The document summarizes cognitive maps created by various individuals of Bukit Bintang, a shopping district in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Shopping malls were consistently prominent landmarks across the maps. A security guard's map only included the southern area he frequents, while a salesgirl's map extended beyond based on her experiences. A couple's maps varied in mall orientations due to different experiences getting there. The observer's map identified distinct commercial, education, and corporate districts based on Lynch's theories of paths, edges, nodes, and districts. Iconic landmarks like malls were most memorable versus utilitarian areas only important to locals.

1. Theories of Architecture & Urbanism [ARC61303] [ARC2224]
Project Part 2 : An Illustrated Essay With Cognitive
Mapping of Selected Urban Spaces.
Name : How Pei Ngoh
Student ID : 0316929
Tutor : Mr. Lam Shen Fei

2. Introduction
Bukit Bintang is located at the heart of Kuala Lumpur and it is known as
golden triangle, where is actually a large area that encompasses a number of major
streets. The city roughly covers the area of Jalan Pudu, Jalan Imbi,Jalan Bukit
Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail. The city is famously with the shopping and
entertainment district that is a place for fashion, merchandise and accessories, IT
products, designer brands and electronic goods. So the range of users generally are
teenager, adults, foreign worker and tourist, it is hardly to see senior citizens walking
around except old taxi drivers hooking around. Nevertheless, the senior citizens are
active at the shophouses and residential area where is along Jalan Changkat
Thambi Dollahand and located behind of Berjaya Times Square, a place where is
inactive and duller than Jalan Imbi.
Besides that, It is a convenient location that can access by all kind of
transportation available in Malaysia, because there are few monorail and LRT station
are located at the city and also the city’s boundary are contributed by expressway
and smart tunnel that allowed vehicle by road can easy access to the city from

3. outside of the central Kuala Lumpur. However, the roads always suffer from acute
congestion due to corporate districts around that causes traffic jam especially during
the peak hours.
For the understanding of people’s perception and spatial behaviours that how
the selected area is being recognized and impressed the people of public, there are
4 people from public have been interviewed and 4 different cognitive maps are
obtained with different background. 2 of the 4 reviewers are the workers at the
Berjaya Times Square, one is a male foreigner security guard with middle aged but
another reviewer is a local young girl who working at a cosmetic counter as salesgirl
with the age of 20. The cognitive maps created by both of them are covered two
different area of the city. Furthermore, another two cognitive maps are created by a
pair of lovely couple from university, who went to the site for dating and shopping. So
the cognitive maps created by them are more or less similar. Not to mention, I had
amazed by the result of the interview with taxi drivers, who should have very strong
memory and understanding about the Bukit Bintang and Kuala Lumpur, with the end
of they could not able to draw anything on paper and claimed that they were too
familiar to go to any destination and sometime make the turn based on their feeling.
In order to analysis and compare the cognitive maps obtained from the
reviewers and a map created by myself, I combined the maps got from similar
background of the reviewer into one and summarized the maps into 3 maps, which
are foreigner security guard and cosmetic counter girl into one, the combination of
lovely couple and the last one would be the cognitive map created by myself. A
comparative essay will be discussed in the paper and which will focus on how the
urban planning of Bukit Bintang influences the people’s perception and the way they
create the cognitive map based on human facet, architecture, spatial and temporal
dynamics.

4. Figure1Cognitivemapbyamiddleagedforeignersecurityguard

5. Figure1Cognitivemapbyayoungcosmeticcountersalesgirl

6. Figure3summarymapofFigure1andFigure2

7. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the cognitive map drew by a middle aged of male
foreigner security guard and young cosmetic counter salesgirl. I have summarized
both of their maps into one which as shown as Figure 3, because both of them are
working at the selected area and might have different perspective compare from
other reviewers.
As a matter of fact, the cognitive map (Figure) created by the foreigner
security guard shown that he only able to drew out the southern area of the Bukit
Bintang, his way to back hotel, where is the shophouses behind of the Berjaya Times
Square and along the Jalan Nyonya. According to the interview, he only actives at
the southern area of Bukit Bintang and seldom go beyond the Jalan Imbi due to the
expensive branded item and food, so the Jalan Imbi become an kind of edges for
him . However, he was able to tell me a few famous landmarks, where are shopping
malls beyond the Jalan Imbi, such as Lowyat, Sungai Wang Plaza and Pavillion,
although all these names are not showing in the map he drawn.
By analysing his cognitive map( Figure 1 ), some building’s name is found on
the map such as LRT Station, Furama Hotel and Berjaya Time Square. Based on
this point and the theory of Kelvin Lynch, large and iconic global landmarks such as
public transportation station, hotel and shopping mall are the memorable location
and navigator of people to memories and orientate themselves within a wide area.
Besides that, the path on the map ( Figure 1 ) seem inconsistent, every dot along the
path is supposed to be a junction or a cross over where the guard stops during his
journey and caused the path on map inconsistently when he was recalling back and
drawing the map.
By comparing the cognitive maps of Figure 1 and Figure 2, Figure 2 seem
detail and cubical than the map of Figure 1. The map covered the area, where is
beyond the Jalan Imbi and it does not show on the map of security guard, is the area
where most of the commercial and cooperate building located. According to the
interview, the impression that the Bukit Bintang impressed her was the high-rise
buildings and the shopping malls. She claimed that the location of Bukit Bintang is
convenient that could access by all kind of public transportation. Thus, most of the
time after work she would meet up with her friends who are working at Bukit Bintang

8. as well for dining or shopping before they go back home, that’s made her so familiar
with the area beyond Jalan Imbi.
On the other hand, she also mentioned some of the infrastructures are old
and dirty, so she would rather choose walking through the shopping mall as
alternative route to reach to next destination. However, when a question about the
southern Bukit Bintang been asked, she was not able to answer because she did not
know that was such an area behind of BerJaya Time Square. As a result, the
cognitive map she drawn is much different from the security guard’s cognitive map,
that it shown the shops lot, shopping mall, traffic light and public transportation
station with shape than word. The commercial buildings of the selected area on the
map is always bigger than other, which again proves that the Kevin Lynch’s theory,
“global landmark provide orientation cues and memorable locations that provide
instant recognition of one’s location.” (Lynch,1960)

9. Figure4Cognitivemapbythegirloflovelycouple

10. Figure5Cognitivemapbytheguyoflovelycouple
Figure6summarymapofthelovelycouple

11. Furthermore, figure 4 and figure 5 are the cognitive maps obtained from a pair
of lovely couple and figure 6 is a summary map of their cognitive maps. The
summary map (Figure 6) has a result of that besides all of the famous shopping
malls located, LRT and Monorail stations are the second thing marked on the maps.
The result is similar to what shown on the Figure 2, the shopping malls again been
drawn with bigger shape and stated clearer than Monorail station but the shop lots
and the southern part of Bukit Bintang are missing from the map.
The couple told me, that they come to Bukit Bintang is because of the
entertainment district and they can get their needs easily such as food, clothes and
IT product. Also the monorail station (Figure 7) or entrance of shopping mall always a
gather point for their meet up and also for their friends. Based on this point , we can
see that the place where the journey begin and end always had a strong image in
the people’s memory, especially the public transport station.However, the orientation
of the shopping malls on both of the maps are different. On the basic of Kevin Lynch,
“the mental map is the product both of immediate sensation and of the memory of
past experience.” So, it is to be believed that the experience of them on the way to
meeting each other might be different. It could affect by the environment or any past
experience that resulted different orientation of their memorable location on the
cognitive map. (Lynch,1960)
Figure 7 Imbi Monorail Station located right beside of Berjaya Times Square

12. CommercialDistrict
CorporateDistrict
EducationalDistrict
Figure8cognitivemapbytheobserver

13. Figure 8 is a cognitive map created by myself that is seem much different as
compared to the cognitive maps above. The cognitive map created based on the 5
elements proposed in “the image of the city” by Kelvin Lynch. The 5 elements are
known as paths, edge, district, node and landmark. As a freshman and an observer
to the selected area, the edges of the site is define by wide and high circulation road,
which known as Smart tunnel, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Pudu and Jalan Changkat
Thambi Dollah, because they are the expressway access by car. However, for
middle age of user such as the foreigner security guard, the boundary of the city
might set not beyond the Jalan Imbi as I mentioned above because the resources
available there probably not suitable for middle aged people, but it is more likely for
teenagers and young adult.
Figure 9 A big tree at the corporate district
After compared all of the cognitive maps, I observed that besides of the
commercial districts, the educational district and cooperate district are missing in the
reviewer’s maps. It is because the city is distinctive districts and of crooked and
confusing path. Also, the buildings at cooperate and educational districts are short
and old, so it is hardly to attract the attention of outsider or tourist except the senior
citizen and local residents. In addition, the educational and cooperate district have
more greenery compared to the commercial district, that’s made the districts have
their own feature and made a clear boundary to commercial district.

14. Conclusion
In a nut shell, as a matter of fact that the shopping malls at Bukit Bintang are
the most important landmarks and memorable location to navigate the people for
their wayfinding. However, research shown that not every district will be memories
and impress everyone although it is nearby. Certain area such as educational district
and corporate district will only remember by local resident and senior citizen but not
teenager or young adult from outside of city. That’s come to a conclusion that the
people will only remember the way with iconic building design during the journey
they experienced in the past or the necessaries they desired. For example, most of
the people go to Bukit Bintang because of the shopping malls, quality food and
branded product, but there is certain places will be missed by them due to the place
is not important to them and the necessaries they desired are not available there. In
order to making information spaces effectively navigable, kelvin lynch proposed
some of the principles for effective wayfinding in urban city. Firstly create an identity
at each location, different from all others. Secondly, use landmarks to provide
orientation cues and memorable locations. Obviously, Bukit Bintang is successful
navigate the people with different scale or function of shopping malls that made the
people remember the landmark so well. (Ai.mit.edu,2015)

15. References
Ai.mit.edu,. (2015). 5. Design Principles for Wayfinding. Retrieved 19 November
2015, from http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infoarch/publications/mfoltz-
thesis/node8.html
Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Themobilecity.nl,. (2015). review: Kevin Lynch – The Image of the City | The
Mobile City. Retrieved 21 November 2015, from
http://themobilecity.nl/2009/05/08/review-kevin-lynch-the-image-of-the-city/