Kuala Lumpur Calligraphy Art & Cultural Centre
literature art approach in weaving urban fabric
MBEA1126 Design Pre-Thesis 2 : NEW SPIRIT
2021/2022-2
Final Thesis Assessment
Prof. Madya Ar. Dr. Lim Yaik Wah I Ts. Dr. Muhammad Faizal Bin Abdul Rani
Yeep Pui Juen (Vickee) MBE201057
Dr Sharifah Salwa Syed MahdzarLiterature & Publishing
Design, Fashion & Textiles
Crafts
Music, Performing
Arts & Visual Arts
Film, Broadcasting & Digital Contents
Museums & Archives
• The active participation of people in cultural activities improves their quality of life, wellbeing and enhances life opportunities and options.
• Within a sustainable development context, culture is both a key tool and a core aspect of the social fabric, promoting cohesion at the neighborhood level, conviviality, and citizenship.
• Culturally informed urban development can inspire more participatory processes:
➢ Learning the past of our culture, so that we can “own” it and propel this identity and knowledge into the future.
➢ Cultural actions and expressions can catalyze environmental reclamation and enhance social connections with the ecosystems of local places.
➢ Cultural activities means for expression contribution to generate transformative change in both urban and rural environments.
by Cendana Cultural Economy Development Agency
1. Key Qualities of Kuala Lumpur
• Well educated, young ambitious workforce with strong education.
• Some creative specialisms. Eg: crafts, digital, performing arts etc
• Growing vocational provision with industry partnership
2. Major Gaps in Kuala Lumpur
• Low levels of cultural and creative education in schools
• Weak appreciation of the creative industries as a viable career.
• Major skills gap – backstage skills for performing arts, dying crafts skills and script-writing for audiovisual.
• Lack of world-leading higher education institutions with specialism in creative practice.
3. Opportunities
Cultural and creative economy are high-growth resilient, intensively skilled, and labor-intensive arenas. However, cultural arts shows one of the lowest employment rate in Kuala Lumpur due to the lack of platforms to promote the craft industry.
• Undertake a long-term sector-wide audience development program – raising awareness of the power and quality of the arts, programming art in spaces for which there is existing footfall.
• Establish Kuala Lumpur as an events and festivals city.
• Establish Kuala Lumpur as a globally significant center for contemporary visual arts and urbanism
• More than 90% of handicraft producers in Malaysia are small scale players.
• Sole proprietors are reluctant to adapt to changes, such as new methods of craft production to increase economics of scale or to promote their business beyond the local market.
• The first and second generation of craftsmen are approaching retirement age but there is a lack of knowledge transfer to the next generation.
• Low interest level and disinterested of the younger generation to pursue a career in the crafts industry.
• Lack of cooperation and coordination between craft producers and respective regulatory bodies is hampering the industry.
• The Malaysian art scene, despite a slow growth, is maturing into a professional industry that has the potential to make it onto the word stage.
• The artistic community is continuously making concerted efforts to take the visual arts industry further into the spotlight.
• Foreign tourists appreciate local arts for their uniqueness but also due to the attraction towards the story behind of our craft products.
• Malaysia is recognised internationally as being a culturally-diverse society.
• This provides numerous and diversified opportunities for audiences of various cultures and backgrounds.
By having the stretch of Jalan Tun Perak as the distributor, it brings people in KL City and the surrounding suburb together to experience the essence of cultural aspect of the city and enhance Kuala Lumpur as a globally significant centre for cultural arts and urbanism.
Dataran Merdeka
KL City Gallery
Central Market
Muzium Telekom
KL Forest Eco Park
Petaling Street
Kwai Chai Hong
Chin Woo Stadium
Chan See Shu Yuen
Merdeka 118
The existing cultural facilities in Kuala Lumpur are mostly focusing on performing arts, music, crafts, textiles, film, broadcasting and digital contents. Visual arts sector is not much seen in the context of the city resulting the depreciation towards visual arts in Kuala Lumpur.
Stadium Negara
Stadium Merdeka
Guan Yin Temple
National Textiles MuseumCultural segregation ?
Lack of attention from public ?
Cultural education in school ?
Initiation of cultural preservation ?
Artistic value of languages of different religious and culture are highly portrayed through Calligraphy as a form of art.
• It creates great impact in the improvement of arts in Malaysia, encouraged cultural exchanges among different religion and ancient culture which helped in presenting brand new styles as an output from the collaboration.
Islamic Calligraphy
• Associated with geometric Islamic art on the walls and ceilings of mosque as well as on the page or other materials.
• Modern calligraphic inscriptions is created and incorporated in logos or abstractions.
Chinese Calligraphy
• Traditional East Asian writing uses Four Treasures of Study.
• Uses Chinese ink, paper and inkstones to write Chinese character
• Style: cursive, printing press and sans serif
Indian Calligraphy
• Most frequent use in religious texts among Monastic Buddhist in order to share responsibility to duplicate sacred scriptures.
Western Calligraphy
• Recognizable by the used of Latin script
• Used to copy the Bible and other religious texts
• Style: Employed strict rules and shapes, rhythm and regularity to the letters, geometrical order of the lines on the page
Modern Calligraphy
• Rise of printing does not mean the end of calligraphy
• Consists of hand lettering & digital writing
• Digital writing – unique custom fonts are created to emulate handwriting Digitalized calligraphy using software.
Lack of Visual Art Sector in the Context of KL City
Introduction of Calligraphy as a form of visual art that brings value to KL cultural & creative economy.
Lack of Public Engagement towards Visual Art Culture
Low Permeability and Poor Connectivity of Pedestrian Road
Calligraphy learning as an extension of school and leisure activities for the youth, locals and tourists.
Revitalize back lane into lively alleys and act as a connectivity to link from one place to another.
To enhance visual art culture and promote social inclusive, strengthen local culture identity, and cultivate the sense of appreciation among the younger generation in Kuala Lumpur City.
To encourage cultural exchange between religion and strengthen the cultural heritage inheritance among the younger generation through calligraphy art. 02
To improve the visibility and connectivity of the underutilized urban space by emergence of cultural art. 03
To develop a building program that establish communication and learning through culture.
Government body who responsible for tourism, culture, library, museum, heritage, arts, theatre, handicraft, visual arts, exhibitions, etc
Public-Private body that advocate to develop arts and culture sector within the creative industry
Join venture
To cultivate and enhance cultural interest among younger generation.
Capture the interests and become one of the attraction tourist spots for both locals and foreigners.
• Defined by the calligraphy gesture and distinctive metallic envelope, the mix-use building features four twisting and elongated volumes, each representing a distinct cluster of activities.
• Intimate courtyards sit in the negative space between the intersecting wings, and together with the green roof, integrate nature into the dense urban environment.
• The building’s dynamic, curvilinear form travels from exterior to interior, creating a continuous internal spatial experience and dramatic courtyard and flowing public spaces.
• This is created the use of four elongated elements that are tied together by a sinuous retail podium and a continuous metallic ribbon that acts as the skin.
• This is a highly recognizable calligraphy gesture that emphasis on simplicity.
Architect: Zaha Hadid Area: 342500sqm Location: Shanghai, China Building typology: Mixed-Use Project year: 2014
Intimate courtyards sit in the negative space between the intersecting wings, and together with the green roof, integrate nature into the dense urban environment.
Architect: Snohetta Area: 4000sqm Location: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Building typology: Market Project year: 2021
• The structure is topped with a canopy formed of metal fins that radiate out to create a dynamic surface influenced by the fluid lines of traditional Arabic handwriting.
• The canopy’s form is derived from the sinuous flow of Arabic calligraphy where it follows the logic of a playful movement of light and shadow built from aluminium fins which provide shade, natural ventilation, and an ephemeral appearance.
• The building’s curving form is based on the natural sweep of the corniche and its double-walled structure appears to continue the curve of the bay.
Building Programme
Site Analysis & Synthesis
Space Planning
Massing
Design Strategies
Drawings & Perspectives
Schedule of Accommodation
Calligraphy learning as an extension of leisure and school activities for the youth, locals and tourists
Provision of an environment for local culture and community interaction, exchange of ideas that impact the quality of urban environment
Interdisciplinary research that involves the creation, development, programming and delivery of interactive content, arts, community and applications of multi religion calligraphy
Contributes to the growth of cultural & creative economy and the calligraphy art & culture center
Presence of MRT and monorail within 400m from the site. Reachable walking distance.
As a lively alleys connecting the site to the Stretch of Jalan Tun Perak – distributor of the people.
Two to three-storey buildings around the site allowing the proposed building to have a better view of the city.
Not as crowded as primary road, potentially to propose wider pedestrian walkway to elevate human-centric activity.
Ensuring visual continuity across the building and visual connection from site to a public greenery park.
• Revitalization of green spaces to increase ambience and walkability, making new outdoor spaces available – infill project.
• Hard landscape street to be accompany with new green strips to improve the roadside & back alley pedestrian environment.
• Shared surfacing encourages drives to travel more slowly and carefully since there is no clear definition of travel lane.
Rough massing to maximized the land with a total volume of 5-storeys.
Split the massing and convert to three rational building volume.
Rotation of building to adapt to site and surrounding.
Create different height to maximize the surrounding site view.
Create pocket spaces and outdoor spaces to improves building’s overall ventilation & sensory view.
Following the dynamic and flowy terrace contour creating a constant movement of the volume of each other.
Visual Graph Analysis has shown a result shows a positive match up to the form development of the building where the site circulation respond to the existing road and back lane.
Site visual graph showing relation of connectivity and visual integration.
Mosque 118
Hard landscape street to be accompany with new green strips to revitalize back alley as a lively alleys connecting the site to the stretch of Jalan Tun Perak linking it to Petaling Street.
Merdeka Boulevard 118
Mosque 118
Shared paved road encourages drives to travel more slowly and carefully since there is no clear definition of travel lane.
Merdeka 118
Merdeka Boulevard 118
Brush stroke-shaped facade panel is placed around the building to show distinct language of the building and at the same time allowing natural ventilation.
View from Jalan Stadium towards Merdeka Boulevard
Double Skin Facade
Pedestrian entrance from the back alley
Pedestrian entrance from the back alley Site
Interactive Heritage Tunnel
Exhibition Hall
SOUTH ELEVATION
WEST ELEVATION
Land Area 1.6 Acres / 6475 Sqm
Plot Ratio 1 to 10
Allowable GFA 64750 Sqm
TLK Required 95 Units
TLM Required 68 Units
TLK OKU Required 4 Units
