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School of Architecture, Building and Design Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Architecture

THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM [ ARC 61303 ] PROJECT PART 2 : COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ESSAY ( Individual )

Teo Kuo Chien | 0320195 Mr. Nicholas Ng

Table of contents 1.0

2.0

Introduction 1.1

Project introduction

1.2

Medan Pasar

1.3

Tung Chau Street

Comparative Analysis Essay 2.1

Weather

2.2

Architectural and Urban Form within its Social

2.3

Cultural context

3.0

Conclusion

4.0

References and Citations

1.0

Introduction 1.1

Project Introduction

In this project part 2 of Theories of Architecture and Urbanism, we are required to produce a comparative analysis essay individually. It is a writing assignment that critically analyse any two subjects. As for us, we are required to compare and analyse two different streets provided for our previous project which is Medan Pasar, Malaysia and Tung Chau Street, Hong Kong.

1.2

Medan pasar

Figure 1

Medan Pasar was once known as the Old Market Square, where a place to be for traders as there were facilities like banks, textile shops, grocers, and traditional medicinal halls. It was not just a market before, it was also a gambling haunt that was frequented by the working class. According to historical texts, the street was also home to many opium dens and brothels. It was headed by Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the street was known as Macao street or Hokkien street by the old Chinese community.

Medan Pasar in the modern times is just like many other roads in Kuala Lumpur, a picture of tall buildings and refurbished old shop houses. Most of the three-storey shop houses were built in 1920s after the relocation of the market and a lot of them has turn into houses cafes, trinket shops, cheap boutiques and mobile phone stalls.

1.3

Tung Chau Street

Figure 2

Tung Chau West Street is located in the North Cheung Sha Wan industrial area, Hong Kong. In the early 1920s reclamation plan, the original will be connected with Tung Chau Street, but after the change due to land use, the two streets eventually failed to connect, to facilitate identification, relatively short A 1970s changed its name to Tung Chau West Street.

When the construction of the name of the street, and later renamed Fuzhou Street, and then changed to the present name, the name taken from China’s Jiangsu Province, Tung Chau City. Before 1978, Tung Chau Street was a sea road. And because of the reclamation relationship, Sham Shui Po’s coastline is progressing westward. At present, Tung Chau Street has become and island road. and because of that, from Tokyo Street to Nanchang Street, a section of Tung Chau, is not westbound.

2.0

Comparative Analysis Essay 2.1

Weather

Malaysia is located very close to the equator, and this conclude that Malaysia do not have distinct seasons such as spring, summer, autumn or winter. As in Medan Pasar, instead the temperature is rather uniform throughout the year, with high humidity and copious rainfall. Situated in the doldrums, although Medan Pasar has abundant sunshine most of the time, it is extremely hard to have a full day of completely clear skies, because of the presence of cloud cover at various times during the day. Conversely, it is also really rare to have a full day with completely no sunshine on the street. Temperatures commonly range from 27 degree to 35 degree during the day. But it is usually not the heat that the community find difficult to handle, it is the humidity that strongly affect the community circulate around the street. The average monthly humidity level can range from 70 to 90%, which can leave people drenched in sweat after a short walk. Therefore most building are facilitate with air-conditioned.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Contact Point :

Clock tower Square

Type of activity :

Necessary activities and optional activities

Contact intensity :

Passive contacts, Chance contacts and Acquaintances

At the clock tower Square at Medan Pasar, two types of activities can be found happening which is the necessary activities and optional activities. The necessary activities are workers that goes to work, waiting for bus and also people who in need to purchase item from the street. The optional activities are the people who go for food, visitors that walk around the street and locals that passes by.

The contact intensity in the street are quite low which only consist of passive contact, chance contact and acquaintances. Due to the hot and humid weather that pour on the street, the square are empty most of the time as people do not want to get sweat after walking pass the street. Instead, the covered five foot walkway beside the the square are found crowded quite frequently due the the shades and cooling air-conditioned from the shops beside.

On the other hand, Tung Chau Street has various contrast weather elements in compare to Medan Pasar.

Generally is has the weather of four season which is the spring, summer, autumn and also winter. It is considered a sub tropical urban, tending towards temperate for nearly half a year. During November and December, there are pleasant breezes, plenty of sunshine and comfortable temperatures. Many people regard these as the best months of the year. January and February are cloudier, with occasional cold fronts followed by dry northerly winds. It is not uncommon for temperature to drop to below 10 degree.

Necessary activities and optional activities can be found on Tung Chau Street as residential surround the street and it is also a street full of running business.

As for optional activities, this are mainly due to the out numbered electronic stores on the streets.

People get to choose where to purchase the item they need.

Figure 5

Contact Point :

Tung Chau street, West Kawloon Corridor 1a

Type of activity :

Necessary activities and optional activities

Contact intensity :

Passive contacts, Chance contacts, Acquaintances, friends, Closed friendship

Of course, there are big difference compared to Medan Pasar because of the different in weather. Tung Chau Street are crowded when winter does not fall on it. And more intense level of people walk without shades compare to Medan Pasar because Tung Chau don't get the level of humidity that Medan Pasar gets. Even when people walk under the sun, they don't sweat that easily with low humidity.

2.2

Architectural and Urban Form within its Social

Medan Pasar has a very rich and mixed-culture architecture due to the reason of Malaysia is a multi culture nation. But there are still a lot of the building in Medan Pasar wear the face of old aged architecture that mostly influenced by the past colonised and some of them are buildings that is being preserved from the government.

As for now, plenty of lots are converted into hotels and most commonly new designed cafe that still preserve the outlook of the architecture due to current trend and value of the architecture. Urban form are formed according to the past where building are plotted, position rarely change but jus renovation and only small part of the form did evolved. Generally, the current Medan Pasar has more than 90% of three storey shop houses and small amount of high rise buildings. The society find convenient having these kind of urban form which it is playing great in terms of function. This apparently pop out a negative point due to the large amount of people approaching Medan Pasar. Its vehicular circulation became congested all the time with large amount of buses that pass through as Medan Pasar is also the centre of banks and main stop for private and public buses where passengers can hop on the next bus to their respective destinations.

Contact Point :

Medan Pasar, bus drop off point

Type of activity :

Necessary activities, Optional activities

Contact intensity :

Passive contacts, Chance contacts, Acquaintances and Friends

The types of activities here is Necessary activities and optional activities. Majority of the people who come to Medan Pasar reach by public transport like Lrt and buses especially the workers and locals. Besides workers, there are visitors who came to visit Medan Pasar everyday as it is developing into a better city with fascinating projects which some are done and some are in construction. Passive contact are found most in the street due

to the reason of it is a stop for bus transfer and centre point of Kuala Lumpur. Chance contact can also be seen most of the time, example like tourist asking question about routes or business contact when seller presenting their products to locals and tourist that passing by. Friends are more common now as more renovated hipster cafe and restaurant are located in Medan Pasar and mostly groups of friend or workers go together instead of going alone as hipster cafe are designed with calm environment for people to stay longer and chat.

In contrast, Tung Chau street present a very different architecture and Urban form compare to Medan Pasar.

Architecture wise, it shares only one kind of architecture which most building present the elements of repetition as for its facade and building form. This is due to the compact urban living that have high population. Most of the building are residential building and some commercial ones, all these building share not only the same repetition architectural term, but interior wise they are also having big similarities which all building are made to fit as much as it can in terms of users for residential and assets for commercial. Therefore almost all of the building are built in a form of compact and functional. Even under the bridge are pack with homeless previously before the government make use of part of the space as commercial as well.

Figure 6

Figure 7

Contact Point :

Tung Chau West Street ( left ) , Tung Chau Jade Market ( right )

Type of activity :

Necessary activities, Optional activities, Social activities

Contact intensity :

Passive contacts, Chance contacts, Acquaintances, Friends, Close Friendships

At this contact point of Tung Chau Street, it consist of all three types of outdoor activities in urban study.

Necessary activities leads by the the people who work there and live there which it has compact residential building all around the street and most of these residential building consist of some commercial area below it where the workers goes. Optional activities happen in the Tung Chau jade market and also the commercial

stalls around. The society get various choice of where to get the item they need from. Lastly the social activities. there are some public facilities found around the street where the community can go and socialise, places like Sham Shui Po Park swimming pool, Tung Chau Street squash centre, Tung Chau Street Park and also the Tung Chau Street basketball court are all the contact point that makes social activities occur.

There are all kind of contact level in the Street from contact at a modest level to a uniquely stimulating experience contact level. This only happens when the urban design consist of residential, commercial and social area which makes a different point from Medan Pasar where It does not have residential area around the streets.

2.3

Cultural Context

Medan Pasar present wide a range of cultural context due to the different cultural communities working in the same place. Looking into the signature one which is the central market place, it is a landmark where most locals and tourist will visit when going to Medan Pasar. The central market place consist of several attractive element which is the artist street where plenty of street artist exhibit and draw on spot around the place, hand made and crafted souvenir stores and bargaining street. These context makes the Medan Pasar an even more crowded street due to the unique cultural that attract plenty of tourist and also the value of the street. The society want to keep these context going on as it is a matter of how part of Medan Pasar was formed.

Contact Point :

Central Market Place

Type of activity :

Necessary activities,

Optional activities, Social activities Contact intensity :

Passive contacts, Chance

contacts, Acquaintances, Friends, Close Friendships Central market place is a place that consist of Figure 8

three of the activities in urban studies. Necessary activities is mentioning the people who work in the central market place, which is the sellers and artist. Optional activities are talking about the tourist or people who goes to purchase items.

They get a variety of choices to pick for the same item therefore buyers can be found walking around the market over and over again just to pick for better option. As for Social activities, this is for

Figure 9

friends and families that come to visit and chill at the central market. most of the time are friends that come to visit the market or buy their needs together. Families mostly went for food and shopping during the weekends. Tourist can also be categorise in this level as most of the time tourist walk in a group in stead of walking alone. The artist street are the most attractive spot that tourist will gather as there are plenty of fantastic artwork and portrait drawn and exhibiting for sell.

Figure 10

In contrast, Tung Chau Street have much less of different cultural context due to the reason that it is filled with mostly Chinese only. The main cultural context on the street now is the jade market and the electronic stores.

Before the jade market was built, countless homeless stay under the bridge which brought a very negative image to the street and the government decided to solve this problem with having a jade market underneath the bridge and night market during the night. As for electronic stores, they have been around the street for many years before the jade market. Another name of the local calling the street is the electronic streets because whenever people are looking for electronic appliances, they will come to Tung Chau street because of the large variety and options of goods they can find.

Contact Point : J a d e m a r k e t ( t o p ) , electronic stores (bottom) Type of activity : Necessary activities, Optional activities Contact intensity :Passive contacts, Chance contacts, Acquaintances, Friends, Close Friendships

Figure 11

The jade market and the electronic stores are considered as commercial and also a work place for people that manage the stores. Due to that, two different activities can be found here. The Necessary activities which is the workers and optional activities which is the shoppers. All level of contact are easily seen in two of these contact point because it is a commercial area and residential area are all surrounding the places.

Figure 12

Low intensity level of contact like passive contacts and chance contact are pointing at people who are just passing through where chance contact are the people who are asking information about the goods from the store manager. Friends and families are common to be seen here also due to the purpose of commercial where they have the needs or maybe just normal shopping on the street.

3.0

Conclusion

As a conclusion, the degree of activities and intensity of contacts are largely affected by the architectural and urban form design. Cultural context is what makes the unique flavour of the street from how the community interact with each other, circulation path and also the behaviour of the society. This also conclude that the activities driven around the context as whether if it provides a suitable condition as the community need . The types of activities also controls the people’s walkability in a certain way and it drives the operation of the city to a degree where the social pattern defines the existence of the space and human behaviour.

4.0

References and Citations

Tung Chau Street Park. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2017, from https://www.globaltennisnetwork.com/ tennis-courts/courts/tennis-court-page/court/9536-tung-chau-street-park 310 Tung Chau Street. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2017, from http://www.visiblerecord.com/en/content/ 310-tung-chau-street Chan, D. (2007, March 02). Medan Pasar the hub of KL in the 19th century. Retrieved November 27, 2017, from https://www.thestar.com.my/news/community/2007/03/03/medan-pasar-the-hub-of-kl-in-the-19th-century/