RE-INHABITING FLUID GROUND

Sungai Skudai, Johor

“Floods are acts of god; flood damages result from the acts of man. Men have notedly failed to devise means for suppressing or escaping this evil, but have, with singular shortsightedness, rushed into its chosen paths.”

William McGee, The Flood Plains of Rivers

Johor’s coast is increasingly treated as an asset that is subject to intensive urban development. Its rapid urbanisation disrupts the coast’s natural hydrology and its land is rendered increasingly vulnerable to fluid ground. Prior to development, the “assetization” of the coast requires its ground to be first stabilised by infrastructure to separate land and water, thus, preserving firmitas. This dependence on infrastructure is manifest in the hardening of coastal edges.

Lower Sungai Skudai presents a unique scenario where coastal development, infrastructure and fluid ground are condensing in place. The existing mix of low and middle income housing faces displacement by luxury development and dilapidation from intensifying floods. Here, a hard edge presently manifests in a bund bounding the neighbourhood of Kampung Pasir. Constructed in 1983 to protect the neighbourhood from the overflowing river, today, the houses it shelters face the added threat of flooding from within; a condition exacerbated by urbanisation and rising tropical monsoon surges.

In light of these issues at the site, this thesis poses the following questions: How does architecture deal with fluid ground? Can firmitas and fluid ground coexist? How can infrastructure be used as a positive architectural force? And to what end can architecture be used to improve the conditions at lower Sungei Skudai? Can Johor, and its present way of living, evolve to survive fluid ground?

This thesis presents an alternate narrative to the present state of urbanism and infrastructural defence in Johor. It proposes three new typologies of inhabitation that will establish new neighbourhoods and maintain hydrological defences at the site of lower Sungei Skudai. Taking an 8km stretch of river bank, the project envisages the extension and architectural re-imagination of an existing bund to create 1300 homes for displaced low and middle income families to re-inhabit the site, granting each family new territory on prime, luxury waterfront area. This thesis envisages a change in existing inhabitation. Here, a new form of architecture embraces the changing climate and physical landscape. It mediates the changing interface between land and water. A fusion of defensive and adaptive techniques is therefore proposed as new inhabitation occupies the once disfavoured river edge.

Observed Change in Average Rainfall + 0.2 mm/day

Northeast Monsoon (December - March)

Inter Monsoon (April - May, October - November)

Southwest Monsoon (June - September)

Flash Floods 2006

Flash Floods 2007

Flash Floods 2011

Flash Floods 2012

Flash Floods 2013