THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC2224) (ARC61303) PROJECT 2: “COGNITIVE MAPPING”
LECTURER: Mr. NICHOLAS NG NAME: VENDY WILLIAM STUDENT ID: 0316944
Figure 1: Pudu Dam
Pudu is one of the most famous town located in Kuala Lumpur. It is located in Southwest direction of Kuala Lumpur (Bukit Bintang). The site that we investigate is not the whole Pudu, but it is in the intersection between three streets, which are Jalan Tun Perak, Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock and Jalan Pudu itself. Back to the 1880s, this site is often known as the backyard of Petaling Street. Jalan Pudu is famous with the negativity reasons such as dirty markets, chaotic traffic and prostitution. One of the most famous place in Pudu where Puduraya (Kuala Lumpur’s oldest bus station) is standing now was Pudu Dam. The photo was taken in 1910s, an old map showed the Dam source was Bukit Bintang, and the Dam itself known as Lotus Lake. Along the stream, the British government built a railway to Cheras and Ampang, which later replaced with Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock and Jalan Pudu.
As the times goes by, Pudu has developed and become a vibrant and colourful place for different historical building and environment. Due to the development, Pudu has a combination between old and modern feeling in it, some of the old buildings in Pudu were built or rebuilt in different eras, show distinct architectural features. The gradual transformation of this area are not well known by public, but when we take a look for the building surrounding, Pudu has grown a lot.
Nowadays, historical and heritage buildings are very important for Pudu people. They want to keep the value of the building for something to remember. A committee called “The Lost Generation Arts Space” is the answer for this, they provide the public with a glimpse of the heritage and cultural value of this century- old community. Pudu Cultural and Art Tour is organized by this association where public can have a free guided walkabout where they can learn about the beauty of culture, trade, buildings and local community. In accordance to the lack of communal effort in preserving the culture and building, many of invaluable heritages had been lost.
Figure 2: Diversity of Pudu Architecture
There is a lot of different perspective of people’s to representing the environment in “cognitive map”. Kevin Lynch did a research on the perceptual of urban environments and make a research of human behaviour by using mental mapping. For Lynch’s, cognitive map is a means to cope with societies complexities by bridging “objective” and abstract representation of space, and subjective existential experiences of “lived space”. From some of the people sense, cognitive map is a mental map that can be used to inspect some of the elements of the surrounding area or specific site. For instances; landmarks, routes, food areas, or bus station, etc. As cognitive, they must be differ from true maps of the environment. As for maps, they are presumed to be coherent wholes that reflect spatial relations among the elements. In other words, cognitive maps are meant to be like real maps available to real inspection or mental representations of physical location. One of the strong sense to do cognitive mapping is the memory of the place, it helps people to recall what the place is about.
In purpose to understand what people see, feel and think from “Pudu”, I did some intervewed and asked them to sketch what are they remember about the Pudu area. From six people that I’ve interviewed, I choose two of them which are; A Chinese from Hailam customer and A Malay Maybank worker. The reasons that I choose them over the others are simple, First, I understand their cognitive map better while the others not clear enough. Second, there are similarities on both maps and also dissimilarities.
Figure 3: Cognitive map by Chinese customer
Figure 4: Cognitive map by Malay Maybank worker
The similarities from both of the mapping is they drew the most well-known landmarks in Pudu. Puduraya has been the most significant landmark of Pudu. It is not only served as a landmark, but also nodes. Puduraya was the only bus terminal in Kuala Lumpur and it used to serve for coaches departing and arriving from all parts of peninsular Malaysia. Even though the name of Puduraya has changed into Pudu Sentral, people still remembered it as Puduraya. It can be prove that the memories of time and places cannot be easily forgotten. Other than Puduraya, Menara Maybank become the similarity between these two. They remember Menara Maybank is because it is the tallest building surrounding. Due to the sustainability of Maybank tower, which has been constructed since 1984 and completed in 1987, it gives personal memories to the people who lives in Pudu. Before the Petronas Twin Towers built in 1995, Maybank tower was the tallest building in Kuala Lumpur, and it make this building very important to the Pudu people and Malaysia as well. The smell of the back alley of Mydin gives bad images for both of them; as such they hates and lazy to use that way. The traffic in the intersection is the last similarity from both mapping, it shows that the jam in that area is horrible and make them feel frustrated; especially for the Maybank worker.
Figure 5: Pudu Intersection
Figure 6: Mydin back alley
On the other side, the dissimilarities between these two maps are; as for the Chinese customer in Hailam kopitiam, he remembered more about the Hailam kopitiam itself, which he always go for breakfast, Police station in front of Pudu sentral which is very important to him because the site is quite dangerous area and how there
is a different style how they draw the cognitive map. As for Malay Maybank worker, he used scribbling to indicate smell, for Chinese customer; he draw bin with 3 lines. Malay Maybank worker emphasize on the parking outside Maybank tower because of the daily routine of him to park outside the building rather than inside due to expensive cost. The worker is not originally from Pudu, so he does not mention about all the historical stuff, but instead talked about McDonald’s because he is often have lunch in there and surrounding area near Maybank tower. For example; Jalan Tun H.S. Lee and Petaling street. From this two cognitive mapping, I can conclude that the memories of places, daily routine, background of people is has a great effect for people to remember something.
Figure 7: Cognitive mapping by me
From my personal point of view, I’m an international student from Indonesia, the first thing I can remember from Pudu is the Bus station. I always use the bus services to go to other side of Malaysia, like Penang. Chinatown will be the second thought after I heard Pudu, not only because it is a tourism spot, but also the diversity of the culture are very rich. Different culture from Chinese, Malay and Indian combine into one. The different style of the buildings around Pudu area makes me feel excited and makes me wonder what happened in here last time. Every tourist would like public transport and I’m sure Malaysia has given quite advance transport for us to go around Kuala Lumpur. LRT is a significant thing because it makes us easier to travel around this area because of I do not have the private vehicle in here. Other than Maybank tower, the wet market “Mydin” is one of the landmark of Pudu for me. The size and the location of it is easily to recognize and it is only opposite Maybank tower.
The Image of The City in 1960, is Kevin Lynch’s result of his five years detailed study to observe information of the way we structure our city psychologically from three different city; Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles to understood the user’s behaviour and surroundings area in a predictable ways, with using mental maps with five elements. For Lynch, the terms “Imageability” of a city is connected directly related to the success of its urban planner. Imageability means until what extend of the cityscape can be read, they need to be able to recognize and organize urban elements into coherent pattern. Five elements that he used to describe a city are Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes and Landmarks.
Paths is the network of habitual or potential lines of movement through the urban complex. A characteristic spatial quality, a special textures, smells, sounds should be applied to give the continuity to the path. The different thickness of lines and the line of motion also can differentiate the meaning of the path and decrease the ambiguous curves or streets. Arrows can be used to oriented element by using projecting surfaces facing one direction or using colours. If the lines along the way can be differentiated in measureable way, means not only the line is oriented but also the scale. As for Pudu, the strategic point where the point of connection and decision for the man to make decision is the intersection. The intersection in Pudu is very noticeable, can be visualized clearly and also the two paths respects to each other. A joint of more than two lines is not easy to conceptualize, therefore a structure of paths must have a certain simplicity to form images.
Figure 8: Paths - Intersection
Edges is boundaries and breaks in continuity. Edges as well as paths call for a certain continuity of form throughout their length. Things like visibility for some distance, marks a sharp gradient of area character, and the clear joins the two bounded regions can be strengthen the definition of edges. If the particular area, are not bounded by nature, then it is useful to differentiate the two sides of an edge to oriented people in the inside or outside sense. An edge may be more than a barrier if
some visual or motion penetration allowed through it. If an important edge is provided with many visual and circulation connections to the structure then it becomes feature of visibility. The edges in Pudu is the intersection of three streets itself, whereby; it is the end of Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, end of Jalan Tun Perak and the beginning of Jalan Pudu. The LRT above Jalan Pudu is the notice or barrier that you already inside Pudu area.
Figure 9: LRT as the boundary
Figure 10: The end of Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock
Districts is areas characterized by common characteristic, recognize by dues which are throughout the district and discontinuous elsewhere. The spatial characteristic is the homogeneity, like the narrow street, building type, topography, building features, continuity of colour, texture, materials, floor surface, scale, façade detail, lighting or planting. The more characteristic overlap, the stronger the impression of the region. A district is further sharpened by the definiteness and closure of its boundary, it also may join by juxtaposition, intervisibility, relation to a line, or by some link such as mediating node, path or small districts. As such for Pudu area, there are 2 major districts in this area, which are Educational, Commercial area. For educational, it just located South-West of Puduraya and there are “Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Methodist (Lelaki)”, “Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan Confucian” and “Confucian Secondary School”. For Commercial, Puduraya itself, 711, McD, KFC, Hailam Kopitiam, Mydin, Maybank, etc.
Figure 11: Methodist school
Figure 12: McDonald’s
Nodes can be defined as strategic focus points for orientation like squares, junctions and also the conceptual anchor points in cities. The essence of nodes can be strengthen if it has a sharp, closed boundary, and does not trail off uncertainly on every side. Pudu has a very famous nodes, which is Puduraya, where people gather from different areas to using the bus service. Other than that, LRT, Bus station in front of Puduraya, and most of the five foot-way in Pudu.
Figure 13: Puduraya
Figure 14: Bus station in front of Puduraya
Landmarks is an external points of orientation, usually an easily identifiable physical object and also the contrast in the urban landscape. It can be a tower, unique roof, materiality, continuous façade, etc. A landmark is not necessary a large or tall objects, it can be a small thing like doorknob. A landmark can be stronger if visible over extended range of area. Not only serves as nodes, Puduraya also become one of the landmarks as the oldest and biggest bus station in Pudu area, other than Maybank as the tallest in that area and Mydin as the largest market.
Figure 15: Menara Maybank
Figure 16: Mydin market
In conclusion, there are five fundamental perception senses that allow us to reread and interpret the place, which are “images and colours”,” signs and sensations”, “sounds and noises”, “smells and aromas”, “textures and patterns”. All of these affects the memory of people to interpret and conclude the area.
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