Jacobs suggested that
lively sidewalks with adults’ surveillance are safer for children to play and learn. In current situation,
there are few parks provided in each neighbourhood. But the usage of park is used by teenagers or
people loitering around which gives a sense of insecure park.

3. PART
I:
ANALYSING
“THROUGH
THE
EYES”
OF
AN
ARCHITECT
|
CHIN
PUI
MAN
References
1. Jane Jacobs. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Published by VINTAGE
BOOKS A Division of Random House NEW YORK. Retrieved from Scrib.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/124201744/Jane-Jacobs-The-Death-and-Life-of-Great-American-Cities-
1961
2. Jane Jacobs. (04.04.2009). Jane's Walk Phoenix. Eyes on the Street.Retrieved from.
https://janeswalkphx.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/eyes-on-the-street/
3. Matthias Wendt (2009). The Importance of Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961).
Available at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e5se7e6700sa9cz/AADtjd9UsdKe-
0YNRUot2L7Oa/The%20Importance%20of%20Dealth%20and%20Life%20Final.pdf?dl=0. [Last
Accessed 14 April 2015].
4. N.A. (21.12.2009). SALEM BREAKFAST ON BIKE. Jane Jacobs - On the Uses of Sidewalks.
Retrieved from.
http://breakfastonbikes.blogspot.com/2009/12/jane-jacobs-on-uses-of-sidewalks.html
5. Project for Public Spaces (e.g. 2011). Bigraphy of Jane Jacobs. Available at:
http://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/. [Last Accessed 16 April 2015].