CITY OF DUALISMKUALA LUMPUR

Bukit Bintang - Jalan Alor

Urban Grid

Irregular, no distinct arrangement of building blocks and range of street orientation.

Urban Fabric

Fine Grain focus at the west & Coarse Grain at the east

Study Area

Open spaces

Building Foot Print

Figure-Ground Analysis

100m

Typology

City typology: Deformed

Building typology: Linear, Point & Perimeter

Gradual change from linear to point typology.

Study Area

Open spaces

Building Foot Print

Figure-Ground Analysis

100m

Geometric regularity

Regular geometry made up linear city block at the west. Mixture of different geometry at the east.

Urban street

Denser urban street and intersection point at the west.

Study Area

Open spaces

Building Foot Print

Figure-Ground Analysis

100m

Building Footprint

Varying footprint density. Density of building footprint decrease gradually from the west to east.

Solid and void

The ratio of void: solid at the west is smaller than that in the east.

Study Area

Open spaces

Building Foot Print

Figure-Ground Analysis

100m

Scale

Relatively smaller and more humanising built form at the west. Smooth transition of building height from terraced shop houses to shopping complex and high rises.

Study Area

Open spaces

Building Foot Print

Figure-Ground Analysis

100m

Movement Pattern Data

Main road

Subsidiary road

Back lane

Monorail station100m

- Separate the city to smaller island

- Street orientation in relation to built form and types of activities.

Activity Analysis

Church

Hotel

Residential-commercial

Shoplot

Shopping mall

High rise office tower

100m

- People oriented activities and Target oriented activities further explain the street density.

Movement Pattern DataPedestrian Accessible pathway

Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Bukit Bintang are very busy thus not suitable for pedestrian pathway. The back lane and alley connect the network together and ease the movement around the area. However, some alleys are very prone to crimes and not well-maintained revealing the dark side of the city.

100m100m

FORMALITYDAY TIME

Necessity Activity

Busy - Desolated

Cullen’s Serial Vision 1:

During the day time, necessary activities are carried out. Restaurants and hawker stalls at the starting point of the street are open as the pedestrian movement is denser. People working at nearby office tower or locals come here for lunch.

1 2

Note the cars parked along the street however with less human activities as only grocery shops are operating. Functional activity is carried out as locals living at upper floors come here for groceries. Less shops and restaurants are operating and most are the shop owners who come to load and unload food to prepare for night operating business.

3 4

As coming to the end of the street, shops are completely closed creating a desolated environment. Pedestrian movement are minimal and only locals living upstairs occasionally come down for lunch.

5 6

Note the accessibility to Jalan Alor from alley and another street, Changkat Bukit Bintang.

7

9

8

10 11

INFORMALITYNIGHT TIME

Optional Activity

Lively - Quite

Cullen’s Serial Vision 2:

Two rows of shophouses create a linear open space. Hanging lantern marks the beginning of the lively journey and increases the engagement to the street. Note high volume of pedestrian traffic at the starting point of Jalan Alor.

1 2

There is deconstruction of form during the night time. Flexibility in seating area as plastic tables and chairs are set up along the road create a narrow pathway in between and form a stronger linear movement pattern.

3 4

Pedestrian friendly street, multi functional buildings and wide selection of food are the attractors of crowd. Increased intensity of crowd requires larger seating area making the street narrower. Consumers are mostly tourist that come from hotel nearby. There are also locals from other places who come here after work.

5 6

The bright lighting from the hawker stalls make the street stands out even more. Large seating area and increased density of crowd blurs and weakens the linearity of street making it very disorganized.

7 8

Density of crowd significantly reduces towards the end of the road as there are lesser hawker stalls, making the street appear emptier and wider. The sudden contrast makes the back of the street looks gloomy, and monotonous.

9 10

Local - GlobalCullen’s Serial Vision 3:

1 2

12

Jalan Alor, a linear typology of triple storey shoplots typified the city changes in function and occupation. This region has a fusion taste of urban and regional development in which the city expand along corridors of hawker stalls and seafood restaurants.

3 4

3 4

Walking further up, this metropolitan region coincided with a more intense circulation of commodities, people, and capital between the city centre and its hinter-land, with ever more budget hotels, and tourist businesses at a lower rise peripheries.

5 6

5

6

At the turn, the megastructures of Public Bank, KL tower, Petronas Twin Tower, Invito Hotel Suites gives a presence of urbanization and globalization, which has support the movement of people, goods, services, information, news, products, and money on its boundary.

Collage City

Local - Global Coarse grain – Fine grain Temporal - Permanent

High scale – Low scale(Landmark)

Built form– Open space(Node)

Separation - Connection(Axis)

Soft - Hard(Open Space)

100m

Global

Local

Local low rise buildings are concentrated at the west while high end buildings with globalized activities are concentrated at the east.

Coarse Grain

Fine Grain

Coarse grain consists of large scale weave that is functional it is usually inhospitable to interact. Whereas, fine grain consists of several small blocks (averagely 20 – 30 blocks) close together.

100m

URBAN FABRIC

Permanent

Temporal

100mBuildings of temporal function are where activities are not carried out the whole time as it has a certain period of operating hours such as shopping malls. While for permanent building will functional all day such as hotel and residential building.

FUNCTION

100m

High Scale

Low Scale

LANDMARK

The higher scale landmark which are the shopping malls or hotels serve as an reference point where it informs the arrival while the lower scale landmark like sculptures or lower scale buildings serve as a significant gathering spot that could be easily recognized.

Monorail station is a built form node where people go to and come from other places. Open spaces between buildings also become nodes such as Jalan Alor where people come for food and Pavilion Mall Plaza where people come for photographs with themed decoration.

MonorailStation

Open Space

NODE

Built Form

Pavilion Mall Plaza

100m

Open spaces can mainly be categorized into two types. Soft spaces are public parks and private softscape design within buildings while hard spaces are pavements mostly car parks.

Soft

Hard

OPEN SPACE

100m

Connection

Separation

AXIS

North-south axis separates linear to point typology, localized to globalized, dense to less dense while southwest-northeast axis connects these two regions together.

100m

Conclusion

As an urban jungle with rich culture of Malay, Chinese and Indian, it allows tourists to experience the local culture with modern and international twist. The inclusive Jalan Alor shows contrast during day and night , welcome people from all class group while bukit bintang as a high end area only attracts more financially capable tourists or shoppers. The Urban design of this area shows distinct duality and encourages people to look at the two opposing aspects that make this city a little more interesting.

Intangible Kuala Lumpur Georgetown KuchingFunctionalDimension

most efficient public transportation and can be found easily

less efficient public transportation compared to kl where they only have buses

less efficient due to the less dense of population and the short distance of destination.

Perceptual Dimension

diversity of economy, pollution, intermediate cost of living, higher crime rate

Less pollution Clean environment, low crime rate, low cost of living

Temporal Dimension

Heritage building in KL are preserved however not in a very good condition

heritage are preserved well

less heritage compare to georgetown and it is also well preserved.

Intangible Kuala Lumpur Georgetown KuchingSocialDimension

bringing live and work together, aims to be a global / world class city

tourist hotspot high cultural value

Morphological Dimension

deform grid , mostly high rise and vertical built form

compact building arrangement

warped parallel grid form

VisualDimension

Mix culture, cosmopolitan

Rich in culture and history

streetscape

Most Lovable City (Tales of wish)FOO WEI MIN 0321577

Kuala Lumpur is the city I like the most. Bukit Bintang which is relatively high ended, reveal the selfish side of architecture but it is very efficient building which have a mixture of pedestrian and target oriented activities. However, on the other side of Jalan Sultan Ismail, which is Jalan Alor, are where the humanizing scaled terraced houses concentrated. It is very inclusive, in contrast to that of Jalan Bukit Bintang, making people wants to stay a little longer. In short, I love how the duality in different aspects contribute to the identity of this city.

CHARLENE TAN CUI ZHI 0320826

I, personally will choose Georgetown, Penang as my favourate city. The new insight to public spaces as 'liveability and sustainability' has become the daily rhythms on this world heritage site. The urban planning and development has a focus on the inter-relation in the quality of built forms, the economic potential, and the connectivity, walkability, accessibility as the build elements for living, experiencing, and enjoying the city.

TEO CHEN YI 0320618

Georgetown is the kind of city I like because of the prioritized pedestrian walkway to serve the tourists to ask around the city as it is a well known tourist spot. Also Georgetown is a city rich of historical heritage and culture where the architecture there are in a very old and retro style which creates a reminiscence of memories about the history.

Most Lovable City (Tales of wish)

EUNICE CHAN YU MING 0315729

I like Georgetown because it has rich pedestrian walkway network. The distance to the next destination close proximity to each other due to its small scale. Therefore, It is easy to access from place to place as it is a walkable city regardless of its poor transportation service. Nevertheless, I also like how well Georgetown has preserved their ancient heritage giving chances to the younger generation to witness the transformation of the city.

KOH KAR YI 0320567

Kuala Lumpur is a very interesting city to me. Although having the highest crime rate among all three cities, Kuala Lumpur has a lot more characteristics that make it the city that I like the most. Being the capital of Malaysia, it becomes the node with a diversity of people and activities. Facilities, advanced technology and extensive public transportation system are gathered here making it very convenient and efficient. To the more experiential aspect, it is also full of places with high cultural values. Jalan Alor, Petaling Street etc are examples of places in Kuala Lumpur that can engage users to the place. As it has very high density of people, festival activities and other social events that can further enhance experience of users. I think the exploration of this city can bring the users a lot of surprises.