Theories of Architecture and Urbanism

(ARC 61303)

Project Part 2: Comparative Analysis Essay

Tutor: Mr. Prince Favis Isip

Benjamin Tan Zi Hern
0324857
 In the late 18th century, Kapitan Cina (headman) Yap Ah Loy asserted his dominance in
Selangor results in a controlled situation of chaos caused disease, floods, fires and also Selangor
Civil War. As the life of people improved, fish markets have been established to provide a platform
for boats from Port Klang and other parts of world to offload their goods along their journey. This
has created an economic hub for the new settlement. All these contributions have made Yap Ah
Loy the most powerful man in the community also known as the founding father of Kuala Lumpur.
He owned the land and market where he operated piggery, abattoir and workshop. The area in
front of Yap Ah Loys house became known as Market Square (Medan Pasar). Through the
government effort to preserve the buildings in Medan Pasar, the road once the shophouses were
building along has turn into an open square. On the other hand, looking at Bugis Street in
Singapore which has similar age of history, contrast can be seen in term of development and the
building preservation effort by the government. Nowadays, underground digging for Bugis MRT,
rise of shopping malls can be seen everywhere in Singapore. The original Bugis Street is now a
cobblestoned, relatively wide avenue sandwiched between the buildings of the Bugis Junction
Shopping Complex.

The main purpose of this essay is to study and compare the pattern of social activities,
types of contact points and its intensity between Medan Pasar and Bugis Street. According to
Gehl, social activities are events that occur between at least two people who are at the same
location. To see and hear each other, to meet, is in itself a form of contact, a social activity. The
actual meeting, merely being present, is furthermore the seed for other more comprehensive
forms of social activities. These social activities, especially optional activities may vary depending
on the conditions of the context, where the surrounding activities may affect the type of social
activities that occurs there. (Jan Gehl, 2011). In order to understand the social activities in these
2 chosen site, we must first look into the basic of how social activities happen which are the human
activities that takes place in the location.

In Medan Pasar, the main demographic consists of mostly foreign workers, local white-
collar worker and student also a small portion of elderly. The square is mainly used as a main
transport hub for them to travel from home to work and vice versa. The diversity of demographic
on the location heavily influencing the type of social activities that can happen. In this urban
context, the most common activities are necessary activities which also activated the optional
activities. Meanwhile, social activities happen in interesting small pocket spaces in the urban
space specifically between the customer and business owner. A few examples of business can
be seen in Medan Pasar are foreign sundry shops, food truck and bus ticket seller. During the
weekend or public holiday, Medan Pasar is flooded with foreign workers who are here for currency
exchange service and gathering with friends. Local and foreign tourist come to Medan Pasar
because of the attractions around this location such as Kasturi Walk, Masjid Jamek and the
recently beautified River of Life. From here moving on to the location of Medan Pasar which are
close to two LRT stations (Masjid Jamek and Pasar Seni) and also MRT and KTM station where
majority of the community travel to and fro their respective destinations especially the white collars
worker who are working in the bank and office building nearby. Moreover, different optional
activities can be seen happening in Medan Pasar. During the day, shaded area and street
furniture become a place where people gather and waiting for their friend before departs to
another destination. People also stop by along the pedestrian walkway attracted by the street
performance. These activities have unconsciously created nodes around Medan Pasar. At night,
foreign workers come to Medan Pasar to board the bus to other area for leisure purpose. The
lighting effect and fountain in Masjid Jamek also created another attraction for local residents and
tourists.

In contrast with Medan Pasar, Bugis Street in Singapore is a result of deliberate

government planning and economic considerations. Their planning legacy has affected the culture
of the area by influencing the type and amount of people living in Bugis. While the bazaar
atmosphere of Bugis Street continues today, the night bazaars of the 1950s to 1980s along the
area dazzled a different way. caption by National Heritage Board on March 5. Comparing the
relationship of colonial soldiers, sailors with bazaar, nightly adult-themed shows; to office worker,
tourist with retail shopping complex, transportation hub, a change in the type of activities has
occur from 1980s to 2000s. The original Bugis Street was razed to make way for the construction
of Bugis MRT Station, a retail-shopping complex built on the top of the underground Bugis Station.
These developments make Bugis no stranger to necessary activities revolving the office worker
and shoppers. Office worker can be seen buying their breakfast from the food stalls along then
pedestrian walkway before heading to workplace. Due to the exist of two ways six lanes Victoria
Street splitting 2 sides of Bugis Street, pedestrian usually stay on the sidewalk to wait for the
traffic light before they cross the road to their destination. Other than underground MRT station,
there are also bas and taxi stop located in Bugis Street, which act as a stop point for the people
who are travelling by public transport. While these commuters waiting for their transport to arrive,
these stop points created nodes in Bugis Street. Compare to Medan Pasar, most of the optional
activities in Bugis Street happen in the indoor instead of outdoor area or in an enclosed square.
Part of the reason which lead to this are the condition of outdoor area used mainly for circulation.
Children playing at the fountain activated the enclosed junction to be a plaza where people sit on
the planter boxes and relax there.

Photos showing the optional activities happen in Medan Pasar (Left) and Bugis Street (Right)

The comparison of activities pattern between Medan Pasar and Bugis Street can be
concluded by the differences of the pattern of necessary activities and optional activities which
lead to social activities. Medan Pasar being a popular heritage site and transportation hub that is
commonly used by tourist and foreign worker, periodically used by white collar workers. The
activities in Medan Pasar emphasizes on the daily life routine of foreign and local workers, while
Bugis Street which is home to street bazaar and retail shopping center. The contrast in these are
the scale of the activities and the community group. Meanwhile there are similarity in these two
locations which are both of the place are close to transportation hub and served as circulation to
and fro the workplace for the community. The other difference would be the community group
which the social activities occur between. Even though both locations have similar context for
necessary and optional activities, the huge different in the community group in Medan Pasar
actually caused less social activities to happen due to culture and language barrier. The different
in culture and language even caused prejudice among the community in the shared space.

The next aspect that I used in my comparison between the two urban contexts include the
type of contact points and varying contact intensity of these contact points. Jan Gehls The Life
Between Buildings states that contact points are interpreted as pockets of spaces within an urban
context that has a higher concentration of social activity be it necessary or optional. Many factors
can affect the intensity of human contact, the immediate surrounding context and human activity
of the contact point plays perhaps the biggest role in affecting the intensity of a contact point;
other factors like climate, site comfort, facilities and accessibility etcetera also sway its contact
intensity. Jan Gehl says that a good contact point can persuade a person to carry out activities
that they dont need to in order to spend time or even just pass through these spaces. The smallest
things can create a good spot for social activities, an open garden, a shaded caf or even just an
inviting bench. However, it is important to understand that the density of people in a contact point
does not necessarily have an impact its contact intensity.

Medan Pasar has many contacts points which are located in Kasturi Walk, in the street
and also the square. Kasturi Walk is one of the contact point with low intensity despite it always
occupied by crowd of tourists. During the day, tourist and local worker travels from Pasar Seni
LRT to their respectively destination. As they pass by Kasturi Walk, the stalls selling food attract
and slow down their pace. A chance of contact is created here between the tourist, worker with
the stall owners. While this type contact only happens by chance thus they are considered as low
intensity contact point. Contact Points also scattered through the connecting route in Medan
Pasar. This connecting route are categorized into main street, secondary street and back alley.
Main street often occupied by vehicle which only the side walk is used by commuters to wait for
buses. Foreign worker can be seen using the sidewalk to wait for their friend before dispersing to
their destination. Thus, making main street one of the low to medium intensity contact point. The
secondary streets are namely the street of smaller scale flanked by row of shophouses.
Pedestrian usually use the sidewalk of secondary street as shopping street as it has close
intimacy with the shophouses and create more shades, thus creating a linear space where people
move at a slow pace, indirectly caused active contact to happen. The next class of connecting
route are back alley. There are a few ways of how the community use back alley in Medan Pasar,
one of them are as the extended space for their business in the shophouses. For an example a
restaurant uses the back alley to put tables and chairs, so more seating can be provided to their
customer. In the morning, when customer occupied the back alley, a passive contact happens
between one customer and another. Meanwhile when the business is over, the shop owner or
workers will use the back alley to gather and chit-chat because that is the more cooling area
during noon. This has created an active contact in back alley and activating it to become a contact
point with medium to high intensity. In the Medan Pasar square, temporary contact points are
created when group of foreign workers forming their bubble around the planter boxes.

In Bugis Street, there are multiple contact points can be found, I have selected the more
significant contact points to compare with Medan Pasar following the intensity of it. The first one
will be the bazaar in Bugis Street which are known as the moderate to high density contact points.
Along the bazaar, chance encounter between food stall owners and tourist promoted by service
oriented business and permeable store front. The crowd along the main avenue suggest the
presence of high popularity activities happening attracts more people to join the crowd which
created another chance where active contact can happen. This eventually gives justification to
why this is the moderate to high intensity contact point. The next context point is Bugis Junction
Square. Bugis Junction square is a converging point for InterContinental Hotel Singapore, Bugis
Junction Mall and Office Tower. This caused the square to be a place where people of different
groups cross over especially when they travelling to another place. Thus, Bugis Junction square
become a place where optional activities can happen due to the enclosed square typology.
Planter boxes under the shades become a favorite spot for the pass byer to sit down and rest. It
increased chance of contacts when people gather around it. This makes the square into a
moderate intensity contact point. Next on the list is the entrance of Bugis Junction which are
considered as low intensity contact point here. This spot is used for circulation purpose for both
vehicular and human. Hence, chance of contact between passenger and taxi driver or bus
conductor are created. The traffic light creates nodes when people have to wait to go across the
road.

Photo shows the high intensity contact point in Medan Pasar (Left) and Bugis Street (Right)

To summarize the comparison of contact point and intensity, on the surface there might
be visible similarities between Medan Pasar and Bugis Street in term of urban contexts. However,
there are noticeable differences when look further into all these contact points. Bugis Street
bazaar and back alley in Medan Pasar are two places with very different quality, but from the
comparison I have made, different group of community can make use of these place and create
high intensity contact point. On the other hand, the square on Medan Pasar and Bugis Street are
meant to serve the same purpose, but both are used differently by the community. This is also
caused by the different in context and content of the square. Hence, a deduction can be made
that a place is not well defined when it serves no function to the community there.
 As a conclusion, both Medan Pasar and Bugis Street has a few common urban context
but in the other hand, a distinct differences have also been made obvious by the community there.
These common and differences are significant and need to be further analyse to improve the town
planning. From this analysis I have also realized that through respecting the human scale in town
planning also helps to create different form of contact within the community. Even though there
are much more contacts point in Bugis Street than Medan Pasar based on the area and intensity
ratio, but the over developed Bugis Street can be seen to have more passive contact. The
economical development of Bugis Street has made it into a place where vehicle are the priority
over pedestrian but the governments effort to create more enclosed area for the comfort of
pedestrian also successfully made Bugis Street a place suitable for family outing and indoor
shopping. Other than the spatial quality, the type of community as user must also be taken into
consideration when planning a town. A perfect example would be the back lane can be isolated
and dull, while being lively and busy at the same time, and it all depends on the community who
are using it and thus creating different form of social contacts.
Reference

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