THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

(ARC61303/ARC2224)

PROJECT PART 2: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ESSAY

LIEW HONG ZHI

0315836

MR. AHMAD NAZMI MOHAMED ANUAR

The first project of Theories of Architecture and Urban, I have studied the contact points of a

street in New York City. The street I chose is for the study is 9th Avenue. It’s an axis through the

Meatpacking District. Next, I am using the street of the site in Petaling Street for the local site research.

The site I have chosen from the site is Site A, which is Jalan Tun H.S. Lee. By using the framework based

on Jan Gehl’s “Life between Buildings”, it shows how the spaces between buildings of Meatpacking

District and the people interactions are taking place there. I would be doing a comparison between both

of the streets in the similarities and dissimilarities on the patterns of social activities, types of contact

points and the density of contact intensity.

In the street of Petaling Street, there are quite a lot of social activities happening due to the

culture heritage on that place. Places such as Petaling Street flea market, Guan Di Temple and Sri

Mahamariamman Temple will attract a lot of tourists to come pay a visit. For the locals, the Chinese

elderly community will more likely to gather at the Jalan Tun H.S. Lee wet market, while the Indian

community has a gathering spot in front of Hotel of Malaya and the side alley of the Sri

Mahamariamman Temple.

There are different patterns of social activities happens in the street of Petaling Street. There are

more foreigners and tourists can be seen in Petaling Street flea market because that’s a place where all

the merchants selling foods, cheap merchandises and local souvenirs. There are also traders there which

mostly is Chinese, then Indian, Malay and Bangladesh as well. Due to Petaling Street is a flea market,

buyers and sellers tend to have a bargain during the deal. The time where all the culture heritage is

slowly taking over by the Bangladesh because that more of the younger generation in Petaling Street is

moving out for a better opportunity to get a well-paid job. The one left is only the elder generation

which are those doing business for earning a small living only. Maybe because of the language barrier

for the Bangladesh and the tourists, they might using the international language which is the body

language to deal.

Other than that, places like Guan Di Temple and Sri Mahamariamman Temple is the main places

to attract the community to visit Petaling Street. It does not matter for any races in Malaysia or the

foreigners to visit the temples because people tend to observe and learn from each other as long it

helps to be a better person. Activities happen in temple are most likely to pay respects to their God and

to pray for wealth, health and prosperity to the own family. While tourists may have more curiosity to

know about the history of the place, the changes made until now and more, that’s when interactions

and conversation starts with different kind of people.

Besides that, there are Chinese elderly community in the Jalan Tun H.S. Lee wet market where

they selling breakfast, vegetables and meats there in a very narrow shaded alley behind the shop

houses. They have their own activities other than selling stuffs like some sort of massaging center but it

does not receive a single penny from the elderly community.

While the gathering spot in front of Hotel Malaya and side alley of Sri Mahamariamman Temple

is mostly the Indians are having different kind of activities. In front of Hotel Malaya is an open space

where the Indians are selling flowers for the praying purpose. Making use of the space for them to chit

chat, doing business every single day even though they do not have any legal permissions from the local

authorities. The side alley of Sri Mahamarimman Temple have a row a flowers stalls that sells flowers for

the prayers as well. The reason why there are more than one spot selling the flowers for the Indians is

because the lack of space for them to have stalls to run the business near Sri Mahamariamman Temple.

All the above shows the variation on the patterns of social activities happening in Petaling Street.

Meanwhile, moving on to the social activities that is happening at 9 th Avenue in Meatpacking

District. Meatpacking District is a vibrant neighborhood of remaining meatpacker, high end retailers,

offices, clubs, galleries, restaurants and apartments, which all of them is retaining a strong market place

in New York City. The patterns of social activities in Meatpacking District respectively in commercial

area, residential area and social or entertainment area according to previous study of contact points at

the 9th avenue.

There are several social activities happening in 9th Avenue which located in places like offices,

residential houses, bars, cafes, shopping malls, bus stops and al fresco space. Activities happens in

offices are more to customers traffic in between the walkway to the offices. Acquaintances that working

in the same place are more likely the only activities that happens in offices area. While there are more in

the residential houses which friends visiting homes, meeting up in neighborhood parks for a walk,

chances of bumping into each other while going in or out the house.

On the other hand, multiple activities that shows a great deal of variety happens in places like

bars and cafes where there are more small groups of friends hanging out to have a bit of chit chat. Bars

and cafes also gets to interact more than ever beyond the circle of friends or even getting to know new

friends in the place. Not only places like bars and cafes, 9th Avenue has this kind of al fresco space which

does not exist in Malaysia that where people sitting and hanging out in the side of pedestrian and traffic

walkway. This is interesting because people tend to have a local meeting point for the office worker and

local residents. Close friends may spend their time leisurely in this kind of spaces without any hesitation.

In addition, there are places where people just come and go such as shopping malls and bus

stops nearby. Saying this come and go by their activities occurs with passive contacts while shopping,

chances of contacts is quite low compared to the others. Bus stops are quite similar to shopping malls

where there are passive contacts when taking the ride from one place to another. Peoples are all

moving towards their own destination with a less chance of interacting with others.

In other words, there are dissimilarities in the patterns of social activities between both Petaling

Street and 9th Avenue where most of the activities take place in Petaling Street will have more

conversations and interactions. While 9th Avenue that has more offices area which the patterns of social

activities is much more like a personal activity. I could not more agree this with Jan Gehl’s quote which is

“the character of social activities varies, depending on the context in which they occur.”

At this point, I am to compare the density of contact intensity of both Petaling Street and 9 th

Avenue as well. Petaling Street flea market, Guan Di Temple and Sri Mahamariamman Temple have the

highest density of contact intensity because of the functions where people buy, trade and pray. That’s

the most attracting part of the whole Petaling Street. Since the working hours for the flea market, Guan

Di Temple and Sri Mahamariamman Temple is way longer compare to the wet market and flowers stalls,

naturally it will increase the density of contact intensity in that specific contact point. Jalan Tun H.S. Lee

wet market has the diverse intensity due to its function exactly like bars and cafes in the 9 th Avenue.

Quite a few of small group of elderly community and tourists will having breakfast and chilling time

there. They are not spending the whole day just at the wet market. The front gathering spot of Hotel

Malaya and the side alley of Sri Mahamariamman Temple has the lowest intensity because the duration

of people gathering on the spot would not be too long compared to the others. People just go and buy

flowers and most of them will be heading to the temples for praying session.

Therefore, the 9th Avenue have the different contact points with different levels of contact

intensities.

For example, the commercial area has the lowest intensity, the residential area has much higher

intensity and for the social and entertainment area has range of intensities. It varies according to the

functions of the space at the street. Like mentioned above, offices, shopping malls and bus stop falls

under the same category which has the lowest intensity among all of them. Since the functions of them

has not much chances for them to interact, the intensity becomes the lowest.

Not to mention residential houses has the greatest density of contact intensity due to its

function of a place where it can accommodate a lots of people in one place. People tend to visit each

other as well to improve human relation between each other.

Without any doubt, by far the more diverse density has in bars, cafes and al fresco space. By

having al fresco space in the middle of the street is nothing where we could find in Petaling Street,

which shows the interaction emphasizing differences between the 9th Avenue and Petaling Street in

terms of urban context.

In my opinion, both Petaling Street in Chinatown and 9th Avenue in Meatpacking District has

quite a number of interesting contact points that brings up the street life. If I would have to choose

either Petaling Street or 9th Avenue, I would say that 9th Avenue has more interesting quality spaces than

Petaling Street in terms of the contact points. For the walkability and accessibility, 9 th Avenue has

definitely better than Petaling Street because Petaling Street does not even have adequate space for the

vehicle to park along the road. Many of the vehicle users in Petaling Street always ignoring the laws by

just parking on the pedestrian sidewalk illegally which I do not see any beauty in it. The 9 th Avenue in

Meatpacking District even has the al fresco space for them to have activities at the pedestrian sidewalk.

This shows the lacking of design intelligence in Petaling Street compared to 9 th Avenue. I believe urban

mobility of the street is one of the main reason to affect the whole street fluidity. Not to say Petaling

Street is not good, which it is good and rich in culture elements that 9 th Avenue does not even has it. Just

that the walkability, permeability and public realm of 9th Avenue is much more organized compared to

Petaling Street. This analysis and comparison of both streets allows me to be more understanding when

design a building or space according to the needs of every users in the urban context.