Rebirth of the Malacca Shophouse

Abstract

Asian regions change from small towns to a metropolis in the blink of an eye, traditional architecture, and with it traditions itself disappear without notice. This fast renewal has lots of positive effects and the living standard is increasing each day. In the Architecture however we see the tendency of building high dens and large scale buildings, not only designed by Asian architects, but for a great part designed by western architects. My thesis focusses on the question if it is possible to create a small scale architecture in Asia, which can fulfill the modern needs. Melaka The town of Melaka is put on the list of UNESCO world heritage meaning that if a building collapses it has to be rebuild with the same architectonic principles. However, this might turn Melaka into a ‘open air museum’, making it loose its qualities of micro economies and family businesses. I see a chance to rebuild a broken shophouse in a modern way, but sticking to the basic architectural qualities of the shophouse. In some ways the goal is to extract fragments from the historical form and simplify them, in order to apply them later freely on adapted to some contemporary global necessities. Typological Research In order to find these principles a typological research is made to find the basic architectural qualities of the shophouse. All shophouses are researched over time, and important qualities are found. The shophouses, for example, are all build in basic Chinese proportions, consist an ‘air-well’ and have ‘screens’ to separate public and private space.These principles are simplified and applied in the design.