Theory Project 2

1. THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM
[ARC61303] [ARC2224]
PROJECT PART 2: Cognitive Mapping
Name: Lee Yi Feng
NOID: 0315750
TUTOR: Mr. Nicholas / Ms. Ida

2. Location: Chow kit, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman , Malaysia
Gps : 3.165437, 101.698319
Site Map
Site Photo

3. Site Introduction
Chow Kit is one of the sub district in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, its located
around Jalan Chow Kit, and its enclosed by the parallel streets of Jalan Raja Laut
and Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. The area is named by the municipal councilor
Loke Chow Kit. The people around the area are come from different country and
community. The reason why the population around the area is so high, it’s because
there is a lot of budget accommodation around and also it’s very convenience for
people to go to the site by using the MRT station.
Furthermore, there are some of the famous places to go, the most famous
place to go in Chow Kit is the Bazaar Baru Chow Kit, it’s the largest wet market in
Kuala Lumpur and it is one of the tourist attraction. In the market you can find
almost everything you need. The market will continue operate at night. The market
known as Bundle Chow Kit and it’s open along the Lorong Haji Taib, where you
can find all the used clothing and accessories are on sales in the market.
Moreover, I had chosen one of the most interesting street to further
exploring the urban planning of the street. Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman is also
known as TAR. It was one of the KL shopping place, before the modern shopping
complexes took the kl metropolitan city. The whole stretch of the shops along the
street had been preserved by the government, and some of the shop had been
readapted to accommodate for the modern retailing business.

4. Introduction of Cognitive mapping
Cognitive mapping are mental representations of physical locations. For
example, human and animal are using them to recognize some of the important
features of the place. The cognitive mapping can be very different between
different people. From the cognitive mapping, we can found out that where is the
place they usually go and what they actually always looking for.
The task of this project is to ask few people
to sketch a cognitive mapping of the street. So, from
the cognitive mapping we can see where is
important and where is less important. Beside, is the
example of the cognitive map drawn by a 5-year-old
kid about his current living apartment. From the
drawing we can know that which route does the kid
prefer to walk. If you call a blind people to draw a
cognitive map for you, they might be defining the
route more on the sound and touch compare to the
sighted people. Disable people are more carefully in
choosing the route they wanted to walk.
By using the cognitive mapping, you can
easily understand the users experience about the
place. So, architect can start to thinking how to design the
circulation and spaces by aware of the social, climate,
zoning and anything that might affect the user experience through the planning of
the circulation and design. For example, if an image of a building is the most iconic
thing in the mapping drawing. Architect can analyze out that the building around
there is influencing their mental mind.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/som
merdemo/mapping/images/lizMap.png

5. Cognitive Mapping Requirement / Participant
This project requires us to create different types of cognitive map for the
selected significant urban spaces in the city of Kuala Lumpur. So, by using the
cognitive map, we can start to know people perception about the street. After
that, we can start to give some critical understanding of the emerging
contemporary urbanism in Kuala Lumpur. We can also be referring to the book
called Kevin Lynch Notion of image ability. Below is the list of participant
details for the cognitive mapping.
1)
Name :Chuah Say Chin
Occupied: Engineering
Age :
Reason : The reason is because, she had been to the street several times.
She know pretty welll about the circulation pattern and the activities at the street

6. 2)
Name : Chuah Shi Wei
Occupied : Teacher
Age :
Reason :She been to the site first time, so I can be able to know the very first
impression to the street compare to the person who going several times

7. 3)
Name : Lee Yi Feng
Occupied : University Student
Age : 21
Reason : Been to the street first time, I would be able to compare it with the
first a second participant

8. Comparative the cognitive maps
Based on the 3 cognitive mapping that had been collected from different
categories of people, we found out some of the interesting part from the drawing.
All the cognitive mapping have their similiarlities and dissimilarities. From the
similarities and dissimilarities, we can analyze out the perception of urban planning
for the users.
SIMILARITIES
Firstly, lets talk about the similiarlities about the cognitive mapping. From
the map itself, we can notice that all the three cognitive mapping are more focus
on the pathway and the road. The reason why is because the path and road at the
street is consider big, combining with the perdestrian. The total width of the street
and the road is around 20 meters. The road at the street is only allow car to drive
in one way direction. By using one way road, people around the street can be
easily see different activities on going along the perdestrian walkway and people.
However, we can see that the building are build side by side to sandwich the road
and perdestrian, so it create kind of narrowness feeling to the street. So, it help to
strengten the image of particular paths. Therefore, you are not easily get lost at
the street.
Secondly, another similiarities in the cognitive maps is the outline of the
building on the maps. The reason of each of the building outline Is on the map is
because the street is quite a long distance compare to the other street nearby. So,
it might be a little bit hard to let the people know where is the location they are
actually standing. This is the reason why you can see all the cognitive map have
the building outline and name of the building. People are normally using the
building name and outline to tell or regcognise their locations.
DISSIMILARITIES
Furthermore, here is the dissimilatities we can found on the cognitive map.
The first dissimilarities about the map is the focucing point of the road. You can
see that the street that I chosen is one of the main street of the place and people
will go to the small street when they are purposely go. For the first participant, she
had been to the site several times compare to the second and me. Which is why
she can be able to draw a much more detials map compare to others cognitive
map. So, we can notice that most people are walk along the main street only.

9. Secondly, another differences between the cognitive mapping is that the
second participant had been to the site for the first time. So you can see that the
way she drawn the map is more focus on the middle of the road compare to the
first paticipant. Her drawing are more like a zoom out version of the map, we can
notice that the first paticipant is only more focus on the main road. However, the
second participant had been to the site several times and have more
understanding to the circulation. So, the reason is because of the urban planning
of the street is a bit messy, there is many little streets join to the main street Jalan
Tuanku Abdul Rahman, but the problem is the planning of the urban doesn’t not
lead people to pass through every street. The little street will only use by people
when they really purposely wanted to visit the street.

10. Finding
Based on the similarities and dissimilarities, we can analyze the theory from
the book Image Of The City by Kevin Lynch. First, in the urban planning stages,
road planning is one of the important thing. It can help to control the circulation and
also creating district. From the book (Lynch) 1960, stated that path were the most
predominant elements. If a person who knew the city better had unusually master
parts of the path structure. However, some of the people will still more rely upon
small landmarks and less upon either regions or paths. From above statement from
the book, we can compare it to the cognitive mapping drawn by the participants.
Rather just remember the road , people will try to remember the position by
recognize the landmarks of the street. Other than that, above had discuss about
the time to spend to understand about the street, (Lynch) 1960, stated that people
liked to know where the paths came from and where they led. Path with clear and
well-known origins and destinations had stronger identities, helped tie the city
together and gave the observer a sense of bearings whenever crossed them. For
example, people have to use a lot of intelligibility to think how to reach the
destination rather using a good path route to lead them to the destination without
giving them trouble.
Landmark is one of the method to let people to remember the place and the
location. (Lynch) 1960, stated that landmark is more likely to be chosen as
significant, if they have a clear form, if they contrast with the background and if
there is some prominence of spatial location. For example, we can see a lot of new
building are infill in between the old shop lot along the Jalan Tuanku Abdul Samad.
People like to use landmark to remember their position rather remember the name
of the street. So, from the cognitive map we can see that, people will only
remember some of the famous shop and well design building as their landmark.

11. Conclusion
In conclusion, from the cognitive mapping, we can see different pattern of
map represent different types of impression from that person. From there, we can
start analyze out what Is the disadvantages and advantages of the urban planning.
The cognitive mapping is standing for part of the psychological and social aspect
with the physical environment. From the map, it influencing the architect in
designing the development urban planning. The better design is aware of the
importance of the mental mapping, it’s like planning a route for the occupants take
arriving to, going through and leaving your building. Before design a building,
architect have to stimuli what is the user experience. Social, climate and zoning
might affect the people perception toward your works. As an architect, mental map
is the best method for you to visualize and synthesis your design. Lastly, from the
cognitive map of this assignment. We can found out some of the thing we couldn’t
see until we compare with the cognitive mapping. It pretty important to know the
user experience before we planning the city and building position.

12. References
Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
(n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/1835633.jpg
(n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5100/5430320449_cbcbba5918_b.jpg
Mapping: Cognitive maps. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/cogmap.htm
Why a Mental Map is Important for Architects to Understand - Sensing
Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman. (2009, December 1). Retrieved November
23, 2015, from http://sensingarchitecture.com/2400/why-a-mental-map-is-
important-for-architects-to-understand/