Theory essay

1. School of Architecture, Building and Design
Master of Architecture
Urban Design Studio
Critical Reflection on Urban Theory
Nicolas Wong Xiao En
0314377
October 2020

2. Introduction
Kampung Baru was an agriculture settlement and it was established as Malay Agricultural
Settlement (M.A.S.) in year 1889. The vision of Kampung Baru is stated as “The Centre of
Culture and Economic Enclave for the Malays in City of Kuala Lumpur.” (Ngah, 2020). The
total land area in Kampung Baru is 220 acres with 879 lots and 5374 of land owners. The
population size is 18,400 people. All the land titles in Kampung Baru is restricted ‘For Malay
only’. The government introduced Kampung Baru Development Corporation Act (Act 733)
in 2011 to facilitate redevelopment of Kampung Baru. The statutory structure plan and local
plan regulate developments in the city is expiring soon, therefore a new statutory plan is
prepared by Kuala Lumpur City Hall (KLCH) to be gazetted and adopted by Mid of 2021.
All the stakeholders, including NGOs and private sectors are involved in this plan. The plans
are offering solutions to tackle all the urban issues faced by Kuala Lumpur.

3. Issues
The main issue of Kampung Baru is casued by the modernization of Kuala Lumpur City. As
Kuala Lumpur city is rapidly developing, the local residents are moving out from Kampung
Baru to seek for a better job opportunity. A new community is formed in Kampung Baru as
some of the land owners tend to rent out their property to the non-residents. A statistics show
a significant increase of foreign residents (19.1%) in Kampung Baru. This is also significantly
higher than the corresponding percentage of Kuala Lumpur. This caused the changes of living
pattern of the local residents and non-residents.

4. Figure 2.1 Community are connected by path to formnodes.
As mentioned by Alexander (1977) in A Pattern Language, nodes of activity are created
throughout the community, spread about 300 yards apart. Those existing spots in the
community are first identified where action seems to concreate itself. Then the layout of the
paths in the community is modified to bring as many of them through these spots as possible.
This makes each spot function as a “node” in the path network. Then at the center of each node,
a small public square is made. A combination of community facilities surrounded the small
public square and shops are mutually supportive. From the finding of project 1b, the
surrounding site if formed by various “wakaf”, the little pavilion where each of it serves as a
node to gather the community around the site.
Besides, based on the location of the institutional building on the Google Map, one can see that
there are actually lack of vocational colleges around Kampung Baru. The average walking
distance to the colleges nearby is around 15 minutes, however all the colleges provide courses
based on theory basis. This also caused the young adult moving out from Kampung Baru to
look for better opportunity & platform to learn the hand-on skills. By taking concern of the
modernization of Kuala Lumpur and lack of the vocational college around the site, the
Hospitality & Culinary Art Vocational College is chosen as the program for this project.

5. On the other hand, the poor infrastructure affected the pedestrian to hardly walk on the site.
Local architect KenYeang addresses these issues very well in his book ‘The Tropical Verandah
City- Some Urban Design Ideas for Kuala Lumpur’. Yeang (1986) mentions the idea of a
pedestrian-friendly urban architecture through the example of the verandah way (five-foot
walkway) of shophouses. Inspired by the verandah way’s ability to provide pedestrian
movement, climatic protection, and function as a social point, he proposed that covered
walkways by natural tree shadings can be integrated along connecting plazas and courtyards,
so as to create a pedestrian-oriented streets in an urban scale. In relation to trees, the integration
of shading from natural vegetation plays a huge role in promoting pedestrian walkability in a
tropical climate urban design as well. According to Speck (2012), street trees are key to
pedestrian comfort an urban liability as it offers shade, reduce ambient temperatures and
provide UV protection. Additionally, by avoiding designing large, obstructive building blocks
in favour to smaller blocks, it promotes the notion of permeability for a walkable city which
allows street life to thrive between buildings blocks (Speck, 2012).

6. DesignIntention
The ‘2P’, preserve and promote is the main design intention for this project.
Design Intention
Preserve To preserve the Kampung Baru food cultural identity.
Promote To promote the social interaction between the current community in Kampung
Baru.
Preserve
Kampung Baru is well known as a food district. The intention of the hospitality and culinary
art vocational college is to preserve the Kampung Baru food cultural identity. As the
developments go on, the food culture around the Kampung Baru shouldn’t be cover by the
concrete jungle. As mentioned by Cullen (1961) in The Concise Townscape, he was concerning
the content where the examination of the fabric of towns: colour, texture, scale, style, character,
personality and uniqueness. Accepting the fact that most towns are of old foundation, their
fabric will show evidence of differing periods in its architectural styles and also in the various
accidents of layout. Many towns do so display this mixture of styles, materials and scales. The
food culture as one of the identity and how it affect the architectural elements of Kampung
Baru should be preserve. One of the program of the vocational college teaches the students to
cook the authentic Malay cuisine.

7. Promote
Based on the future development plan by DBKL, more high-rise buildings are planned to
build in the near future. This eventually caused people to do things individually within their
living compound. The human connection is disconnected and interaction is broke by the
concrete blocks. As mentioned by Cullen (1961):
“A city is more than the sum of its inhabitants. It has the power to
generate a surplus of amenity, which is one reason why people like to live in
communities rather than in isolation.”
Therefore, urban farming is implanted as one of the community program for the hospitality
and culinary art vocational college. The urban farming helps to tackle several issues in the
overall context:
I. To act as a gathering spot for the community to gather around. To break the wall
barrier in between human. It also helps to fill the age gap between the young and elder
generation around the Kampung Baru.
II. Urban farming as the main source of ingredients for the hospitality & culinary art
vocational college. The young generation get to know the food preparation process
fresh from the soil.

8. Figure 3.0 the pedestrian and bicycle lane planned accordingly.
According to Jeff Speck’s (2012), he introduced biking back to the city by giving dedicated
lanes for bikes and pedestrian which also acts to protect them, giving proper balance of
activities within walking distance of each other and introduce more greenery to the design. On
addressing the urban scale of people-centric design – or the lack thereof – we can begin the
study of urban theories with the ideas of Jan Gehl and his vision of creating a people friendly
city through his decades of research. In Gehl’s (1984) book titled ‘Life Between Buildings’, he
emphasizes planners to be more considerate on designing urban layout that enables people to
instinctively be a healthy participant of the goings-on of activities around the urban
environment. In one of its chapter, he mentions about the four simple yet fundamental aspects
of urban design considerations, such as ‘Walking’ – designing rooms to walk, walking
distances and spatial sequences; ‘Standing’ – providing areas of stopping for a moment to talk
and stay; ‘Sitting’ – offering abundance of opportunities for sitting with factors of sitting
choices, placement and orientation; and ‘Seeing, Hearing and Talking’ –designing for people
to naturally engage in humane and civilized activities that promote a positive human experience.

9. Although the above may seem quite generic from a layman’s perspective, but acknowledging
the tiny details of human activities is crucial, and eventually the little positive attributes will
add up, providing a meaningful impact to human lives in an urban scale. Furthermore, in a
tropical rainforest climate context such as Malaysia, urban designers and architects should
always prioritize the implementation of vegetation to not only provide a pragmatic solution of
lowering the microclimate, but as an ethical notion to offer a liveable pedestrianized
environment with natural aesthetic value along with it.

10. Conclusion
In conclusion, the vocational college acts an important role in Kampung Baru. It provides not
only education basis, it also acts as a catalyst to strengthen the connection between the local
communities. As mentioned by one of the interviewers in Kampung Baru, Fahmy:
“To me, development is not high-rise buildings. Developmentis, you add
value to whatKampungBaru has.”
The aim of the proposal is to build a vocational college that accommodate program to educate
the young generation and concurrently promote the interaction between the local
communities.

11. Reference
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S. & Silverstein, M. (1977). A Pattern Language: towns, buildings,
construction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cullen, G. (1961). The Concise Townscape. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, London.
Gehl, J. (2011). Life between buildings: using public space. Island press.
Speck, J. (2012). Walkable city: How downtown can save America. One Step at a Time. New
York, USA: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Teoh, T. (2019). Kampung Baru: Preserving the Last Village in Kl’s concrete jungle.
Retrieved from https://www.lokalocal.com/blog/local-story/kampung-baru-last-village/.
Yeang, K. (1987). The Tropical Verandah City: Some Urban Design Ideas for Kuala Lumpur
Some Urban Design Ideas for Kuala Lumpur. Longman, Kuala Lumpur.