Rok Oman / Spela Videcnik / David Rubin
Designing the Public Realm
Spring 2017
Studio Report
Rok Oman / David Rubin / Å pela Videcnik
Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm
Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, is an extraordinary city informed by multiple cultures. Largely comprised of Bumiputera (Malay) and Chinese inhabitants, the diverse constituency likewise includes Indians and subpopulations of East Malaysia. Religious affiliations include Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Taoist. The city’s landscape is shaped by this conglomeration and more. The option studio “Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm” focused on a complex area that contains the business district of Kuala Lumpur City Centre, part of the channelized Klang River trapped between a highway and a historic Muslim cemetery, and the traditional Malay enclave of Kampung Baru. The site, which extends a diameter of 1.5 kilometers, serves as an illustration of the city’s complex ethnic and social fabric and the pressures of rapid development in Southeast Asia.
Studio Instructors Rok Oman, David Rubin, Špela Videcnik Teaching Assistant Mikhail Grinwald Students William Baumgardner, Emily Blair, Lanisha Blount, Chenyuan Gu, Sophie Maguire, Marcus Mello, Chris Merritt, Hyunsik Mun, Jake Watters, Emma Xue, Andrew Younker, Dandi Zhang Midterm Review Critics Myrna Ayoub, Sean Chiao, K. Michael Hays, Mark Heller, Pavlina Ilieva, Grace La, Mohsen Mostafavi, Mark Mulligan, Thomas Oslund Final Review Critics Myrna Ayoub, Sean Chiao, Felipe Correa, Gina Ford, K. Michael Hays, Mariana Ibañez, Pavlina Ilieva, Hanif Kara, Grace La, Ignacio Lamar, Nancy Lin, Kamil Merican, Mohsen Mostafavi, Mark Mulligan, Thomas Oslund, Andrea Porelli
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Preface Mohsen Mostafavi
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Introduction: Dynamic Growth Rok Oman, David Rubin, Ĺ pela Videcnik
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Area of Contrasts Rok Oman, David Rubin, Ĺ pela Videcnik
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Kuala Lumpur Forum: Designing the Public Realm
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A Platform for Exchange and Change Sean Chiao
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Research and Proposals
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Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
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Reclaiming the Klang Andrew Younker
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Kelangopy Sophie Maguire, Jake Watters
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Common Ground Emily Blair, Emma Xue
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Excavating Barriers: Creating a Porous Wall in Kampung Baru Lanisha Blount
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Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space Marcus Mello
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Multidimensional Modular Prototype for Elevated Mobility System Hyunsik Mun
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Rojak Loop Chris Merritt
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Contributors
Excursion to the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) rainforest sanctuary.
Mohsen Mostafavi
“Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm” is the second in a series of three option studios at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design sponsored by the global design, engineering, and construction company AECOM. Focusing on emerging urban conditions in Asia, the series follows an earlier Harvard GSD option studio that studied Chinese urbanization. This current studio series began with an investigation of Jakarta’s infrastructural urbanism and will conclude with proposals for Manila’s future development. While there are a number of similarities between these cities, each is unique in its own terms. For example, both Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have diverse ethnic and religious populations, but they express these phenomena in different spatial terms. Likewise different strands of colonialism have influenced the architecture of each capital. This is why it is so valuable for the Harvard GSD to consider various ways in which the intersection of planning, urban design, landscape, and architecture can produce new possibilities in the context of these cities, whose growth has largely proceeded without systematic, coherent, and of overarching urban development. Nevertheless the skyline of Kuala Lumpur is among the most recognizable in the world, mainly due to the iconic dominance of the Petronas Twin Towers, designed by César Pelli and completed in 1996. In a city now replete with high-rise structures, the Petronas Towers have stood, for over 20 years, as an emblem a hybrid modernity—one that combines the elements of geometry, Islamic minarets, and the latest techniques in design and construction to create a unique piece of architecture. The towers are also part of the multipurpose development of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), which was envisioned as a city within the city. Together with other parts of the city, KLCC has evolved as one of many distinct, semi-autonomous fragments, often within close proximity to each other but disconnected, and made hard to reach, by the highways that carve up the city. The task of the option studio conducted during the 2017 spring semester was twofold: to identify areas of investigation and action within the city, and then to find ways in which the formation of a new public realm
could bind the different areas together, in the process creating a more coherent sense of the city. A key approach in this studio, and one shared by many of the students, has been to focus on the spaces between buildings and their potential role as magnets for the public life of the city—a necessary approach to complement the emphasis on “internal life” promulgated by many of the high-rise or commercial developments. Another focus has been the place of infrastructure—a river and an elevated monorail system—and its role as urban connector rather than as cause of urban division. In addition, the studio considered the highly contentious area of Kampung Baru, the subject of many past studies and proposals. With its lowrise buildings, this island of traditional Malay architecture is home to a radically different lifestyle than the neighboring KLCC. And yet, like KLCC, Kampung Baru is also a city within a city. The nuances of and the differences between all these urban conditions each demand their own set of responses. At the same time, they require an understanding of the whole, of what Kuala Lumpur could be as a city in the years to come. The challenges of this studio were taken on by a diverse group of students, many with an interest in landscape architecture. The studio was led by a team of faculty—Rok Oman, David Rubin, Špela Videcnik—who brought their combined knowledge of architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture to bear on a series of highly charged sites. I am grateful to the commitment and dedication of both the students and the faculty as well as the generous guidance and advice of many friends and colleagues in Kuala Lumpur and from AECOM, particularly Sean Chiao and Nancy Lin.
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Preface
Introduction: Dynamic Growth
Rok Oman David Rubin Å pela Videcnik
This option studio focused on a complex urban area that contains the business district of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), part of the channelized Klang River trapped between a highway and a historic Muslim cemetery, and the traditional Malay enclave of Kampung Baru—a culturally valued, low-income village trapped in time and threatened by development. The study area, encompassing a diameter of 1.5 kilometers, serves as an illustration of the city’s complex ethnic and social fabric and the pressures of rapid development in Southeast Asia. Great urban landscapes incorporate multiple systems—ecological, social, and economic— into an integrated composition that supports life. Successful spaces are well attended, and landscapes that positively inform the human condition live on after us. Yet, in Kuala Lumpur, a significant challenge to this success stems from the tradition of ownership in Malaysian culture. While previously understood to involve only the building, ownership now also includes the surrounding land. However, the areas beyond the building envelope have been constructed without any consideration of adjacencies, resulting in a dense fabric of nonconforming, noncomplementary public spaces. KLCC consists of towers with little external connective tissue for people to inhabit.
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The city is a landscape. The space between buildings, and sometimes on top of them, is the connective tissue that binds us together. Perhaps more than buildings themselves, this space is the fabric that defines a city. It is the most equitable form of engagement, a place where people have the opportunity to interact with each other, whether economically challenged or privileged. This shared space is the low-hanging fruit—the least expensive means to positively inform the greatest number of people. Humanity exists on this common ground—this communal landscape—and when we believe in this holistically, we concentrate our efforts on making connections between people happen. Kuala Lumpur is an extraordinary capital informed by multiple cultures. Largely comprised of Bumiputera (Malay) and Chinese inhabitants, the diverse constituency likewise includes Indians and subpopulations of East Malaysia. Religious affiliations include Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Taoist. The city’s landscape is shaped by this conglomeration and more. Within this urban landscape we look to foster a common and progressive dialogue among Kuala Lumpur’s citizens. In an era of nationalism and xenophobia in the United States and elsewhere, the design of human habitation necessitates a global approach that will positively inform an understanding between diverse populations.
Dynamic Growth
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Previous page, top: In downtown Kuala Lumpur, nighttime street markets open in the early evening and are destinations for fast and fresh food. Middle: Kampung Baru’s rich traditional fabric is in extraordinary contradiction to its surroundings, both in scale and in texture. Bottom left: Although technically within the borders of Kampung Baru, the historic Muslim cemetery is separated from the village’s core by the Klang River and sandwiched between the E12 Highway and Jalan Ampang Road, which is lined with tall, contemporary towers. Bottom right: Within Kampung Baru, Jalan Raja Alang Road is lined with eateries and restaurants that spill into the street.
urban plan with architectural form, connections, and programming. Negotiating between the large urban scale and small architectural interventions (both building and landscape), and between contemporary and vernacular design, the students devised new strategies for creating collective space within the built environment. The proposals combined sustainable strategies, conservation, integration, art, and social cohesion, aspiring to bring people together in positive dialogue. Green City: Environmental Integration Kuala Lumpur is an unplanned 19th-century city. Carved from subtropical rain forest, the city still contains limited parcels of woodland, some within the city limits. These forested parcels remain disconnected, and efforts to create ecotone linkages offer an untapped opportunity. Likewise, existing large swaths of designed parklands could inform future environmental configurations within the city. Density: Physical Interface How might we turn the challenges of rapid urbanization into opportunities, creating an appealing living and working environment in dense urban fabric? Indeed, the city is and will be home for increasing numbers of people, as the inexorable growth of urban populations is unlikely to cease. Even for countries with no shortage of land, population growth continues Above: The Kuala Lumpur City Centre skyline with Kampung Baru in the foreground.
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Rok Oman, David Rubin, Špela Videcnik
Across the Klang River, in the largely Muslim neighborhood of Kampung Baru, property has multigenerational ownership. The resulting urban landscape is green but unmanaged, with little communal benefit. Multigenerational ownership also makes the neighborhood susceptible to development akin to that of the downtown; it is easier to buy out whole families than achieve consensus between generations. Thus Kampung Baru’s cultural identity and urban scale are highly vulnerable to a future of banal glass towers, similar to those existing in KLCC. Although informed by the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2020, the studio focused on alternative methods of planning to create an urban tissue that, rather than segregate private and public space by inserting mundane towers, explores the potential of a hybrid condition. Students investigated the prospect for densification, increased diverse programmatic use, and sustainability—economic, environmental, and social—while preserving cultural identity. The solutions sought to improve the quality of public life and establish different ways to integrate an
Vernacular: A Village within the City In a small corner of downtown Kuala Lumpur, a slice of village life still exists in the growing metropolis. Kampung Baru, or “new village,” was settled in the 1800s and has become an amalgamation of seven villages comprising a one-square-kilometer area adjacent to the city center. Officially listed as a Malay Agricultural Settlement by the British in 1900, Kampung Baru was established as a pastoral community to attract rural Malays to Kuala Lumpur. Today it is a low-income, vibrant Muslim and immigrant community. Kampung Baru’s prime location—the sole remaining large tract of developable land in the city’s center—makes it a developer’s dream. Its land is worth an estimated $1.4 billion.1 Recently the government issued the Kampung Baru Detailed Development Master Plan. The 20-year vision includes the construction of 1,900 hotel rooms, 2.8 million square meters of office space, and 17,500 residential units. More than 10 percent of the area would remain green, with the addition of parks and water features—a plan not dissimilar to the Petronas Towers development. Residents of Kampung Baru, particularly elders concerned for the preservation of traditional Malaysian culture, have thus far kept developers away. With eagerness for Kuala Lumpur to be perceived as a global city, hamlets like Kampung Baru are easily swept aside, even at the expense of cultural identity. For some, this is progress; for others, it is an irreparable loss. The value of cultural identity is in jeopardy. Eric Thompson, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore, argues that typical Malaysian kampungs are socially urban spaces, in that the experiences of their residents largely conform to the characteristics of social life typically defined as “urban.”2 These include socioeconomic relationships characterized by occupational stratification, consumption and production based on commodification rather than subsistence, and social interactions
Following page: Excursion to the Batu Caves, Gombak District, Selangor, Malaysia, just outside of Kuala Lumpur.
marked by formal and attenuated social ties as well as informal and intimate relationships. Simultaneously nostalgic and derogatory narratives of modernity and urbanism fix kampungs in social memory as sites marginal to and outside urban modernity. Urban Jungle: Temporary Transformations Street food and temporary markets may be fashionable in other parts of the world, but in Kuala Lumpur, this vibrancy is part of the urban fabric and cultural norm. Periodically streets and roads transforms into public places of diverse social interaction with unexpected functions and activities, especially at night. Transformations of this type reflect the cultural diversity of Malaysia, combining Malay, Chinese, and Indian traditions and lifestyles. Yet with rapid urban change driven by globalization, the area’s traditional open markets, street life, and other vernacular social spaces are disappearing.
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Zahra Jamshed, “A Village Lost in Time: Inside Kampung Baru,” CNN, September 15, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/14 /arts/kamal-photographer-malaysia/index .html.
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Eric C. Thompson, “Rural Villages as Socially Urban Spaces in Malaysia,” Urban Studies 41, no. 12 (November 2004): 2357–76, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/ 10.1080/00420980412331297573.
Following spread: At the heart of the “muddy confluence” where the Klang and Gombak Rivers meet is the Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad (mosque) where AECOM’s River of Life project is taking form.
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to challenge the quality of urban living environments with issues such as overcrowding in poorly designed, high-density dwellings; traffic congestion and gridlock during peak hours; pollution; poor public hygiene; and social isolation. Kuala Lumpur is no exception to these vulnerabilities. This was our design challenge.
Area of Contrasts
Rok Oman David Rubin Å pela Videcnik
1. 2. 3. 4.
Kampung Baru: A Village in the City Klang and Gombak Rivers: Channelization KLCC: High-End Hub Sultan Ismail: Elevated Infrastructure
Kampung Baru: A Village in the City To understand Kampung Baru’s community and develop a more meaningful place for present and future generations, planners must holistically assess and appreciate the culture and heritage of this urban enclave located just across the river from Kuala Lumpur’s high-end commercial hub. One of the most valuable tracts of land in the
capital, Kampung Baru is estimated to be worth approximately $1.4 billion. Up to this point, the enclave’s elders managed to forestall development. Within Kampung Baru, many houses serve as examples of traditional Malay architecture. These structures often include the following features, which allow them to respond to the climate and shifting occupation needs: 1. 2. 3.
Free plan organization: piloti and fluid space Traditional context, material, innovation, and technology Expandable form and space: accommodates the changing needs of the users
Klang and Gombak Rivers: Channelization Both the Klang and Gombak Rivers, which flow through Kuala Lumpur, are now channelized. This limits the rivers’ use by city occupants despite fact that several of the city’s religious communities practice cleansing rituals that would benefit from river access. After decades of pollution and neglect, the government is spending more than $1 billion to revive these significant waterways. The Klang has been rated a Class 4 river—toxic and unsuitable for use. The Gombak River is cleaner, rated Class 2, which means that it is suitable for limited recreational use. Efforts are now being made
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This option studio focused on a small area, 1.5 kilometers in diameter, that contains the KLCC, a portion of the Klang River, the Malay enclave Kampung Baru, and Jalan Sultan Ismail Road with its elevated monorail and stations. This site highlights the city’s complex ethnic and social fabric and rapid global development. It is a mix of intense construction sites, a historic Muslim cemetery, a traditional Malay village, twin office skyscrapers, a public park, overloaded traffic junctions, and layered infrastructure with underground roads and an elevated monorail, all of which amount to a disconnected public space unfriendly to pedestrians. For the purposes of the studio, we identified four precise areas of contrast within the city:
KLCC: High-End Hub KLCC is a multipurpose development area designed to be a city within a city. The 400,000-square-meter site hosts the tallest twin buildings in the world, a shopping mall, office buildings, several hotels, and a public park and mosque. Built in 1994, the Petronas Towers, designed by Argentinian-born architect César Pelli, held the title of the world’s tallest building until The scale and texture of Kampung Baru is in stark contrast to the downtown district that looms across the river.
2004. They still hold the record for the tallest twin towers and serve as the headquarters of Petronas, a Fortune 100 state-owned oil company and the largest company in Southeast Asia. At the center of the property lies KLCC Park, one of the last designs by notable Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. The park contains a jogging track, a public swimming pool, several children’s playgrounds, and a man-made lake with dramatic water fountains. Unlike the KLCC Park, which is considered public and accessible to everyone, the adjacent buildings are private spaces, disconnected, difficult to negotiate, and not pedestrian friendly. The surrounding buildings rise from the landscape as separate islands—each is a private property with fencing or other disengaging elements, poorly connected to the roadway system and neighboring plots. Public space does not exist between these towers and external areas are inaccessible, with private parking or courtyards. The spaces in between carry few, if any, expressions of the public good. Sultan Ismail: Elevated Infrastructure The KL Monorail is an urban monorail system in Kuala Lumpur. It opened in 2003, with 11 stations running 8.6 kilometers on two parallel elevated The Klang River, subject to flooding, is contained by steep embankments.
Area of Contrasts
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to bring people to the rivers’ edges, though not to engage with them directly. Opportunities abound to marry social engagement with environmental improvement. In particular, AECOM’s River of Life project emphasizes such chances for improvement. “The River of Life is one of the cornerstone projects in Kuala Lumpur, in addition to public transport,” said Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah, a director of the government’s Performance Management and Delivery Unit, who is coordinating the [river improvement] project. “We learned from other cities like Seoul and Vancouver, upgrading and beautifying the areas around the river really helps a city become more livable. Kuala Lumpur is naturally lucky to have two rivers flowing through it.”1
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Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah in Kate Mayberry, “Cleaning Up Malaysia’s Rivers of Life,” Al Jazeera, January 1, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth /features/2014/12/cleaning-upmalaysia-rivers-life-201412295711253154 .htm.
In Kuala Lumpur private property is often fenced or walled, separating the extent of the property from the public realm.
The Kuala Lumpur monorail creates a challenging condition for the space beneath its long track.
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Rok Oman, David Rubin, Špela Videcnic
tracks. Constructed above ground to avoid the costs of below-grade construction, the infrastructure project nonetheless proved extremely expensive. In addition, the monorail system does not successfully integrate with the urban fabric and thus negatively impacts street life, natural light permeation, and public space usage. The stations contain ticketing facilities on the ground level and platforms above, separated by fencing from the monorail lines. Dark stairways and isolated areas create an unwelcoming atmosphere.
The corrugated rooftops of Kampung Baru recall aspects of the traditional Malay home and stand in stark contrast to the towers across the river. Today, development encroaching into Kampung Baru is causing immense pressure for change.
Kuala Lumpur Forum: Designing the Public Realm
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A city’s center is the most important public realm that gives citizens a collective identity and efficiently connects them to all other vital resources that enable and enhance living. Rapid urbanization in Kuala Lumpur, however, has led to a city center where public spaces are separated from each other by traffic and buildings, diminishing the ease of circulation necessary to sustain an urban economy, society, and culture as well as negatively impacting its environment. Kuala Lumpur was the subject of this studio as part of a three-year research program focusing on dense Asian megacities co-organized by the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and AECOM. A public forum took place on February 20, 2017, during the students’ site visit to Kuala Lumpur, and it was an integral part of the research studio. The students’ initial research and proposals were presented and discussed by faculty from the Harvard GSD, as well as some of Kuala Lumpur’s most prominent architects, urban designers, and planners. This feedback and site exploration confirmed the students’ findings and directed their subsequent work.
Kuala Lumpur Forum
28 Above and following page: The day-long forum, “Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm,� brought together civic leaders, design professionals, students, instructors of the Harvard GSD, and the public at-large to discuss the complex and challenging issues concerning the city.
Jury: Sean Chiao (AECOM), David Hashim (Veritas Architects), Kamil Merican (GDP Architects), Feisal Noor (AECOM), Lee Jia Ping (Think City), Dr. Thomas Tang (AECOM and KLCSI), Lai Voon Hon (Ireka).
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Designing the Public Realm Presenters: Scott Dunn (AECOM), Serina Hijjas (HIJJAS Architects and Planners), Kamil Merican, David Rubin (DAVID RUBIN Land Collective, Harvard GSD), Špela Videcnik (OFIS arhitecki, Harvard GSD).
Panelists: Hamdan Abdul Majeed (Think City), Serina Hijjas, Kamil Merican, David Rubin, Špela Videcnik, Dato’ Zainal Amanshah (InvestKL).
A Platform for Exchange and Change
Sean Chiao
tecture, landscape, and structural engineering expertise supported students throughout this studio. With this cross-disciplinary leadership, the students’ explorations evolved tremendously—from research to conceptual development to the midterm and final reviews. For precisely this reason, AECOM continues to support these Harvard GSD studios, initially on studies in China and now in Southeast Asia. By facilitating platforms where different disciplines come together to debate ideas and promote intellectual discourse, and by creating opportunities that foster dynamic exchange between academia, practice, and private and public stakeholders, we enable students to participate in the real decision-making process. It is only when disciplines and sectors unite that ideas become a reality.
Following spread: The garden has always been an important part of the Kampung Baru community. Walking through the area today, one can see the unique landscape interventions residents have cultivated in their plots.
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With the unprecedented speed of urbanization occurring in Southeast Asia, we inevitably need to rethink how we, as professionals, we must address our environment. In today’s cities, the complexities that accompany urban development reach beyond architecture’s physical, social, and economic aspects. Essentially, regardless of scale and use, each project requires a holistic approach encompassing its entire life cycle. This is the fifth year that AECOM is working with the Harvard GSD. AECOM is comprised of committed individuals who, as a company, are dedicated to building for the future. We welcome stimuli that will inspire, engage, and invigorate us to redefine and investigate issues common to all rapidly developing countries. The question we must ask is, “What future possibilities can help us tackle today’s fundamental challenges?” Whether rethinking a housing typology as an economically viable expandable unit; examining intergenerational living in Kampung Baru; creating a series of functional “treetrunk-columns” to visually span the Klang River; weaving a multilayer plaza within Kuala Lumpur City Centre by injecting new programs that link the disconnected; or inserting a landscaped area to unite multiple cultures, this studio successfully demonstrated the Harvard GSD’s pedagogical approach toward exploring the public realm. Faculty members with archi-
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Research and Proposals
Final review, spring 2017.
This project envisions a new way to approach community development in a unique and vibrant neighborhood that is facing immense pressure.
William Baumgardner Chenyuan Gu Dandi Zhang
Kampung Baru is located directly adjacent to Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). Since its founding as a Malay enclave by the British in 1900, Kampung Baru has served as a cultural nucleus for the Malay population. In recent years the towering skyscrapers that represent Kuala Lumpur’s new growth and development have quickly surrounded Kampung Baru, embodying the juxtaposition of modernity and tradition. This echoes a critical issue for the city: which path will Kampung Baru follow? A vibrant array of identities characterizes the seven villages of Kampung Baru. With architecture that evolved from a mix of vernacular and colonial influences, a verdant landscape of dense shade and fruit trees, and bustling commercial corridors that overtake the streets, Kampung Baru manifests the diversity and multicultural identity that Kuala Lumpur champions. The residents here are deeply connected to their neighborhood and the way of life their families have known for generations. In the face of the new development, Kampung Baru encapsulates the pressures of modernity and the fragility of community and cultural ancestry.
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Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
For the residents of Kampung Baru, who live just past the Klang River to the north, KLCC’s development shocked their way of life and prompted a mix of emotions. Some inhabitants welcome the modernization and development, aligning themselves with the city’s omnipresent idea to embrace the new and leave behind the old. They want to live in a glimmering new apartment with a car and assimilate to the modern Western lifestyle showcased on the billboards plastered around the city. Other residents fear development. They long to continue the historic traditions their families have passed down for centuries. They see their descendants leave Kampung Baru to enjoy KLCC, spending less and less time in their ancestral community. As one resident noted, “The spiritual connection my family has had here is withering away through my children and I can’t stop it if the development doesn’t stop.” Around the neighborhood’s perimeter the encroaching towers have silently assembled, in essence trapping the community in place. Today Kampung Baru is in a stalemate of development. There are around 1,300 residences and over 5,000 owners of land, which is valued at $1.4 billion. Laws guarantee equal property ownership among all family members, causing a litany of red tape that prevents much of the development. Various city master plans envision razing the historic homes and replacing them with characterless steel and glass developments. These renderings are populated with Caucasian users rather than those that represent the existing community’s demographics. Informed by an analysis of current and historic issues and the aspirations of the city as encompassed by a range of master plans and schemes, we propose a new form of micro-infrastructures to encourage community participation and counter the towering developments that constrict Kampung Baru. This project, “Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation,” addresses Kampung Baru’s need for public space by utilizing the vacant lots and green spaces within each village. These public spaces host village meetings and offer an intimate, adaptable neighborhood-scale space that residents can use to rest, gather, or for other purposes. A central network connects these public spaces, helping pedestrian circulation and encouraging neighborhood engagement. Each village has an opportunity to make its potential public spaces into unique anchors of the community. These spaces capitalize on the distinct cultural identities of the people, their houses, and the surrounding landscape.
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
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Today Kampung Baru faces myriad issues that stem from two main topics. The first topic involves the absence of landowners who, for a variety of reasons, have moved elsewhere in the city. In their place, new residents—primarily migrant workers from neighboring Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, and China—have moved into the area. Without the generational link to Kampung Baru, these residents are less invested in the enclave’s quotidian life and often choose to spend their time elsewhere, leaving a tangible vacancy. The second issue is the area’s lack of community participation from all age groups. Historically the mosque was the central force that brought the seven villages together through daily prayers (Salat), weddings, and other social events. Over time attention has shifted from religion to other pursuits. For example, the younger generations choose to spend time in the new mega shopping mall developments in KLCC instead of traditional locations like the mosque. However, the night markets—a cultural cornerstone of Kampung Baru—remain a key aspect of everyday community life. The night markets involve a variety of food, clothing, and other goods sold at stalls that overtake the city streets. Opening after 8 p.m. and closing around 1 a.m., the night markets occur at the darkest and coolest time of the day, and after the daily prayers have ended. It is within this darkness, illuminated by the lights of the city, that Kampung Baru comes alive. The nocturnal is not a temporal feature but is rather a spatial and sociocultural force. Amidst the tropical heat and humidity, the night is integral to how the community and city operate. The late 1990s represented a paradigm shift for both the city of Kuala Lumpur and the country of Malaysia. During that decade the city decided to create a new city center to represent its overall aspirations of modernization and industrialization. The centerpiece of this development, the Petronas Towers, was named for the region’s most valuable petroleum company. Finished in 1998, the towers soar 80 stories above the surrounding city and catalyzed a flurry of new high-rise development. More than a physical manifestation of Malaysia’s modernization, the Petronas Towers— which were the world’s tallest building from 1998 to 2004—are a testament to the power of capitalism, the power of petroleum, and the power that urban growth has over history and indigenous culture. The only barriers that have slowed Kuala Lumpur’s development are the Klang River and restrictions such as Islamic laws and voting blocks.
Kampung Baru, primarily residential, contains two main commercial corridors and unique parcels for open-space development.
more significant with KLCC as its backdrop. The second set of typologies abstracts the roof’s form and orients the roof with respect to the zoning designation. Users can interpret the function of the building as they walk around the site or view it from afar. Public spaces and new uses such as outdoor theaters, local art galleries, botanical gardens, amphitheaters, and market spaces weave throughout the structures, helping to build a seamless transition from indoor to outdoor and private to public. Over time the parcels can connect to one another with sky bridges, creating another layer of pedestrian circulation. By including new public spaces, whether programmed or flexible, this guide for Kampung Baru’s development facilitates the community’s reengagement with the land to which it is so deeply tied. The new models of development could also be disseminated throughout Kuala Lumpur’s other ethnic clusters to guide future development. These forms of community development could help preserve the unique diversity of Kampung Baru and encourage similar discourses on how the built environment and landscape can shape a city’s cultural integrity. This project aims to mitigate the immense effect of urban shock the Petronas Towers have had on the community. While the project’s proposed structures are new and taller, they are accompanied by a set of guidelines and rules to ensure that these new structures better fit into the community and alleviate the immediate and long-term distress imposed by their towering neighbors across the river. What is the future role of architecture and landscape architecture when it comes to community preservation in the face of rapid urban development? We are charged with designing new spaces and developments for all. We can speak for those who may not have a voice in their communities. And we must ensure that the systems, structures, and infrastructure that are the physical and metaphorical backbone of a culture, community, or society are preserved and championed over narrow-sighted capitalist ambitions.
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William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
From those public spaces we devised two languages of development typologies that could be implemented on the parcel scale. These typologies fall into three main categories: residential, commercial, and mixeduse—the three most common zones throughout Kampung Baru. Landowners can implement these different typologies, increasing from the one- to two-floor existing buildings to three- to seven-floor buildings. Both typologies are set on grids of 5 by 5 by 3 meters, allowing for flexibility and modularity over time. Wall units, balconies, and other elements are likewise modular, allowing the landowners to work within the given parameters while maintaining a uniqueness that is so critical to Kampung Baru’s identity. Uniform zoning regulations throughout Kampung Baru would ensure the continuation of the variety that already exists in the community. The first set of typologies maintains the vernacular roof structures found in Kampung Baru and elevates them, creating new spaces to house commercial or residential units. These roof structures emphasize a vernacular culture and architectural language that appears even
Green space
Mixed-use
Industrial
Vacant lot
Under construction
Residential
Commercial
Parking
Top: The verdant Kampung Baru is quickly being surrounded by towering skyscrapers. In the face of such pressure, the community has kept this development out and retained the unique character of the neighborhood.
Bottom and following page: Within Kampung Baru there are two main roads that bisect the community with pedestrian sidewalks. The neighborhood also has access to the monorail and LRT subway system.
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
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Institutional
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William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
Kampung Atas “A”
River crossing
Public transit
Kampung Hujung Pasir
Primary vehicular circulation
Monorail
Kampung Periok
Secondary vehicular circulation
LRT
Kampung Pindah
Pedestrian circulation
Kampung Paya Kampung Atas “B” Kampung Masjid
Housing Typologies
ernacular nial ial Vernacular Vernacular househouse house
Bumbung Panjang Bumbung Bumbung Bumbung Panjang Panjang Panjang househouse house
Bumbung Bumbung Bumbung Perak Perak house Perak house house
Bumbung Perak
Modern vernacular Modern Modern Modern Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular househouse house
Duplicated vernacular Duplicated Duplicated Duplicated Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular househouse house
Colonial vernacular
Colonial Colonial Colonial Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular househouse house
Modern Modern Modern Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular househouse house
Duplicated Duplicated Duplicated Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular househo
Extended vernacular
Extended Extended Extended Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular househouse house
Landscape Typologies
VegetatedVegetated Lot Vegetated Lot Lot Vegetated lot
n Vegetation take over Vegetation take overtake over ed abandoned structure abandoned structurestructure
Sports field Sports field Sports field Sports field
Fenced vacant lot
Vacant lotVacant with fence lot Vacant with fence lot with fence
Playground
Playground Playground Playground
Above: The houses of Kampung Baru recall a language of vernacular architecture that was influenced by colonial styles throughout the 20th century. Public spaces and empty lots— most of them overgrown and abandoned—serve a variety of different uses.
Overgrown abandoned lot
Vegetation Vegetation take over Vegetation take overtake over abandoned abandoned structure abandoned structurestructure
Sports field Sports field Sports field
Elevated walkway
GreenwayGreenway Greenway
Following page: Kampung Baru’s existing roofs and vegetation tuck into the canopy of trees. The proposed developments (botom) aim to keep this low-rise language.
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
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GreenGreen spaceGreen space typology space typology typology
Playground Playground Playground
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William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
44 Utilizing different programmable parcel developments at different scales, this proposal combines a mixture of unique features and functions to create a vibrant community. Public space permeates the site instead of being restricted to the streets.
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Large parcels: 1,200–2,400 m2
Residential + Commercial + Outdoor Pool Parcel size: 40 m x 60 m = 2,400 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 3.94
Residential + School Parcel size: 40 m x 50 m = 2,000 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 2.1
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
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Residential + Commercial + Terrace Parcel size: 30 m x 40 m = 1,200 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 3.33
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William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
Residential + Commercial + Courtyard Market Parcel size: 40 m x 40 m = 1,600 m2 Floor area ratio: Up To 3.2
Residential + Commercial + Courtyard Garden Parcel size: 30 m x 40 m = 1,200 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 3.33
Residential + Commercial + Courtyard Amphitheater Parcel size: 40 m x 40 m = 1,600 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 2.81
Art Gallery + Retail Space Parcel size: 20 m x 60 m = 1,200 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 2.25
Commercial Area + Outdoor Theater Parcel size: 20 m x 60 m = 1,200 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 2.25
Commercial Area + Dome Theater Parcel size: 20 m x 60 m = 1,200 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 2.25
Residential Housing + Playground Parcel size: 20 m x 60 m = 1,200 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.98
Botanical Garden + Residential Housing Parcel size: 20 m x 50 m = 1,000 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.98
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Pergola + Residential Housing Parcel size: 20 m x 50 m = 1,000 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 0.99
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
Medium parcels: 1,000–1,200 m2
Family Retail Business Parcel size: 20 m x 30 m = 600 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.35
Family Dining Business Parcel size: 15 m x 40 m = 600 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.15
Small Event Center Parcel size: 16 m x 40 m = 640 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.04
Large Event Center Parcel size: 20 m x 40 m = 800 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 2.02
Kampung Center Parcel size: 15 m x 30 m = 450 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.12
Courtyard Housing Parcel size: 15 m x 30 m = 450 m2 Floor area ratio: up to 1.2
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William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
Small parcels: 450–800 m2
Phased implementation
Phase 2: By beginning the process of redevelopment in the community, more landowners could be encouraged to continue the trend of renewal. These parcels could then be connected by weaving together public areas and other spaces to allow for social interaction and public gathering.
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
50
Phase 1: The landowners begin to develop their parcel by providing new residential units to house multiple tenants. New programs could also be included in the parcel design to bring additional income sources or services to the tenants and community. By creating unique amenities on the parcel scale, these development opportunities challenge the traditional skyscraper development.
Phase 3: The completed vision reunites a neighborhood that has become separated and disconnected over time. New public spaces that flow throughout each parcel allow for people to come together through a variety of passive and active programs at different scales.
Following page: Encouraging landowners to redevelop their parcels on a small scale brings the people of Kampung Baru together. This vision retains the unique identity of Kampung Baru while also recognizing the inevitability of development.
51
52 Sections.
53
Micro-Infrastructure as Community Preservation: Kampung Baru
54 Above: The new parcel typologies create a vibrant and active urban neighborhood by day and night. While allowing for redevelopment, the typologies preserve and enhance the existing functions that make Kampung Baru unique.
Following page: A modular framework facilitates the typologies’ construction and implementation throughout the neighborhood while allowing for the easy insertion of new programs and functions.
55
William Baumgardner, Chenyuan Gu, Dandi Zhang
Model of housing units integrated with public and semipublic spaces.
Andrew Younker
Officially designated a town in 1857, Kuala Lumpur has quickly evolved into a global city. Due to the explosion of development since the early 1980s, the city and its surrounding metropolitan area, also known as the Klang River Valley, has been experiencing a population growth that is believed to currently encompass over 7.25 million people.1 While vital to the establishment of Kuala Lumpur as a global urban center, this recent, rapid, and unregulated development has failed to consider certain components essential to the creation of livable ecological and urban environments. Existing public space in Kuala Lumpur, compared with similar cities throughout the world, is lacking in overall area, accessibility, variety of scales, and connectivity. Further investigation into how the public uses and appropriates spaces reveals a more complex, multilayered, and nontraditional public realm. Due to the tropical climate, public space is based on microclimatic conditions related to human comfort. Desirable exterior space is time based and, in many cases, follows shading. Air-conditioned shopping malls are now among the most popular public spaces, but these complexes consume large quantities of energy.
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Reclaiming the Klang
The Klang River has been tamed into a culvert condition, largely disconnected from the fabric of the city it passes through.
housing project is not simply a home or a collection of homes, but part of a larger community. This means that living space can be conceived of as enclosed private and semiprivate spaces that integrate with and transform their existing urban fabric and society.
1
“Kuala Lumpur Population 2017,” World Population Review, October 26, 2016, http:// worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities /kuala-lumpur-population/.
Reclaiming the Klang
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Now heavily polluted, the Klang River has been cast aside for the sake of progress. Even the adjacent architecture turns its back on the river, which was once the city’s lifeblood. Kuala Lumpur must reintegrate its valuable river into the city’s life cycles. “Reclaiming the Klang” proposes channeling the area’s rapid growth to provide a new kind of development that, like water, flows into the places of least resistance. If this new development challenges the current form and use of the river, proposing a different relationship while giving the river a physical and positive presence in the city, people could rediscover the inherent potential for river systems in dense urban settings to provide much-needed public open space and other benefits. This project employs housing as an urban process of transformation, not a static composition. It examines housing that operates on multiple levels, at multiple scales, in multiple time frames, and in multiple overlapping networks. Housing must consider the life cycle of the surrounding urban fabric, not only its residents. Like the trees of the rain forest, which are not one solitary tree but an evolving, multilayered community of many organisms, a
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Andrew Younker Top: Public space network in Kuala Lumpur.
Bottom: Existing green roof terraces of Kuala Lumpur City Centre.
Existing public space and potential housing sites.
Connections between public space and potential housing sites.
Project site as connective tissue.
Reclaiming the Klang
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Klang River and existing public space.
61
Andrew Younker Urban plan. An expandable grid forms a base for the housing modules, flowing into and around the existing urban fabric like water, forming new public and semipublic spaces that interact with the Klang River. The river again becomes an important part of the daily life cycle of the city.
Reclaiming the Klang
62 Architectural plans showing a multilayered, dynamic mixture of public, semipublic, and private spaces.
63
Andrew Younker Site plans, where housing and public space weave over the channelized river and through the existing urban fabric.
64 Sections through the proposed development along the banks of the re-engaged Klang River.
65
Reclaiming the Klang
66 Top: Model of housing units, which are stackable and restackable to achieve various combinations of public, semipublic, and private spaces that adapt to changes over time.
Bottom: Urban scale model, suggesting for the city a dynamic new form and use of the Klang River.
67
Andrew Younker Top: Facade detail, showing the housing units’ double-layered operable screen system that draws inspiration from the filtered light of traditional Malay architecture.
Bottom: Model of housing units, illustrating the units’ change in character as night descends.
View from the top of “Kelangopy� looking toward Jalang Ampang Muslim Cemetery with KLCC in the background. Perforated shade structures offer relief from the hot sun while vegetation peeks through the islands, lending the experience of a canopy walk.
Sophie Maguire Jake Watters
Built at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak Rivers, Kuala Lumpur owes not only its location but also its name to water. In Malay, Kuala Lumpur quite literally means “muddy confluence.” Today in Kuala Lumpur, however, this relationship to water is obscured by development. The Klang River, channelized in the 1960s and further hemmed in by the six-lane Ampang Kuala Lumpur Elevated Highway (AKLEH) in the 1990s, separates Kampung Baru—the last remaining Malay village within the city limits—from both the skyscrapers of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) and its historical Muslim cemetery. Kampung Baru was established in 1900 as an agricultural settlement by the British colonial administration for ethnic Malays. Valued today at over $1.4 billion due to its proximity to KLCC, this area has resisted development due to racially restrictive ownership policies as well as the fragmentation of parcels by Malay ownership practices (one parcel may have dozens of owners, complicating the sale of large plots of land). On the other side of the river and the elevated highway lies the Jalan Ampang Muslim Cemetery as well as the KLCC development. Formerly a horse racing track, KLCC is now home to
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Kelangopy
Reconnection A resident of Kampung Baru voiced the perception that when the bridges between the residential area and the cemetery were demolished, the new generations of Malay “lost their way.” While there were once several pedestrian crossings connecting Kampung Baru to its cemetery, they were removed after the construction of the AKLEH. “Kelangopy” reconnects Kampung Baru to its cemetery as well as to the large-scale commercial offerings of KLCC. Rewilding the River Despite the channelization of the Klang, significant emergent vegetation still exists along the river, growing through cracks in the concrete embankment, gaps in the highway’s sound barrier, and large amounts of deposited sediment in the riverbed. Planting the existing sediment deposits with screwpine (Pandanus tectorius) creates a vegetative barrier within the concrete channel. Once established, the concrete embankment is removed and densely planted with large forest species including fig (Ficus benjamina) trees, whose roots further break up the embankment. Rather than creating a European-style river edge or a bucolic recreational path, the river retains its restricted access and is utilized
to provide soil volume for a large vegetative canopy. Many of the trees are endangered dipterocarps that flower and produce seeds only once every several years. Their placement in the river protects them from logging while giving them a means of dispersing seeds and pollen. A New Species of Tree In this new forest, among the tall kapur (Dryobalanops aromatica) and merawan (Hopea odorata) a new species of tree takes root. Built of steel and concrete and deriving its form from the phenomenon of canopy shyness seen in dipterocarps, these man-made trees play host to novel ecologies of people, birds, palms, trees, and flowering vines. This archipelago of platforms creates a needed pedestrian connection between Kampung Baru and its cemetery. On top of these platforms one has the freedom to walk, sit, run, gather, recline in a hammock under a rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), admire the skyline, pray, go for a swim, shop, love, see a tree from a new angle, and eat over, within, and under the dappled shade of trees and shade structures. The space under the platforms is protected from sun and rain, providing more space for the street hawkers of Kampung Baru as well as a shaded walkway through the cemetery on hot days. Within this new canopy a new ecosystem emerges—one that is neither Malay nor Western; neither modern nor natural; but one that sets the stage for a diversity of wonder to take place.
Kelangopy
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the Petronas Towers, a large public park designed by Roberto Burle Marx, hotels, offices, and a shopping mall. Whereas the Klang River was formerly the means for connecting Kuala Lumpur to outside commerce, it now acts as a barrier between two different versions of Malaysia: one seemingly traditional, local, and rural; the other contemporary, global, and highly urban. Assuming that Kampung Baru will ultimately be developed from its current low-rise form into something more closely resembling KLCC, this project identifies the area over the river and highway as one of the city’s only untapped vacant spaces. We propose an experience over the river where multiple publics can congregate in a space that does not rely on specific cultural practices, ethnic identities, or religious symbolism, but instead on the richness of the Malay landscape and the power of the forest. Rather than revitalizing the river as an urban riverfront of cafés or a meandering greenway, “Kelangopy” proposes that the river remains inaccessible, as a place for wildness to take root. Melding the stratification of both the rain forest and urban infrastructure, “Kelangopy” imagines a new possibility for Kuala Lumpur’s public realm.
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Sophie Maguire, Jake Watters Top: Existing canopy cover in the areas adjacent to the Klang River in Kampung Baru and Kuala Lumpur City Centre. Two formal allĂŠe plantings are apparent on the Kampung Baru side (north of the Klang), marking the two commercial corridors of the Malay agricultural settlement.
Bottom: Speculative plan of how “Kelangopy� could be used as a new urban fabric to bridge the Klang River at multiple sites.
Forest catalog Bauhinia purpurea
Tamarindus indica
Cyrtostachys renda
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Artocarpus heterophyllus
Artocarpus heterophyllus
Bauhinia purpurea
This and following spread: Malaysia is home to a wide variety of lush plant species. This project takes advantage of the behavior and properties of the relatively fast-growing stratified characters of the Malay rainforest.
Tamarindus indica
Tamarindus indica
Pterocarpus indicus
Casuarina equisetifolia
Shorea leprosula
Cyrostachys renda
Calophyllum inophyllum
Samanea saman
Cassia fistula
Ficus benjamina
Samanea saman
Oriolus chinensis
Hopea odorata
Cethosia cyane
Hevea brasiliensis
Dipterocarpus alatus
Melaleuca cajuputi
Anthreptes malacensis
Adonidia merrillii
Delonix regia
Ficus benjamina
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Fagraea fragrans
Alcedines
Delonix regia
Delonix regia
Chalcophaps indica
Column catalog
Lookout
Asymmetrical topography
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Shade structure
Spiral staircase
Ziggurat seating
Oversized planter
“Kelangopy� offers a wide variety of dynamic built forms meant to accommodate multiple uses. Occupation of these spaces range from contemplative activities to highly commercial opportunities.
Rubber grove
Trash can
Courtyard
Swimming pool
Bench
Symmetrical topography
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Grove
Amphitheater
Food court
Mall
This spread, following spread, and page 82: Detailed plan of “Kelangopy,” showing the crossing’s three distinct environments: the night market, canopy habitation, and contemplation gardens. Additional spaces act as thresholds between these three articulated experiences.
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Sophie Maguire, Jake Watters Above: Scale studies express the capacity of the three differently sized platforms, allowing for a range of human-scaled experiences.
Kelangopy
84 Top: View on top looking toward KLCC.
Middle: View of the “forest� floor, underneath the crossing.
Bottom: View looking toward Kampung Baru from the Jalang Ampang Muslim Cemetery.
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Sophie Maguire, Jake Watters Top: Detailed model of the canopy walk bounded by the raised highway on either side. Trees are shown at maturity, creating the envisioned new hybrid “forest.�
Bottom: Detailed view of perforated shade structures and formal plantings on top of the platforms.
Emily Blair Emma Xue
Kuala Lumpur is a rain forest—not only because of its intense tropical metabolism, but also because of its cultural richness and social vibrancy. Just as tropical rain forests foster abundant and lively biodiversity, Kuala Lumpur as a contemporary tropical metropolis has the potential to support bold social diversities and rich ecological processes. Today Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia as a whole are being redefined. Identifying with the Petronas Towers as the symbol of Kuala Lumpur, the city projects an aspirational image of gleaming modernity, of reaching new heights. This soaring icon of forward and upward progress can be seen from all directions in Kuala Lumpur. Despite this upward focus, a more close examination of the strata of a healthy tropical rain forest prompts the realization that it is the understory, shrub, and ground-cover layers that create suitable habitats for diverse species of flora and fauna. These lower layers set the foundations for a dynamic ecosystem. The central “Common Ground� is located in Kuala Lumpur City Centre to create a new cultural and civic hub. Indoor and outdoor spaces that energize and give life to the area are created through plazas, accessible pathways, shading, rain protection, planted groves, and programmed space.
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Common Ground
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Existing Conditions Through the study of the existing conditions of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), we identified the city’s ground plane and public realm as disconnected and nonhierarchical. Large building masses, walls, and fences fragment much of KLCC, which is plagued by minimal sidewalks and little publicly accessible greenery. The uniqueness of cultural diversity and religious beliefs is portrayed through certain lenses (for example, the Petronas Towers publicity video), but on a spatial level, this diversity has been largely marginalized and neglected (such as how the Muslim cemetery has been relegated to backstreets). The city thus deserves a more careful consideration of adjacencies, continuity, and cultural diversity within its fabric. Raising the Common Ground This conversation about cultural values and their place in the city led us to directly address the ground in front of Petronas Towers as the most significant nexus of contemporary Kuala Lumpur. Juxtaposed with these high-rise towers and the lush but enclosed KLCC park behind it, “Common Ground” proposes an alternative understanding of the urban park’s role in today’s large cities. Instead of seeing the park as the “other” opposite the city, this project presents the park as the grounds for organic elements and ecological occurrences as well as for economic activities and social happenings. For such purposes, the boundaries between landscape and architecture blend seamlessly into the design; with multilayered public open space supported by a mixed-use program, the design reappropriates the park as a shared green space and cultural hub. Consisting of four different levels, the design reorganizes the formerly disconnected flows of the city: new tunnels reroute the surface vehicular traffic; the ground plane opens for free flows of pedestrian activities; connective architecture supports cultural and economic programs; and long ramps and undulating rooftops provide access to greenery and public space. To enhance the tropical rain forest metropolis, the design introduces rows of native trees and punctuating groves, which also adjust microclimates and create a sense of place. Human-scale enclaves choreographed with large-scale plazas encourage people to use the public space, to linger, reflect, and gather. Canopy structures,
footbridges, passage corridors, and lighting provide shade and connection, which promote lively street life and nighttime events. Bringing together the diverse and growing population, “Common Ground” serves as an example of foregrounding public space in urban development. The establishment of a vigorous common ground will support Kuala Lumpur to grow as a lively tropical metropolis, prompting ecological and cultural richness to unfold.
Common Ground
There is an urge, therefore, to look to the city’s lower levels and focus on the space close to the ground to enhance Kuala Lumpur’s public realm.
Following page: Layering creates open space with infrastructure sunken below ground. Planting, plazas, and shading create habitable outdoor space. Building volumes supplement outdoor spaces, proposing indoor community facilities and rooftop access.
Proposed buildings Public green space Canopy
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Emily Blair, Emma Xue
Existing buildings
Public space Public green space Existing trees Proposed trees Proposed public–private partnership plaza Public plaza
Sunken roads
Common Ground
90 Ground floor plan.
Roof plan.
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Emily Blair, Emma Xue
Common Ground
92 Architectural plan.
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Emily Blair, Emma Xue Top: Views are framed at important entrances as an invitation into the “Common Ground.”
Bottom: Seen from the window of an existing building, the ramping, accessible roofs of the “Common Ground” buildings create a lively and interesting space for the public.
94
Central walking axis
Top: The shaded walkway offers pedestrians protection from the sun and casts dramatic shadows. Columns and tree trunks are seen as interchangeable.
Central plaza
Bottom: Layered ground and elevated paths, building levels, and roofs allow the public to inhabit and give life to these dimensions.
95 Car tunnel
Shaded overhead walkway
Top: The open plaza at ground level supports a range of events and gatherings. Users connect to upper levels via the overhead walkway.
Public–private courtyard
Existing buildings
Common Ground
96 Top: Grand steps leading to the civic building’s roof occupy a highly visible and iconic corner of the “Common Ground.” The overhead walkway connects seamlessly with the civic building’s third floor, ushering people above the ground plane and offering an elevated experience of moving through the city.
Bottom: The stepped central plaza can accommodate a range of events while the stepped, treed edge invites people to linger and rest. The intimate and natural space reconnects with the tropical climate and incredible natural canopies.
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Emily Blair, Emma Xue Top: The walkway and shading structure allows people to connect across previously disparate edges of the site, linking the buildings while creating an inviting, cool ground level for gathering. Trees planted throughout the “Common Ground” align such that the canopy walk gives the experience of walking through the canopies of the tropical forest. Patterned edges cast bold shadows on the ground below further identifying it as a place.
Bottom: “Common Ground” integrates disparate corners of an important hub of KLCC, drawing people from the towers together while infusing the center with cultural value and civic access.
98 Plan of excavated wall between Kampung Baru and the Klang River.
Lanisha Blount
When visiting Kampung Baru, I quickly became aware of its vibrancy and bustling nature—the street food, the shops, the mopeds, the constant foot traffic, the low-rise architecture that stands in contrast to the neighboring central business district. Walking to Kampung Baru, I developed an interest in the river. The AECOM project River of Life currently underway highlights a renewed interest in merging the public landscape with the community, allowing for a new current of people to flow alongside the water. In Kampung Baru, there is no interaction with the river; a barrier wall supporting the elevated highway separates the community from the city’s urban center and river. The river can only be seen at major road crossings, which happen at the far edges of the neighborhood. Thus, a 1,600-meter wall separates the Kampung Baru residents from the river. For this project, my goal was to work with what exists. Using the barrier wall, “Excavating Barriers” proposes an excavation of space—removing dirt from the structure, carving archways to create a series of shops, offices, incubator spaces, and restaurants along the river that residents can use to house their businesses. These new archway spaces would create a now-lacking
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Excavating Barriers: Creating a Porous Wall in Kampung Baru
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Excavating Barriers: Creating a Porous Wall in Kampung Baru
porousness to allow the people of Kuala Lumpur to connect with the river, increasing the opportunity for the vibrancy already seen in Kampung Baru to resettle along the water, where a monorail station already exists. To maintain the integrity of the highway as well as save time and money, the load-bearing barrier wall, which consists mainly of earth, would be both excavated and reinforced by series of newly constructed archways. By excavating each space roughly 7.5 meters wide, and allowing 2.5 meters of space between each archway, there will be over 50 spaces—each roughly 90 square meters in size—created for business and commercial use.
Above and following page: Sections through the project site reveal the intention of the intervention, before (top) and after (bottom). The project creates space where there is currently fill, allowing access to the river as well as economic opportunity within the exhumed cavity of the highway infrastructure.
101
Lanisha Blount
Station rendering.
Marcus Mello
As a rapidly developing city, Kuala Lumpur suffers from a broken public realm. The city is energetic and bustling, but it is difficult to navigate on foot. Automobiles dominate the streets, significantly limiting pedestrian ground space. As a result, the city has constructed elevated mobility systems to facilitate the flow of people through its high-traffic commercial district. These systems, best described as elevated skywalks and located largely in the city’s commercial heart, lift locals and tourists above the street level, allowing them to more safely and comfortably traverse Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps the most significant form of elevated urban infrastructure in Kuala Lumpur is the city’s monorail. This transportation system stands as a physical artery that stretches nearly nine kilometers through the center of the city. Running from Titiwangsa to KL Sentral Station, the monorail services 11 stations and crosses through several neighborhoods, which feature dynamic cultural and commercial identities reflecting Kuala Lumpur’s rich diversity. However, the monorail system’s design does not convey this multiplicity, nor does it work to improve the public transportation experience. The stations
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Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space
to be occupied by different programs. While waiting for the monorail car to arrive, users can experience these quadrants, which house hanging modules that contain spaces to eat, explore, and learn about Kuala Lumpur’s history and culture. Private companies can sponsor activities and lease these modules to smaller business owners who currently lack adequate street-level space in which to sell their goods. Each station can be sized differently depending on community ridership and the amount of existing open space around each site. To mediate the space between the ground level and the station, the two levels are linked with landscaped ramps. These ramps connect each station to surrounding focal points and establish continuous flows. I focused on designing Imbi Station, which is surrounded largely by hotels and office space. Berjaya Times Square Hotel, Federal Arcade, Plaza Berjaya, and other buildings all link to the redesigned Imbi Station with a system of ramps. In an overbuilt part of the city, this station design is simple and elegant, providing tourists and residents with more tranquility and connectivity.
Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space
104
consist of platforms with rounded aluminum shells and provide users with no additional public space. Platform room is limited, and the stations do not accommodate cultural activities or city views from the various station vantage points. Moreover, each station is entered via enclosed stairs that often meet the ground plane awkwardly and without creating functional public spaces. My design process began by mapping the monorail in relation to other transportation systems, such as the light rail transit lines, and examining user flows around each station. My research team and I modeled the built form surrounding the monorail and identified opportunities for interventions. During our visit to Kuala Lumpur we visited all of the stations and the areas immediately surrounding them. Visiting each station became a monotonous experience that separated me from the rest of the city, including its tropical weather and vegetation. Riding the monorail was enjoyable, but the experience provided little indication of where I was in the city. On exiting each station, I felt I quickly expelled onto the crowded sidewalks. Rethinking the monorail, I aimed to create a set of spaces reflecting the qualities that make Kuala Lumpur a unique and attractive place. My project uses bamboo as a cheap, durable building material that filters light and wind while keeping users protected from harsher weather. Each station is conceived as a box divided into quadrants
Following page: Through observation and statistical research, mapping pedestrian movement, usage, and vacancies along the monorail system reveals opportunities to positively inform how people might better engage in the fabric of the city, both at and below the proposed elevated stations. Drawings and analysis by Chenyuan Gu, Marcus Mello, and Hyunsik Mun.
Chow Kit
Bukit Nanas – Dang Wangi Golden Triangle
Old City Centre
Bukit Bintang Kampung Attap
Hang Tuah – Hang Tuah
KL Sentral – KL Sentral Pudu Brickfields
Cultural
Station connection
Shopping
Elevated walkway
Nightlife
105
Marcus Mello
Titiwangsa – Titiwangsa
Monorail stations
Chow Kit
Medan Tuanku
Bukit Nanas
Raja Chulan
Hang Tuah
Bukit Bintang
106
Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space
Imbi
Above and following page: Analysis of monorail station context. Drawings and analysis by Chenyuan Gu, Marcus Mello, and Hyunsik Mun.
Pedestrian movement Flow direction Flow of population
Amount of users Weekday Saturday
Marcus Mello
107
Sunday
Empty space Under construction Vacant space Parking lot Green space
Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space
108 Top: Connection between Plaza Berjaya and Berjaya Times Square with detail of 8-meter-wide walkway with single-loaded retail.
Middle: Connection between the Federal Arcade, Melia Kuala Lumpur, and existing retail space with detail of 4-meter-wide walkway.
Bottom: Connection between the Adiom Building and an existing plaza with detail of 8-meter-wide walkway with seating and planters.
Marcus Mello Plan of station context and proposed connections.
Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space
110 Top: Station exterior from ground level.
Bottom: Station interior from monorail platform.
Following page: Site plan with proposed walkways.
111
View of the station from the monorail track.
Axonometric of the proposed station along the elevated monorail tracks.
Station context study models.
Monorail as Collective, Cultural Public Space
116
117
Marcus Mello Final station model.
118 The proposed modular station provides identity for each of the station points along the line, as well as public gathering venues and commercial opportunities above and below. The simple, elegant vocabulary makes place where there was once pass-through.
Hyunsik Mun
This project proposes a modular monorail prototype by introducing a grid system, derived from traditional Malaysian patterns and Islamic architecture units, that can be applied to each monorail station in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur’s monorail, which opened in 2003, links the city’s prominent retail core with its surrounding neighborhoods. The construction of the monorail has created an urban spine through several of Kuala Lumpur’s busy commercial streets that provide locals and tourists with an efficient way to experience the city’s plentiful cultural offerings. However, beyond its important role as an urban connector, the monorail does not enhance the quality of Kuala Lumpur’s public realm, nor does it reflect the rich diversity and ecology of the city. The opportunity to rethink the monorail system begs the question of how intervention can restructure and improve the existing monorail stations to create a new type of public realm. Research drawings on pages 105–107 showed that the monorail system runs a length of nine kilometers through the city and cuts through neighborhoods with varying cultural and commercial assets. Of the 11 existing monorail stations, the research
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Multidimensional Modular Prototype for an Elevated Mobility System
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Multidimensional Modular Prototype for Elevated Mobility System
focuses on eight stations. Axonometric and sectional drawings of the eight stations offer information about physical built forms, programs, user flows, surrounding open spaces, and the built urban density surrounding each station. To apply the studied prototypes, the project then concentrates on two stations that are located near the center of Kuala Lumpur; the “minimum” prototype is applied for Rajachulan Station and the “vertical expansion” prototype is suggested for Imbi Station. Without its own character and identity, each monorail station has the same facade and symmetrical structure, facilitating the introduction of a grid system and modular unit of prototype. From the “minimum” existing structure of the station to the “vertical expansion,” prototypes have been developed vertically and horizontally to generate unique spaces and facades for the stations derived from a common architectural language. The new monorail system can offer all visitors the opportunity to experience different parts of the city as continuous, connecting city fragments with their own characters.
Existing monorail station structure and module.
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Hyunsik Mun Basic prototype proposal unit.
Vertical expansion prototype.
Multidimensional Modular Prototype for Elevated Mobility System
122 The new modular stations become destination icons for the neighborhoods they identify.
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Hyunsik Mun The structural modules support a transportation “great hall� and clerestory gathering space, and make a rooftop public amenities possible. The iconic superstructural elements support increased, expansive civic space and connections to adjacent parcels at multiple levels.
Multidimensional Modular Prototype for Elevated Mobility System
124 With the envisioned modular support system, every station along the monorail’s track can have a singular identity as well as flexible and adaptable configurations.
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Hyunsik Mun Sections through one proposal suggest the myriad opportunities for enclosure, exposure, and natural illumination of gathering spaces as well as ease of access to the station’s platform.
Prototype studies.
Multidimensional Modular Prototype for Elevated Mobility System
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Hyunsik Mun Three-dimensional models reveal the simplicity of the station prototype.
Chris Merritt
Despite multicultural aspirations, Kuala Lumpur faces questions of identity and representation in the public realm. The majority of the city’s population is Malay, and it has large Chinese and Indian populations as well as a new wave of immigrants relocating in response to Kuala Lumpur’s rapid growth and development. These different identities merge in public spaces. In addition, throughout the city, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and other temples sit adjacent to each other serving the city’s diverse population. With such multiplicity, it is not surprising that many Malays relate the Rojak dish to the Malaysian identity. A local dish that combines fruits and vegetables in a stir-fry, Rojak means “eclectic mix.” This phrase likewise describes the city’s culture around food and definitions of identity. How is this identity reflected in the public realm? Agak Agak, or “more or less,” is a notion that food or a recipe in Malaysia can be more or less Malay, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, etc. This “more or less” notion about food and identity A view from above of the proposed Rojak Loop Central Square.
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Rojak Loop
table and seating arise from the shadow and paving geometry. The central gathering area, built from limestone, recalls the connection to the regional landscape. At the south end of Chinatown, a new public park—South Gateway Park—arises from redeveloping underutilized lots and bridging the once-dividing highway to unite a series of Chinese civic buildings. Similar to the market plaza, aligning the proposed public space with broader urban connections unifies the public realm. The gateway to the south connects through the park to new development, a transit station plaza, and the river to the north as it flows through Chinatown. A multilayered system of paths along the ground plane and an elevated walk provide areas for circulation and connect the park with the urban fabric. Topographic variation introduced within the park creates an abstracted version of the Malaysian limestone hills. The park’s circulation winds between these limestone hills, natural vegetation, and botanical gardens. The gardens reflect the rain forests found throughout Malaysia, and an elevated walk provides new perspectives from which to explore the unique plant palette. Central to the park, planted camphor trees showcase the canopy shyness found in Malaysian rain forests. The elevated walkway acts as a central spine threading the different landscape types; it links the plazas on either end through a series of park pavilions. The simple open-air pavilions are unprogrammed and flexible for community use, with the infrastructure for food preparation. Situated in unique contexts throughout the park, the pavilions are inspired by the country’s various religious-temple settings—the hilltop, cave, urban, and forest. A large canopy covers the central plaza, linking the South Gateway Park to Medan Pesar and framing the newly unified public space. The void evokes the threshold and enclosure common to the area’s religious temples. Finally, the planting strategy for the park is a celebration of the different planting traditions found throughout Malaysia. An array of urban species acts as a threshold to the park. Two parallel drifts of canopy trees connect the landscape to the urban context, and specialty zones throughout the park display the area’s unique botanical variety. The dense and lush botanical forest garden acts as a curated rain forest museum with a central vertical canopy, while the limestone hills integrate natural planting through topographic variation. This planting palette is intended to extend beyond the park into the urban context, further engendering a Malaysian identity centered on the landscape.
Rojak Loop
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in the public realm is what gives Kuala Lumpur its distinct character. As it relates to identity, this theme is perhaps most recognizable in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. Throughout the rest of the city, overdevelopment and private ownership have taken precedence over a cohesive, open, and flexible public realm reflective of the city’s identity. The notion of a cultural Rojak offered the framework for the creation of new public spaces in Chinatown. While the integration of the different Malay identities in Chinatown is a priority, perhaps more so is the coexistence of those identities in the public realm. “Rojak Loop” aims to preserve and enhance the identity and character of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown while providing new public space that unifies a diverse population. Chinatown resulted from the city’s colonial past and survives as a thriving and varied neighborhood at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak Rivers. It blends Chinese, Indian, Malay, and immigrant cultures and identities. Whether through the mixing of food or political protest, the public realm becomes the venue to express identity. “Rojak Loop” proposes a cultural heritage trail through the neighborhood that celebrates the character of the markets, alleys, temples, and shop houses that give Chinatown its identity, while creating new public spaces to the north at Medan Pesar and to the south at a new gateway created by bridging the highway. This proposal uses food in the public realm as a common ground that unites across social, cultural, and political boundaries. In addition to food, the project suggests that the Malaysian landscape is the authentic and unifying identity of its people. Medan Pesar evolved over time as the city’s first market plaza. It can now serve as a redefined civic plaza to bring a community together around collective conversations convened through food, a community table, and shelter. A design framework for the site was established by reorienting the plaza to align with a physical and visual connection to Masjid Jamek, a mosque at the river confluence to the north, and the Kasturi Walk, a market street to the south. This connection provides a new condition for the paving, site furnishings, and overhead canopy. The systems layer to reinforce this connection. A proposed expansive overhead canopy evokes a feeling of shelter and enclosure to encourage gathering, frame the colonial architecture, and align with the broader neighborhood. Shadow studies yielded the design for the canopy structure that provides the densest shadow at the plaza’s center. Here a community
Medan Pasar
Jalan Petaling
Sri Maha Mariamman Temple
Masjid Jamek
Medan Pasar
Jalan Petaling Alleys
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Chris Merritt
Sin Sze Si Ya Temple
Jalan Petaling Guan Di Temple
Sri Maha Mariamman Temple South Gateway Kuan Yin Temple
The “eclectic mix” of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown can be experienced in the assorted temples and market conditions that make this neighborhood so compelling and disorderly. Working within the public realm, how does one tie it all together?
Rojak Loop
132 The envisioned loop strategically links key neighborhood civic and cultural amenities yet offers them continued independent identities.
Proposed circulation
Proposed structures
Proposed trees
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Chris Merritt
“Rojak Loop”
Rojak Loop
134 At major nodes along the loop, civic spaces become the gathering places for constituency engagement, each with their own identity in park, plaza, and pavilion.
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Chris Merritt The southern park embraces the elevated tracks of the monorail, which consequently no longer divides the space. By embracing the tracks under a canopy station, the infrastructure becomes part of the park’s vocabulary along with gathering pavilions and at-grade and elevated canopy walkways.
Rojak Loop
136 Top: Medan Pasar is reimagined as a grand civic gathering space that anchors the northern end of the “Rojak Loop.� A lofty canopy embraces the colonial-era buildings that now form two walls for the plaza.
Bottom: Elevated walkways within the southern park allow visitors to experience the canopies of the newly planted forest trees.
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Chris Merritt Top: In the parkland at the southern end of the “Rojak Loop,� visitors arriving by the elevated monorail system disembark under a lofty canopy structure similar in character to Medan Pasar.
Bottom: Within the southern park, earthwork mounds recall the topography of the adjacent hills and limestone outcroppings that are evident in the Kuala Lumpur area.
Final review, spring 2017.
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Contributors
Rok Oman and Špela Videcnik Rok Oman and Špela Videcnik, both graduates of the University of Ljubljana School of Architecture and the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, established OFIS arhitekti in 1996. Since its creation, the practice has received several prestigious awards and was invited to participate in Architecture Biennials in Venice, Moscow, and Beijing. OFIS works and communicates at an international level, taking part in competitions, lectures, and discourses. The practice has recently completed construction of a student residence of 185 housing units in Paris and the football stadium Borisov Arena in Belarus. The team is based in Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Paris, France. The activities of OFIS date to the 1990s, a particularly exciting yet difficult period for the former Yugoslavian republics that were undergoing intense self-reevaluation and reinvention from scratch, economically and culturally. OFIS managed to impress with original thinking and clear concepts, and won several competitions including Ljubljana City Museum and Maribor Stadium. Over the past years they have dealt with various national and international clients from the private sector, the commercial sector, and state institutions. In their work, OFIS tries to find an issue with the brief, client, material, structural constraints, or site. In this way limitations become inspiration for difference and create identity— something that makes their work distinct from the rest—by using the tactics of not surpassing, confronting, ignoring, or disobeying the rules or limitations. They have taught at the Harvard GSD since 2012, and are also faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana and Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Val de Seine.
David Rubin David Rubin is the founding principal of DAVID RUBIN Land Collective, a landscape architecture and urban design studio committed to practicing with an emphasis on socially purposeful design strategies. Educated at Connecticut College and Harvard University, David has taught and lectured at a number of institutions, including the Harvard GSD, University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and Southern California Institute of Architecture. David is the 2011–2012 recipient of the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture from the American Academy in Rome, and his projects have been honored by the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and others. David founded DAVID RUBIN Land Collective to craft landscapes that affect positive social change through empathy-driven design. Having recently completed the Indianapolis Museum of Art Master Plan, David’s current commissions include an 8-acre public park, Grand Junction Plaza, in downtown Westfield, Indiana; the new Cummins Distribution Headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana; and Pennovation Works, the University of Pennsylvania’s new South Bank Innovation Campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Key built projects include the creation of a new campus and commons for Eskenazi Health Services Hospital, Indianapolis; the landscape at the California Memorial Stadium at the University of California in Berkeley, California; the 3-star Sustainable Sites certified Canal Park, and the Potomac Park Levee on the National Mall, both in Washington, DC; and the design of Lenfest Plaza at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His studio’s work includes diverse typologies in locations from Los Angeles to Rome, New York City, Washington, DC, the Cayman Islands, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Philadelphia.
Mohsen Mostafavi Mohsen Mostafavi, architect and educator, is dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His work focuses on modes and processes of urbanization and on the interface between technology and aesthetics. Mohsen was formerly the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University where he was also the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture. Previously, he was the chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London. He studied architecture at the AA and undertook research on counterreformation urban history at the Universities of Essex and Cambridge. Mohsen is the author, co-author, and editor of many books, including Ecological Urbanism (co-edited 2010 and recently translated into Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish), Architecture is Life (2013), Nicholas Hawksmoor: The London Churches (2015), Portman’s America & Other Speculations (2017), and Ethics of the Urban: The City and the Spaces of the Political (2017).
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Sean Chiao Sean Chiao is president, Asia Pacific, at AECOM, a premier, fully integrated infrastructure firm that designs, builds, finances, and operates assets for governments, businesses, and organizations in more than 150 countries. He oversees AECOM’s business and over 12,000 employees across Greater China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Sean has spearheaded strategic, award-winning master plans for new towns and the regeneration of existing urban landscapes, including the Kuala Lumpur River of Life; the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor; the redevelopment of Metro Manila Fort Bonifacio’s financial district in the Philippines; and the rejuvenation of Suzhou Industrial Park in China. A proponent of collaboration for holistic solutions and inspiring future talent, Sean was responsible for the publication Jigsaw City (2016) as well as AECOM’s collaboration with the Harvard GSD to further urban research and design studies on the issues surrounding Asia’s rising urbanism.
Colophon
Kuala Lumpur: Designing the Public Realm Instructors Rok Oman, David Rubin, Špela Videcnik Report Design Mikhail Grinwald Copy Editor Krista Sykes A Harvard University Graduate School of Design Publication Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design Mohsen Mostafavi Assistant Dean and Director for Communications and Public Programs Ken Stewart Editor in Chief Jennifer Sigler Associate Editor Marielle Suba Production Manager Meghan Sandberg Series design by Laura Grey and Zak Jensen ISBN 978-1-934510-66-7 © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Text and images © 2017 by their authors. The editors have attempted to acknowledge all sources of images used and apologize for any errors or omissions. Harvard University Graduate School of Design 48 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 publications@gsd.harvard.edu gsd.harvard.edu
Acknowledgments We would like to thank Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design; Anita Berrizbeitia, chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture; and K. Michael Hays, interim chair of the Department of Architecture, for the opportunity to instruct this studio. We are also grateful to Sean Chiao, president of AECOM Asia Pacific, for proposing the study of this exciting city, providing feedback throughout the semester, and for supporting the studio, along with Nancy Lin, Feisal Noor, Jeff Ngai, and Kamiena Wong. Many thanks to the participants at the Kuala Lumpur forum, including Kamil Merican, David Hashim, and members of Think City for sharing their thoughts of and experiences with the city. Thanks to Jackie Piracini, Ashley Lang, Taylor Horner, and the Harvard GSD administration for their help. We extend our gratitude to the studio’s structural consultant, Hanif Kara; the jury critics for their important words during reviews; and, of course, the students for all of their hard work. Finally, special thanks to our teaching assistant, Mikhail Grinwald, for his boundless energy, great organization of the semester, and assistance with our final exhibition and this publication. Image Credits Cover image, 8–9, 17, 22 (right), 28–29: © Say Cheese Photography 14 (top): William Baumgardner 14 (middle and bottom): Špela Videcnik 15: © Hafidz Abdul Kadir Photography / Getty Images 18–19: David Rubin 22 (right): Sophie Maguire 23 (left): Emma Xue 24–25, 32–33, 39: William Baumgardner 35, 138–139: Maggie Janik 43: Hafidz Abdul Kadir Photography / Shutterstock 58: Andrew Younker
Studio Report Spring 2017
Harvard GSD Department of Urban Planning and Design
Students William Baumgardner, Emily Blair, Lanisha Blount, Chenyuan Gu, Sophie Maguire, Marcus Mello, Christoper Merritt, Hyun-sik Mun, Jake Waters, Yuan Xue, Andrew Younker, Dandi Zhang