Comparative Analysis: Theories of architecture

Project 02: Comparative Analysis
Theories of urbanism and architecture
(ARC61303)
School of Architecture, Building and Design
CHONG JIA YI 0320869
Tutor: Mr Nicholas

Table of context/
1. Introduction
2. SIte background-contact point in map*
3. Comparative analysis
3.1. Culture and community group
3.2. Scale and Density
3.3. Pattern of social activities
4. Conclusion
5. Reference list

1.0 Introduction
This paper is aim to compare the contact points of two streets, one is MEdan
pasar which is the site for our studio project 2, and another one is Tung Chau
street which located at Hong Kong, by finding out their similarities and
differences in aspect of social activities and its contact intensity.
2.0 Site background
Medan pasar/
Medan Pasar is a heart of the inner city of Kuala Lumpur, and it once is the most important
market hub of the city. It is a historical street within a dense urban context, the township are
established by Yap Ah Loy, once acknowledge by the the old chinese community as Hokkien
Street. The street are later molded by the British colonial government, rebuilt the shophouses
with ornate neo-classical style. Although the road no longer plays host to the city’s busiest
market, Medan Pasar is still buzzing with activities as it is now one of the main hubs for public
transports. It is a street that is always filled with people, that can see from the chaotic
streetscape that reflected the life of local, with the diverse uses of the pocket space between
the building, privatized back alley and the verandah way that housed homeless; there are no
space in the street are blank.

Tung Chau street is located at Sham shui po in Hong Kong, lie beneath of the West Kowloon
street, .it is a street that span under the serpentine road like most of the street in Hong Kong.
Similar to Medan pasar, it sits in an extremely dense urban environment, surrounded by
skyscrapers and highways, hence the city is overpopulated, causing the issue of homeless
who not afford to rent a space to live in the city. Like medan pasar, the pedestrian walkway
at the frontage of the shop are usually privatized and the street level of the building blocks
are offsetted to provide a shaded pedestrian walkway. However, there are lesser people
loitering at the street compared to Medan pasar as most of the activities of hong kong are
happen in the building, rather than the street. The street is just a transition of people to pass
by to get into another building,
Tung Chau street/

3.0 Comparative Analysis
Contact points analysis/
AA
B
C
D
E
F
MEDAN PASAR/
A: In front of Kasturi Walk
B: In front of Petaling street
C: Back lane of Jalan Yap Ah Loy
D: Artist street beside of Central
Market
E: River of life public square
F: Medan pasar
TUNG CHAU STREET/
A: MTR Pathway
B: Jade market
C: Tung chau street park
D: Sham Shui Po park
E: New asia college memorial park
F: Sycamore playground

3.0 Medan pasar
A) Kasturi walk
- Type of activity: Necessary activity and
optional activity. People passing by the
point while walking to LRT stations and bus
hub. Necessary activity for merchant to sell
food and craft product to the tourist.
However, some people stopping by in front
of kasturi walk while resting under the
shade and enjoying the street
performance. Result to social activity such
as tourist asking the street performer
about the performance and the culture of
KL.
- Quality of physical environment: Shaded
walkway that protect pedestrians from sun
and rain.
- Intensity: Low to Medium. Passive contact
happen while people making eye contacts
with passer by and merchant. Medium
contact intensity take place while
merchant trying to persuade passer by to
buy their products.
B) Gate of Petaling street
- Type of activity: Necessary activity and
optional activity. Food seller selling food
for their living, local worker come here for
breakfast and lunch. Optional activity
happen most in festive season where
people loitering along the street to enjoy
the joyous spring festival atmosphere.
- Quality of physical environment: A long
street in between 4-5 storey building
blocks, the street become narrower as
hawker privatized the street to sell stuff
and food. Usually crowded by people.
- Intensity: Low to High. Eye contacts
between passer by along the street,
people who met friends and acquaintance
will stand along the edge of the street to
avoid blocking the pedestrian flow. High
intensity contact occur when people
sitting along the street have their
acquaintance joining them for their meal.
Figure 3.0.3: The privatization of storefront becoming one of
the culture of the city
Figure 3.0.4: The portal of petaling street as landmark for the tourist and
local.
Figure 3.0..1 : The iconic canopy walkway to showcase the culture of nation
to the tourist
Figure 3.0.2 : The street
performer had attract
the people’s attention to
stop-by as what Jan
Gehl said in his book,
“people attracting
people”

C) Back lane of Jalan Yap Ah Loy
- Type of activity: Necessary activity.
Merchant selling food and beverage,
therefore the human intensity are temporal,
as it only crowded when lunch time. Local
and migrant passing by the back lane to go
to their workplace.
- Quality of physical environment: A row of
stalls located In between 2 shop lots, shady
as most of the sunlight block by building
adjacent.
- Intensity: Low to High. Most of the people
passing by the lane without stopping only
when they buying lunch or met their
acquaintance. While some frequenters will
stop by and chat with the food seller as they
established friendship with each other.
D) Artist street
- Type of activity: Necessary
activity and optional activity.
Mostly optional activity for
tourist to grasp some idea of
Malaysia art and culture. There
are cafe for people to sit and
chat with their friends and
acquaintance. Social activity are
more intense in art market than
food market as people chatting
while waiting artist to finish their
painting job.
- Quality of physical environment:
Shaded walkway that protect
pedestrians from sun and rain.
- Intensity: Low to Medium.
Passive contact happen while
people making eye contacts
with passer by and merchant.
Medium contact intensity take
place while merchant trying to
persuade passer by to buy their
products.
Figure 3.1.5 : People attracted to walk on this back lane because of the food
selling
Figure 3.0.6 : The activities happen in the artist lane
Figure 3.0.7 : The artworks draws people into the lane
and provided an opportunity for people to interact

E) River of life
- Type of activity: Optional activity.
People coming here to enjoy the
nice view of the Masjid jamek and
take photos. During the night,
many of the white collar worker will
come here to take a walk, while
during weekends, families and
friends will have some activities
such as riding bicycle around this
place.
- Quality of physical environment:
Without providing shading at the
square, people prefer to stay there
during night than daytime.
Spacious space for public
interaction.
- Intensity: Low to High. People will
acknowledge the presence of each
other while carry out their own
activity with their friends and
acquaintance. Occasionally will
have event such as urban
sketching happen that will attracts
pedestrian therefore public
interaction happen.
Figure 3.1.8 .: The nice view attracts tourist coming for
sightseeing
F) Medan Pasar square
- Type of activity: Necessary activity. Worker from
bank walking to their workplace. People
congregate at the edge of the square to take bus.
- Quality of physical environment: An ample square
without shading and lighting at night, therefore
people tends to use it as a transition than a public
square. Eventually it occupied by homeless.
- Intensity: Low to high. People walking at fast pace
and quickly glance through the passer by. They
tends to avoid eye contact to the homeless out of
insecurity. High contact intensity between migrant
as they form friendship and bond while chatting
with each other
Figure 3.0.8 .: Optional activity to do in the public walkway
Figure 3.0.9 .: People walking pass by the square, or taking
public transport and grabbing some food at the edge of the
square

3.1 Cultural and community group
Medan pasar has rich historical and cultural context, however its
identity as the central of kl city had faded because of the influx of
migrant that taking over the economy of the place. The local are
slowly moving out from the city not only because of the influx of
the migrant, is because of the high value of the land in medan
pasar prompting them to sell off their land to developer to built
high rise such as office tower. Thus, there are lack of residential
area in medan pasar, then the local community are loss, replaced
by transient community group such as office workers who using
the street as a transition to their workplace and public
transportation such as buses and LRT. For example, people gather
at the edge of the medan pasar square to wait for their bus, only
low contact intensity happen as they are waiting eagerly for their
bus under the harsh sun.
The increased human density and the diversity of the community
had boosting the economy of the site, increasing the necessary
activity of the site such as work. However it doesn’t contribute to
the optional and social activities due to the lack of connection
between the community group. The diverse community groups
that have different cultural background does not share the same
value and philosophy often have conflict among each other and
not comfortable to stay together in the same spot. Local often
associate the social problems such as drugs addiction,
robbery,homeless and prostitution with the migrant, hence the
social atmosphere are unharmonious. For instance, local avoid
staying in medan pasar square because of the congregation of
migrant over there.
On the other hand, although Tung Chau street has the problem
with the influx of migrant similarly, the local resident still dominant
in the street. It is because the street are located in between of
residential building blocks. People who hanging around the green
space provided near their house regularly had know each other
well. The sense of community in Tung Chau street are stronger
compared to Medan pasar as they are permanent resident of the
street, although the issue of the homeless had jeopardize their
living environment, but they resolving it gradually with the help of
government.
The community group of the street will affect the characteristic of
the contact point. Through the analysis, I found out that the contact
point of the Medan pasar are segregated, as its serve and provide
spaces for optional activity of different community group. For
example, Central market and petaling street are mainly gathered
by tourist and the local working in there; back lane and the river of
life square is mainly consist of local worker while the migrant
workers and homeless tends to loitering at medan pasar square.
Hence the contact point are not raising any social interaction
between different community group. On the other hand, in tung
chau street, the contact point had its purpose to provide a space
for the optional activity for the local residents, such as tung chau
street park that provide sport facilities and green space for the
resident who lived in Fu cheong estate and Nam Cheong estate.
Figure 3.1.1The diversity of the community group in Medan
pasar from this photo of people waiting for bus
Local malays Chinese Migrant workers
Figure 3.1.2 A glimpse of the people moving and staying
around the street, most of them are local residents
Figure 3.1.3 Homeless sleeping along the street.

3.2 Scale and streetscape
Based on the analysis of the contact points, Medan
pasar street and Tung Chau street sharing the same
characteristic of dense urban context, and fully
developed. However, their urban context are different
in aspect of urban grain and building typology. By
looking the city plan, one can find that the most
distinctive feature of medan pasar street is the building
block is developed along the klang river while Tung
Chau street is well planned city with oblong grid
pattern.
Medan pasar is existed since early settlement of KL,
therefore there are lots of heritage building still erected
along the street. As there is low vehicular traffic in
those days, people meander through the city by
walking, the scale of road are narrow (1-2 lanes) and
the spacing between building blocks are more intimate
to shorten the walking distance. However, the narrow
road are no longer able to cater the heavy vehicular
traffic load nowadays, as consequences, there are
traffic jam and illegal parking on the verandah way of
the street that decreased the walkability of the street.
The irregular profile of path that forming lots of
intersection point are confusing people in wayfinding,
further reducing the optional activity that happen on
site. Hence, the node to restricted on area nearby
famous tourist spot such as petaling street and central
market.
On the other hand, Tung Chau street is the product of
modern city planning. The building typology of the
street are mostly highrise mansion, the road in
between building block are wider (3-4 lanes), therefore
forming a coarser building grain. Although the
vehicular road usually busy, sufficient zebra crossing li
and foot bridge are provided for pedestrian to walk
across the street. The building blocks are connected
internally by underground pathway between MTR
station(Figure ), and there are adequate footbridge
provided to connect building across the wide road.
Therefore, the walkability of Tung chau street not only
on street level, and it dispersing the pedestrian traffic
flow successfully. Resultantly, the contact points are
found on the exits of MTR pathways. MTR station also
acts as the landmark for local, and the chances of
contact at MTR station are higher because of the
universality of the public transport.
Figure 3.2.2 To show urban grain of
the Tung chau street that consist
mainly large block of buildings
Figure 3.2.3 The exit of the MTR underground pathway
provided seating for people to rest and interact
Contact points A(Tung chau street):
Contact intensity: Low to High
Type of activity: Necessary activity. People walking from the
underground pathway, will sit at the pavilion for a short chat if
they met their acquaintance.
Figure 3.2.1 Nolli diagram that show the
settle ment of the medan posar that
following the form of klang river

Furthermore, 5 foot walkway are introduced by former british to protect people from harsh
weather condition. It become the main passage for
The city are lack of public spaces which able to attract people, most local to travel from one
place to another. Even though sometimes the 5 foot walkway are squeezing, people still prefer
to walk on it rather than open pathway beside it. Based on observation, most of the public
interaction are happening along the street rather than a planned open space. It is because
most of the public spaces such as Medan pasar square are failed as it is not well shaded from
harsh sun and rain.
However in Tung Chau street, there are planned green space along the street for resident and
workers such as Tung Chau street park and Sham shui po park. It is a place for them to carry
on their optional activities such as jogging and stroll along the park. According to Jan gehl,
optional activities take place only when the physical environment are favourable Therefore the
park provided with green space with sufficient shading to attract people to congregate at the
place, further encourage social activities among the locals.
Figure 3.2.4 Street typology of Medan pasar that show the relationship
between the people and the five foot walkway
Figure 3.2.5 Street typology of Tung chau
street. The road is lie between two large
building blocks

The building typology of the these two street are different too.
The context of the medan pasar is dense in the street scale,
consisting infiltration of high rise within the medium-rise
shophouses. (Figure )Observing at the most of the building at
site, the public accessible area is restricted at ground level, while
the upper level are private spaces such as office and dwelling.
Moreover, the mix of the old and new buildings also result to the
irregular street line, due to different building regulation in
different period of time. Thus nooks had formed along the street
and some people taking advantage to privatized the offset area
to sell foods, forming contacts points within the street.
While in Tung chau street, the context is dense vertically, as it
mainly consist of high-rise buildings, and the commercial area
not merely located on the street level while spreading to the
upper floor of the building due to lack of land lot. The diagram
beside is to show the mixed use building typology in tung chau
street. The ground level of the highrise is designed to lure
people into the building while they walking on the street. For
instance, New asia college memorial park that located
underneath the Trinity tower had attracts passer-by to
wandering round the green space, effectively increasing the
optional activity such as reading and playing phone under the
shade.
Red: Public space Blue: Private space
Figure 3.2.6 To show the public area that restricted to the
storefront of the shophouse in Medan Pasar.
Figure 3.2.7
The irregular
set back line
of the building
along the
street
Figure 3.2.8
The
privatization
of the street
Figure 3.2.9 The infiltrate of the highrise in between the mid rise shop houses in the city
Figure 3.2.10 The vertical zoning of the building in hong kong
Figure 3.2.11 Green space in New asia college memorial park
Contact points E Tung Chau Street:
Contact intensity: Low to High
Type of activity: Necessary and optional activity: People
walking under the shade or sitting in the garden .

3.3 Pattern of social and economic activity
Different type of community group and characteristic of the
place result in different pattern of social activity. As a tourism
spot of the KL city, the economic activity are mostly to cater
the needs of tourist, while in Tung Chau street which is a
residential and commercial district, the economic activity is
to serve the local needs.
The contact points of the medan pasar is usually consist of
economic activity related to tourism such as souvenir shops
and art market. The local shophouses are gradually
gentrified by the modern Western culture to cater some of
the fast food restaurant and bistro such as Mcdonalds,
Burger King and Texas chicken, losting the local historical
and cultural essence as a heritage city. Moreover, the influx
of the migrant had taken over lots of shophouse to sell their
native food and provide services for their countryman such
as money changing and deliver services. There are one of the
row of the shophouse along Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin which is
occupied by the shop manage by migrant, as a high intensity
of contact point for the migrant to meet up with their friends.
Except of the formal economic activity which confine within
the shop boundary, the informal economic activity such as
food stalls and indian flower stall are scatter around the
street which aim to cater the need of the local community.
This kind of economic activity often happen under a covered
walkway or back lane, where local usually hanging around.
For example, The contact point happens at the back lane of
jalan yap ah loy sells local food and beverage for the white
collar who working around there, with low to high contact
intensity, as some of them had established friendship with the
hawker.
Figure 3.3.1 The Nepal cuisine serve in the KL
Medan Pasar street.
Figure 3.3.2 Privatizing the 5 foot walkway to
conduct his key making business

In the daytime of Tung Chau street, the major
economic activity is take place within the
building blocks rather on the street. Therefore,
people walking on the street only to do their
necessary activities such as walking to MTR
station, workplace or school. Therefore the
contact point happen at the intersection of
path. For instance, at the entrance of Sycamore
playground, people meet up and have a small
chat while crossing the road.
The street is located beneath the serpentine
highways (West Kowloon road), one side of the
street is shaded by the skybridge while the
other side is exposed. People are more likely to
walk under the shaded, and the homeless are
tends to sleep at there. Therefore the
government had built the jade market
underneath a part of the skybridge to utilize the
human traffic and to chasee of the street
sleepers. As the result, it become the tourist spot
and local started to sit in front of the entrance
of jade market, facing the passer-by, hence
increasing the passive contact among peoples.
It showing that the people prefer to sit at the
more active area of the city, because of their
interest in being contact with others based on
Jan Gehl’s theory.
Red: Serpentine Highway (West
Kowloon Road)
Blue: Tung Chau street
(underneath)
Figure 3.3.3 The relationship
between the skybridge and Tung
Chau Street
Figure 3.3.4 Entrance of Sycamore park
Contact point F
Contact intensity: Low to medium
Type of activity: Necessary activities:
Walking across the street and rest at the edge
of the park
Figure 3.3.4 Entrance of Jade Market
Contact point B
Contact intensity: Low to medium
Type of activity: Necessary and optional activities:
In between housing area and the commercial area,
a lots of people will be passing by.
Optional activity for local and tourist to hang inside
the jade market

4.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, the livability of a city is deeply related to the life between buildings. Both medan
pasar and Tung Chau street had its own personality by responding the external physical and
socio-cultural condition. However, the urban planning in both street are quite utilitarian, making the
city losing its flexibility to cater the life of the urban dwellers. In city that overly emphasized on the
functionality of the building and urban planning, an architect-to-be, we should start ponder about
essential quality and criteria of the public realm that a city should have to protect the public life of
peoples. As what Jane Jacob mention in her book, The Death and life of great American city: “Cities
have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are
created by everybody.” The architecture itself didn’t endow the city with identity and life, only when
the people stay and interact within the city, the city will had its own charisma and story, that will
continuing inspiring its dweller to make it a better place to live.

5.0 Reference
1. Gehl, J., & Koch, J. (2011). Life between buildings: using public space. Washington, DC: Island
Press.
2. Jacobs, J. (1964). The death and life of great American cities. London: Pelican.
3. U. (1970, January 01). Radical Mix in Hong Kong. Retrieved November 27, 2017, from
http://icebloghk.blogspot.my/2011/03/radical-mix-in-hong-kong.html
4. The cardboard box community of Sham Shui Po -. (2015, April 22). Retrieved November 27,
2017, from http://www.vfnow.org/7976/cardboard-box-community-sham-shui-po/
5. Chan, D. (2007, March 02). Medan Pasar the hub of KL in the 19th century. Retrieved
November 27, 2017, from
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/community/2007/03/03/medan-pasar-the-hub-of-kl-in-the-19t
h-century/
6. Hong Kong - Ovolo 256 Tung Chau Street and the Peak. (2013, September 13). Retrieved
November 27, 2017, from http://starryworld.com/hong-kong-day1/
7. Life under overpass: A homesick Vietnamese homeless. (2016, March 22). Retrieved November
27, 2017, from https://lynnliu.me/2014/10/30/a-homesick-vietnamese-homeless/
8. High-Density Living In Hong Kong. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2017, from
https://lsecities.net/media/objects/articles/high-density-living-in-hong-kong/en-gb/

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