ACT 01:
The Site The protagonist who is I, Justin, finds himself in the Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, also known as Petaling Street or Chee Cheong Kai. It directly translates into starch factory street in the Cantonese language as it was where the very first milling plant was started by Capitan Yap Ah Loy, the pioneer that brought foreign Chinese workers into the country in the year 1870.
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茨厂街 5
PETALING STREET A By-Product of Autonomous Connectivity
n Tun Ta
reet t S k c ng Lo
Che
300 m
Sultan Street
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0.8
1
KM
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KUALA LUMPUR The introduction of a Chinese community in an Islamic-centred country has paved the way for the city of Kuala Lumpur to becoming an industrial colonial construct, fuelling affluent international business associations such as tin mining and tapioca milling to be conducted.
CANTONESE OPERA Opera viewing during the time was a commonality for businessmen to interact as a sign of community and leisure whilst watching stage performers and their acts. But sadly, the culture has long been extinct and deemed redundant with the deterioration in cultural identity and heritage beckoning due to the rapid urbanisation of the city itself. I want to change that.
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ACT 02:
The Proposition
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RECIPE FOR REDEMPTION This proposal is a gesture towards the rejuvenation of Chinatown through the actions of an architectural performance, where the entire site is reinterpreted as an opera stage and in doing so seeks to give back to place and to its significant history as the catalyst for the introduction of the Chinese community into Malaysia.
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PUSHING & PULLING OF THE NEW & OLD This is done through working with the existing fabric site, reworking the iconic food vendors by pushing and pulling them within the street at different scales and also then through a process of translation through their own recipes into a new architecture. These once standalone stalls are converted into mixed-used extensions of the existing to become part food stall and part street performance theatre, with strong heritage influences from Cantonese opera.
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REPURPOSING REDUNDANCY It will also facilitate the provision of aid to vulnerable members of society within the streets of Kuala Lumpur through the act of void metabolism, repurposing redundant and abandoned buildings situated within Petaling Street for shelter, rehabilitation, and food distribution.
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ACT 03:
Existing Site Conditions Petaling Street as of now is only a tribute to what the site once was decades ago.
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PETALING STREET REINTERPRETED As A Cantonese Opera Stage
The street is conjured of a series of timely, political, procedural, and experiential layers that collude synchronously, similar to how conventional stage design is distinguished through the use case of foreground, middle ground, and background when different scenes are set up.
Petaling Street Section
Cantonese Opera Stage Section
Existing Facades 20
Informal Frontages
Overcast Awning
Backdrop
Performance Stage
Stage Roofing 21
OVERCAST AWNING Walking within the current site, visitors are sheltered from the scorching Malaysian heat by a large awning that was installed in the early 2000s.
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A STRANGER TO THE SITE Sitting awkwardly within the space with no cultural purpose, a product of modernity.
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LAYERING OF FACADES An overarching layering of continuous facades that comes in all shapes, sizes colour and materiality, a consequence of Malaysia’s multi-ethnic and cultural historic background.
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EVERY BUILDING HAS A STORY TO TELL Even though these definitive schemes seem to be constantly fighting for the supremacy of value, it is their correspondent adjacencies that harmonises their significance as a whole.
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INFORMAL FRONTAGES With the original facades acting as the backdrop, the food vendors and their individual stalls are the performers. There is a sense of personal disobedience towards the default in architectural hierarchy within the current set up, with a series of informal pop-up shops juxtaposing directly onto the existing facades along the strip.
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INTRUDERS OF CHINATOWN These stores are built with a permanent roofing with minor recollection to the Chinese heritage of the site yet have no resemblance to the building they are attached to, potentially hindering business because of their obscurity towards the built fabric.
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ACT 04:
A Recipe For Architecture I am seeking for incremental methods of building into the existing context that not just makes experiencing it better but also giving it new forms of accessibility by offering something new from the familiar. My attitude towards the architecture comes from the initial highlighting of icons within petaling street, in this case the food vendors as the artists that have been performing for decades, a neverending burlesque situated at the intersection of the road, the centre stage.
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THE ICONS OF PETALING STREET My Architectural Attitude
Madam Tang’s Mua Chi Stall
麻芝皇后
Kim Soya Bean Drink Stall
义钦豆浆水
Longan Drink Stall
龙眼甜水
Kim Lian Kee Flat Rice Noodle Shop
金莲记猪肠粉
Sze Ngan Chai Roasted Duck Stall
四眼仔烧鸭
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CHINESE STREET FOOD Translated Into Architecture
WHAT IF architecture can be generated from the recipes used by the vendors to create their ing the cooking techniques to transforming their stalls as the main ingredients architecturally, to become
delicacies, reinterpretthe final dish itself? 39
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谱 食 鸭 仔烧
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ITECT
ARCH
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Step 4:
Raw Result 40
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A sequence of roofings that stay faithful to the existing facade.
A layered and double storeyed intervention with an overlooking mezzanine.
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45
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Step 5: 46
Raw Result
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A towering, sheltered artefact that penetrates into the original facade of the restaurant it juxtaposes.
An outdoor performance stage with a dominant visual presence for all that visit Chinatown.
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ORIGINAL STALL
Step 4:
Raw Result 52
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A porous intervention with a sequence of spaces that embeds itself onto the ground and the site context it sits along with.
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谱 食 皇后
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ITECT
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Step 5: 58
Raw Result
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A series of angled overhangs and staggered floorplates that looms over the main street.
An entrenchment into the ground as it bleeds from the sidewalk onto the main path.
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ITECT
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ORIGINAL STALL 64
Step 4:
Raw Result
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A parasitic by-product, with roofing scattered throughout to provide sufficient shelter for the masses.
A succession of indoor and outdoor spaces that are projected at a variety of different angles and heights.
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ACT 05:
Opera As Ornamentation With the raw results inserted back into their original locations, the exaggeration of the mundane within Cantonese opera was analysed, extracting the design elements as a way of driving the proposition forward.
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REINSERTING TRADITION As Petaling Street was firstly introduced as a Cantonese opera hotspot in the 1870’s, it is only appropriate for the introduction of a traditional opera room to be installed back into the site.
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SPEAKING NEW LIFE The utilisation of abandoned buildings in the giving back to the place and its history.
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FLORAL ELEMENTS ON GARMENTS Significant moves such as the abstraction of flowers like peonies and water lilies that are typically embroidered onto garments or used as backdrops for different scenes .
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MARKING THE GROUND A Symbol Of Remembrance
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5
10
15
m
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GROUND FLOOR PLAN
L0-02
L0-01
Architecture Conforming To Abstraction
Legend: L0-00 - Central Common Ground L0-01 - Sze Ngan Chye’s Roast Duck Shop L0-02 - Madam Tang’s Mua Chi Shop
L0-03 L0-00
L0-03 - Air Mata Kucing Logan Drink Shop
L0-05
L0-04 - Kim Lian Kee’s Flat Rice Noodle Stalls
L0-04
L0-05 - Kim’s Soya Bean Shop L0-06 - Reintegration Center Soup Kitchen L0-07 - Performance Education Center Lobby L0-07
L0-06
0 m
80
5
10
15
FIRST FLOOR PLAN
L1-04
Seperate Artefacts Merging Into One
L1-00
L1-04
L1-04
Legend: L1-00 - Cantonese Opera Performance Room L1-01 - Outdoor Performance Stage
L1-04
L1-01
L1-02 - Performance Education Center L1-03 - Reintegration Center L1-04 - Outdoor Viewing Space
L1-04 L1-02
L1-03
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5
10
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RED & WHITE MAKEUP A common use case for performers to counteract poor stage lighting and increase the visibility of the audience.
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THE SPOTLIGHT IS ON CHINATOWN Reconciliated as a way of highlighting Chinatown within the hustle and bustle of the city once again, with its amplified lighting fixtures and vibrancies in program drawing audiences from the outside in. with no regards to the time of day.
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ORIENTAL MYTHICAL CREATURES Often times used to glorify signs of balance and prosperity.
The P
hoen
The Dragon
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The Tiger
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A NEW COAT The asymmetrical yet intentive configurations are translated with a sense of personal bias within the proposition, acting as a secondary skin for the already layered built fabric.
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THE PERFORMER’S GESTUS The meaning or intent of a place is embodied in the attitude of the actor’s gesture.
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THE EXAGGERATION OF MOVEMENT Expressing emotion to allow for architecture to flow within the site both horizontally and vertically through the exploration of the people’s behaviours and their biased realism.
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AMBIGUITY IN PERFORMANCE PROPS Landscapes painted onto a backdrop and the usage of minimal furniture such as two chairs and a table to be arranged symbolically to represent different settings, be it a bridge a mountain or even a bed. 97
SPILLAGE OF BOUNDARIES This spillage of boundaries from the artefacts on to the main path is a testimony towards the disagreement in segregation between the hierarchical layers of Petaling Street, there should be a seamless transition between the people, the landscape, and the architecture, be it new or old. With people in mind, the rejuvenation of Petaling Street will also focus on the recuperation of the needy, a rehabilitation headquarters that is run and managed by fellow Malaysians to aid fellow Malaysians.
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SPEAKING NEW LIFE... AGAIN Once again unused buildings are utilized in the creation of these facilities, taking advantage of the existing scenarios to hold programs that aid in initiatives to enable and retrain, rather than segregate the people in dire need from society but integrate them back into it. There is a shift in the mere containment of people to the provision of opportunities for the needy. 101
ACT 06:
The Final Scene The void that was generated from the design outcome is a testimony of spaces performing as architecture, acting as a catalyst to enable all formal or informal events within it to occur. The relationships formed through the integration of the facades, extensions and signage showcase the blurring of interiority against exteriority, public vs private within one space, where is the line drawn when it comes to accessibility, what is considered inside or outside and what isn’t? There will be no distinctive segregation between the different components, they are articulated and made to work not around but with each other, the way Malaysia should be. The goal is for there to never be a curtain call on Petaling Street, to become a container that is a utilitarian counterpart in its application of existing cultural heritage to inspire a new design language in the revitalisation of Malaysia’s premise of being a multi-cultural country, indeed the reason I call myself a Malaysian today.
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