Keywords: House Renovation, Mechanical Changes, Modification of House
Abstract. House, is a valuable asset in human’s life and is one critical and important setting in developing lives of human being. Therefore, as time goes by, people develop and wanting to improve the state and quality of their house so that they can live their lives towards better meaning parallel to their up growth. But, easy said than done, renovation is some work that needs thinking about. In fact, most of houses which are dwelled by modern Malay people in Malaysia nowadays did not evolve in synchronize to the Malay people’s needs. We could see lots of houses being renovated or extended by owners after the houses get dwelled in especially of those terrace housing in Malaysia. The renovations scenario upon these terrace houses is indeed one of the serious housing issues and problems in Malaysia. This writing thus will focus its investigation towards the phenomena of renovations upon selected double-storey terrace housing within Klang Valley, Malaysia. Investigations will be carried out by questionnaires, statistic analysis of findings from site visits, and interviews with the owners of the houses. Among those things that will be investigated are about the type of renovations that have been done and the factors which influence the act of renovating. Results show that the type of renovations varies, be it on a major or minor scale. Those renovations of houses involving numerous parts or sections of houses such as the kitchen, rooms, bathrooms, and so forth and were done because of many different factors or reasons.
Problem Statement, Objective & Research Scope
Double-storey terrace house is not a type of house that is cheap. This type of house is categorized in a high-cost level. In Selangor, take Bandar Baru Bangi for instance; one unit of double-storey house (40 x 65) square feet could reach RM 400, 000 (Ringgit Malaysia). The problem is that this house is bought at such an expensive price but still needs major renovations. The price that those developer put on should be consistently rational to the condition of the house as in design, function, aesthetic and other aspects of the house but this is not the case happening in Malaysia. Apart from this, another problem that might surface from the renovation is that it will aggravate the safety of the dweller and those around it. The objectives of this study is to identify the influencing factors or reasons that caused people to renovate their house, to investigate the types of renovation done by the landlords toward their houses and onto which parts of house, to perceive the design complication in the housing, and to do a documentation of the journey and the development of Malaysian housing industry. The general objective is the sum up of all the objectives mentioned so that this research will be documented and hopefully will serves as a reference and an ignition to the mind of those builder to produce more significant and better houses in subsequent time. This study concentrated its research towards renovation aspects in double-storey type of house which is a critical housing phenomenon in Malaysia nowadays. So, sample from double-storey terrace housing in Bandar Baru Bangi and Kajang were analyzed to understand the relevant issues and problems. The two areas were chosen based on the modern life their communities live in their modern setting.
1. The Reasons of Renovation
Paul Bianchina (1999) stated that most of the landlords do renovate their houses because lot of reasons. But basically, when a family grows, it members increased in numbers and therefore, the house, say it rooms, toilets, or kitchen, needs an upgrade in area thus there goes the renovation or extension. Apart from that, they also need to increase the privacy. So generally almost all of things need to be expanded as the family grows. Besides that, Paul Bianchina also thinks that the dweller’s hobby or interest would promote and develop from time to time. Thus, the renovation done onto the house could be resulting from that certain hobby or interest. For example, the renovation of a particular area to a garage, a walk-in wardrobe, or an office. Renovation to an office is a common renovation done in these modern days. Renovations are not necessarily just to expand the area but could also change the function of the space. House renovation or expansion is a need in the perspective of family. When a family grows, the numbers of dweller will increase and the children will grow up from their childhood until their youth ages. Along with this development, the need of space with function will change. The needs of a children certainly differs compared to a teen, youth, or a scholar per say. So, when the time comes, renovation will definitely takes place. Architecture nowadays tend to orient itself based on objects alone and disregard the meaning of value and context in a built environment just to achieve some kind of image or form. This kind of orientation denies the social and culture of a particular community who is human, one who will live in the building [1].
2. The Type and Area of Renovation
There are three main areas or parts in a house prior to the renovation and those are the front part, the back part, and the side part. Each part of the house for every different house is then been worked on to accomplish certain type of renovation depending on respective factors or reasons.
Figure 1. Examples on the renovations in front of the house.
The Front Area. Study showed that, the renovations done onto the front part of the houses by the landlords involving the addition of floor tiles to the bare flooring. The floor tiles used were different in color, size, shape, or pattern. These additions of floor tiles which vary in many ways for every house had resulted a messy and chaotic sight to the front of the houses. This also made the overalllook of the houses as disorganized. Plus, roof or awning is also added to the porch or the parking space to shelter and shade the vehicles from the burning sunlight and the rain. The extent of the roof from the existing roof also is different for each house. Some landlords extended the roof just by half and some did extend it further to the lot’s perimeter. Apart from that, the material used for the roof and the height of the roof are also different. Hence, the peculiarity of the front façade of those terrace houses. In addition, there are also landlords who agreed to each other for a shared-roof or awning to be installed to their front parts. Plus, it had been observed that there are some owners who extended the wall of their house to the borderline of the lot and extensively restructured the original roof. Other than that is the renovation of the fencing which has been redesigned to the personal taste of the house owners. This renovation also used various kinds of materials with different kind of approach in design. There are also people who renovated their front part into a landscape area or a space for clothing lines. Unfortunately, these two types of renovation could not integrate together as the house has limited area in front. So the landlords had to choose between these two types of renovation.
The Back Area. Based on observations through the study, the renovation towards the back area is the most obvious and distinctive job done by the landlords. The house owner expanded the area of the original kitchen which was small and could not adapt to the cooking culture of this Malay community. Originally, there was a small outdoor area at the back just outside the kitchen for clothing lines but this has to be gone to make way for a larger kitchen and to cater the need for cooking. They also prefer an area of clothing lines that is hidden from public sight. Sadly, some of them are forced to dry their clothes under the sun in the back lane as shown in the picture below. This is the result after extending the kitchen and they have no space left available for clothing lines. Apart from expanding the kitchen, they also renovated the upper level at the back. The rooms are widened and the floor area upstairs is also increased. Plus, some of them even replaced some area at this level for the clothing lines.Based on our survey, the part which is often being renovated is the kichen area located at the back of the house. This proved that the existed kitchen area was not large enough to contain all the cooking equipments and the cooking activities of this Malay people. The cooking culture is definitely innate with the Malay community but still it seems like this has not come to the professional’s attention. The kitchen is also renovated to establish a new laundry area which is not built in the house originally.
Figure 2. The numbers of house owner who done the renovation according to the area of the house.
The Side Area (Corner Lots). According to the study, those who dwell the corner lot would add the number of spaces in the house. This meant the addition of internal floor area that lead to the additional roof. Usually the renovation done to the corner lot house is major in scale and could disrupt the structure of the original house. On the other hand, the original landscape of this additional land at the corner is bare land and sandy without grass. So the house owner had to plant on the grass and build up landscape to cool down the house temperature other than to make it a recreational space for the family. But, as the family grows and the members added up, most of the owners chose to use the extra land beside of the house for a building space rather than a landscape area. Some of them even entended the side wall of their house to the perimeter of the lot and this made the extended wall standing exactly beside the road and this could magnify the risk of burglary or road accidents.
3. The Renovation of Internal Layout Plan.
From observations, it can be summarized that there are few evidences that showed the owners are not satisfied with the internal layout plan of the house. The walls inside of the house are knocked down to get the layout plan that met their needs. Plus, there are few people who rearranged or repositioned the guest room to the back of the house to get a larger and flexible kitchen and dining area. There is also owner who renovated the function of toilet space to a storage area to keep and hide all the home appliances and equipments. Study also found out that the design aspect did influence the act of renovation. Some of the owners did break down solid wall and gave it a new touch with nice aesthetics. For example they made some vertical openings to the wall as shown in the picture below. Moreover, there is one person who owned two lots of adjacent houses. This person made a drastic and huge renovations which involved major scale of works such as the demolition of wall of two adjacent houses to achieve an open internal layout plan that is free from walls like the traditional Malay houses, change of location of particular space like the guest room, the addition of a balcony at the upper level at the front of the house, the repositioning of columns structure, and the renovation to the roof structure in front of the house.
4. Influencing Factors to Renovate
There are various factors that could cause someone to do a house renovation or expansion. Among the factors that could contribute to the act of renovating is the number of dweller, taste in designs, following trend, financial condition, and so on. But from the analysis, it has been found that the obvious reason why these people did the renovations is that they needed a larger space or area. The dwellers found that it is critical and important to have a large and open space. They need it to accommodate the increasing family and to indulge the function of space that might change as time goes by, such as the needs to provide a room for each child.
Figure 3. Influencing factors for a renovation to occured
Summary
Majority of modern Malay community nowadays renovated their houses. They renovated their house onto various parts and areas and done that with many types of renovation. The renovations done involving the front area to the back area, from the living area to the kitchen and the scale of the renovation are both major and minor. The different type of renovation done showed us that the people are getting more alert and attentive about design aspects and they wanted a better house to live their lives. Apart from that, there are several factors that contributed to the act of renovation. This phenomenon of renovation is indeed an issue that should be looked into by the architects and other professionals in the field so that this issue and problems that eventuated from this phenomenon can be fixed and hence a better housing scheme that is more responsive to its dwellers will be produced.
References
[1] Dr. Ir. Nangkula Utaberta, Kamarul Afizi Kosman. Rumah yang Berkembang : Pengajaran daripada Keanjalan Matematik pada Rumah Tradisional Melayu (Growing House: a Lesson from Mathematical Flexibility of Traditional Malay House). Seminar Bulanan Etnomatematik Rumpun Melayu, Julai 2009 (2009).
[2] Lim Jee Yuan. The Malay House : Rediscovering Malaysia’s Indigenous Shelter System.
Pulau Pinang. Institut Masyarakat 87 (1987).
[3] Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi, Ghofar Rozaq Nazila. Housing Crisis in Malaysia : Back to Humanistic Agenda. Skudai. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (2003).
[4] Bianchina P. Room Additions. Zoe Foundotos (pnyt.). United States of America. McGraw Hill
(1999).
[5] Nylander O. Architecture of the Home. Great Britain. Wiley Academy (2002).
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