SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING &DESIGN

Bachelor of Science (Honours) Architecture

THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM (ARC61303/ARC2224)

PROJECT: LIFE BETWEEN BUILDINGS: USING PUBLIC SPACE”

PART 2: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ESSAY

NAME: TEO CHEN YI

STUDENT ID: 0320618

TUTOR: MR. NAZMI

TABLE OF CONTENT

1.0 Introduction2.0 Analysis3.0 Conclusion4.0 Reference

1.0INTRODUCTION

Petaling Street is located at the heart of Kuala Lumpur where it is not far from Central Market. It is commonly known as Chinatown where it is a street that symbolized and gives an identity of Chinese culture. Petaling Street is also known as ‘Starch Factory Street’ in Cantonese that refers to the history about the production of the tapioca flour. It used to be an unplanned development of fine urban grain that is concentrated by the river due to the water supply. It was slowly developed to a more organized area of fine grain with alleyways to accommodate pedestrian and vehicular passage. The addition in building blocks concentrating on the east increases the commercial activity from the effect of tapioca industry. Nowadays, building blocks are demolished to form open space for parking lot due to car as primary mode of transport while other buildings are preserve as heritage buildings.

Petaling Street is now flooded with not only Chinese traders but also Malay, Indian and even foreign traders. Nowadays, Petaling Street is well-known for pirated products trading and also tourists’ and locals favourite spot for shopping and bargaining on pirated products. Food stalls and restaurants that mainly serves local delicacies are also commonly found in Petaling Street. The green awnings acts as roof covering the whole length of street to keep it shield from bad weather condition. The main feature of the Petaling Street is the oriental arch-way with the Chinese latern hanging above the sign entrance located at the north and south entrance.

In this analysis essay, two streets will be compared which is the Petaling Street of Kuala Lumpur and 6th avenue of New York City. The comparison will be made based on the patterns of social activities, the types of ‘contact points’ and the intensity of contact points between the two cities with information gathered from site as well as research findings from the internet.

2.0ANALYSIS

Jan Gehl’s ‘Life between Buildings Using Public Space (1971) described the three types of outdoor activities demands differently on the physical environment. Necessary activity are activities where the participants are doing it on a daily basis because it is compulsory for them. For instance, going to work or school, walking to destination or running errands are activities where the participants have no choice but to carry out the activity anyway. In Petaling Street, necessary activity can normally be found in bus stops or LRT stations where people gathered there to travel to other destination or in contrary other participants from other places arrived at Petaling Street as their destination for specific purposes. Contact point is formed at this point where the low intensity of contact point with only passive contact is formed. However, it could possibly be access to another degree of contact. According to Jan Gehl, low-intensity of contact is also a situation where there is an opportunity that other forms of contact can grow. (Gehl, 1971, pg.21) This is because there is a chance of higher intensity of contact where spontaneous situation might occur for example workers distributing brouchers or flyers at the station as it is one of the strategic spot thaat crowds occur. Thus, even carrying out the necessary activity which has the least interaction with people will have the possibility of contact. Besides, there are schools and office buildings around Petaling Street where people pass by junctions or stop at junctions to wait for the traffic light to turn green. At this point, a contact point is formed at a very low intensity as well. As junctions are more likely at a location beside a busy road, the participants are most not likely to interact at such dangerous spot even though it is a route where they have to pass by every time on a daily basis. There are restaurants in Petaling Street where there are also necessary activity occur which is loading and unloading of foods or goods during specific hours for the shop owners to carry out their business. In this case, interaction between participants are only restricted between the shop owners and the loading person or in some situation it is only the shop owners itself and no interaction occur. In comparison with the 6th avenue in New York City, necessary activity involves of waiting at the bus stop or subway station. This is similar to the situation in Petaling Street where it acts as a starting point for people to travel to their destination or as a destination where people come from other places. Thus, opportunity of a higher intensity of contact is possible. Besides, junctions are also another contact point that is similar to Petaling Street as it serves the same purpose. However, there is something different about the junctions in 6th avenue is that mobile stalls are located near or at the junctions. Although the mobile stall involves different types of interactive activity but under necessary activity, the owner of the mobile stall is carrying out necessary activity on a daily basis as well where it is the work he should be performing. Besides, there is a newspaper stand along 6th avenue where it is also a spot consists of necessary activity. People will pass by for newspaper everyday and creates a contact point as well. The intensity of the contact point is acquaintances as the seller may know a group of

customers. The newspaper stand is located along the pedestrian walkway where people will drop by to get the newspaper and leave which does not required a specifically good condition of exterior space but a convenient space can be easily seen by the buyers. Thus, necessary activity is not likely to be affected by the quality of the outdoor spaces as it has to be performed under almost all kind of condition.

Figure 2.1: Bus stop near Petaling Street.

Figure 2.2: Bus stop at 6th avenue.

Optional activities are activity that involves the participants’ will to perform and normally it takes place during optimal exterior condition. (Gehl, 1970, pg.13) For example, taking a walk, sitting down at an open space or sight-seeing. In Petaling Street, optional activities can be found along the Petaling Street as the street is now added with the green awing acting as a roof to shield the vendors as well as the goods and buyers from bad weather condition. The good quality of the physical environment elongate the time spent for the visitors to the Petaling Street and it gives and inviting experience with the big and eye-catching entrance sign which will attract the attention of passer-by. In this case, the location of the entrance is a junction where the degree of contact intensity is relatively high. The contact involve a wide range of contact intensity which are passive contact, chance contact and acquaintances contact. Passive contact is just basically “see and hear” contacts where it is insignificant and a noncommittal contacts but involves emotional connections. Chance contact is where the possibility of an upgrade of contact intensity level while acquaintance is the contact intensity where it involves interaction with a familiarity of two parties. Thus, Petaling Street involved all these three contacts where visitors that come for window shopping perform passive contact; the interaction between seller and buyer when bargaining involved chance contact occur; and acquaintance contact involved where the seller may already have a group of frequent customer. Besides, there are food stalls at the back alleyways in Petaling Street which forms a hidden node but only at a specific hours. However, not much of the people knew its existence unless the locals. This is due to the alleyways with two sides of double volume building creates a narrow environment which lack of ventilation and space that does not gives the inviting experience. But it does still have a higher intensity of contact point when the food stalls in the back alley has acquaintance contact where the owner of the food stall has a frequent group of customers that usually will come to have their meals although it is not as crowded as Petaling Street. In contrast with Petaling Street, optional activity in 6th avenue mostly occur at open spaces for example open plaza in front of the buildings or the water fountain, which also acts as a landmark, as it is typically seen from distances and many angles and also as a radial reference. (Lynch, 1960, pg. 48) There are sitting area at the open space water fountain for people to rest and also provides a wide view focusing on people circulating through the street. The open space creates a good and comfortable outdoor environment where it is well ventilated and has good views with greeneries that beautifying the environment. As contrasting with Petaling Street alleyways food stall, this will attract people and they tend to take a longer time spending there because of the good physical condition. (Gehl, 1971, pg.13) However, the contact intensity is similar to Petaling Street as it also consists of a wide range degree of contact intensity. In 6 th avenue, the open spaces involve a high passive contact as the view provided there are mostly focusing on the people and pedestrian circulation through the street. According to an investigation of Tivoli Garden in Copenhagen which was carried out by an architect, John Lyle, people will choose to sit in public spaces where the benches or sitting area providing good view

are more frequently used by people compared to benches with less view. (Gehl, 1971, pg. 29) And the views are normally facing trafficked pedestrian routes which were favoured by people. Also, it involves chance contact as well as there are mobile stalls around that could possibly initiate new conversation.

Figure 2.3: Entrance of Petaling Street that attracts people. Green roof shield sellers and goods from rain and heat.

Figure 2.4: Kids sitting down at benches provided beside the dandelion fountain.

Social activities are activities where it depends all on the presence of others in public spaces where conversations, greetings and other communal activities are carried out widely. In Petaling Street, as it does not has a proper communal space for the community to interact and carried out social activity, the only social activity occurring is the conversation between the seller and buyers and also people that gather at food stalls or restaurants. As people gather at a place, it will creates a contact point where interaction occur. The degree of contact point intensity is definitely high as it involves social interaction within people that are familiar or even friends and close friendships. Besides, the contact point involved an already established contact which requires less demand to maintain its familiarity. Besides, the social interaction between sellers and sellers do exist as well as it is located side by side like a neighbour. In contrast, 6 th

avenue in New York City has a better communal space where social activities were carried out there. Bryant Park is a communal space where it is surrounded by skyscrapers and the open space creates a huge contrast with the surrounding which actually attracts the attention of people. As it is located in the middle of the busy sidewalk and vehicular pathway, Bryant Park has a much slower pace where people are most likely to gather. There are public yoga classes in Bryant Park which creates a social activity since people are doing the same activity together. “Wherever there are people it is generally true that people and human activities attract other people. People are attracted to other people and new activities begin in the vicinity of events that are already in progress. (Gehl, 1971, pg. 25) Although the Bryant Park is surrounded by tall skyscrapers, but the open space is huge enough to accommodate people who wants to come for social interaction and it still provides a wide range of view which will not obstruct the view and still gives a sense of spacious. Besides, open spaces like public plaza in front of the buildings with iconic water fountain also acts as a communal space where people will sit down and rest and interact. Not only passive and chance contact is involved but friends and close friendships contact are also involved as there are high possibility and chances that people will definitely go to communal space in pairs or in a group of people. Thus, social interactions definitely occurs and the degree of contact point intensity will high as well. Communal space in 6 th avenue is definitely a more successful space for social activities and interaction to be performed compared to Petaling Street where there are lack of public spaces for people to interact and also has limited social activities.

Figure 2.5: Social activities between sellers and buyer.

Figure 2.6: Bryant Park as a communal space for social activities.

3.0CONCLUSION

Base on Jan Gehl’s ‘Life between Buildings’ is one of the most important element in a public space of a city. Different kind of activities that happenes during different time in a day forms the operation of the city. Necessary activity does not really affected by the built environment of the surroundings as it has to be carried out anyway under almost all condition. While for optional activities, it is carried out based on the participants will where it is somehow will be affected by the built environment. Environment that provides a comfortable and good quality of space will encourage the people to the space and even took a longer time to spend there but in contrary if the environment provides an uncomfortable, insecure or not ventilated space, people will most likely not attracted to the space which then affect the optional activity. For social activity, the main criteria is to have a proper communal space to accommodate people for social interaction without limiting activities to be carried out. In conclusion, Petaling Street is overall not as well facilitated as 6th avenue in terms of social activities space compared to 6th avenue where it has a large open area as a park for people to socialize and also organized interesting social activities for people to come for socializing.

4.0REFERENCE

Gehl, J. (2011). Life between buildings (1st ed.). Washington, DC: Island Press.

Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city (1st ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Spaces, P. (2016). Jan Gehl - Project for Public Spaces. Project for Public Spaces. Retrieved 28 November 2016, from http://www.pps.org/reference/jgehl/