Theories Project 1 final

School of Architecture, Building & Design

Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Architecture)

Theories of Architecture and Urbanism

[ARC 2224]

Project 1 Part II

Analyzing and Theorizing Architecture

Name: Nurul Jannah Masturah Jailani

Student ID: 0310210

Tutor: Dr. Lakshmi Priya Rajendran

Content page

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya

1.2 Building – Tropicana Grande Condominium, Tropicana Damansara

1.3 Christopher Alexander and Urban Residential

2.0 FACTORS THAT IMPACT THE BUILDING

2.1 Population Needs

2.2 Technological Advancement

2.3 Gradients of Space and Movements

3.0 SYNTHESIS

4.0 CONCLUSION

5.0 REFERENCES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya

Ara Damansara is a small township in Selangor that comprises of residential,

commercial and industrial sectors. It is located near to the Subang Airport, and

established residential and commercial areas of Damansara and Kelana Jaya. The

township is accessible through two major highways, the New Klang Valley

Expressway (NKVE) and Damansara-‐Puchong Highway (LDP).

(Simedarbyproperty.com, n.d.)

It was first developed as a residential and industrial district but commercial

activities began to emerge and spread in the area, and soon after established a

commercial sector in Ara Damansara. Due to the rising quantities in luxury high-‐rise

residential and commercial buildings, the area has attracted an affluent customer

base. It is mainly resided by those who belong in the middle to upper class, as a

result of the area is in a strategic location, and adapts a modern architecture style

that uses moderate to costly designs. Ara Damansara is poised to be developed into

a prestige township, offering a lifestyle that promotes close-‐knit community living.

(Propertyguru.com.my, n.d.)

1.2 Tropicana Grande Condominium, Tropicana Damansara

Tropicana Grande is a luxury high-‐rise condominium developed by Dijaya Group

and was completed by the end of December of 2013. It is located in the exclusive

Tropicana residential, and neighbours several other mid-‐rise and high-‐rise

residential. Tropicana Grande Condominium consists of four blocks of 38-‐storey and

39-‐storey towers that houses over 300 units that overlook the view of Tropicana

Gold & Country Resort golf course through full height glass panels.

(Tropicanametropark.com.my, n.d.) Within each block, there are many different

types available, ranging from small sized units such as the typical units larger sizes

such as the penthouse unit. (Propwall.my, n.d.)

There are numerous facilities that equip the Tropicana Grande that allow the

residents to conduct different activities within the compass of their living territory,

instead of commuting to the city. If they choose to, Tropicana Grande is merely

minutes driving to large shopping malls such as 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Sunway

Giza, Tesco Damansara, and Dijaya’s very own shopping centre, Tropicana City Mall.

(Propwall.my, n.d.)

1.3 Christopher Alexander and A Pattern Language

The chosen architect for this project is Christopher Alexander, an Austrian

architect known for his theories of design and over 200 building projects around the

world. He was recognized as the Father of the Pattern Language movement, and

various contemporary architectural practices were resulted from Alexander’s ideas,

such as the New Urbanist movement. His noted accomplishments as an architect and

author are his books, the Timeless Way of Buildings (1979) and A Pattern Language

(1977), the latter being written in collaboration with several other authors.

He explained in the book that we seek out, for our own sakes, in our own

surroundings, the quality of life in order for us to become alive ourselves. This then

leads to architects, or humans, the tendency to make it come to life in places that

will bring out the quality in us. His theories were further supported in A Pattern

Language, in forms patterns through explanations of diagrams. Each pattern is a part

of a larger pattern through the forces which occur there, and the conditions that

allow these forces to be in harmony.

According to A Pattern Language, the real work of design process lies in the task

of making up the language, because it is the structure and the content of the

language that determines the design. With the power of depth and wholeness of the

language, it can make a thousand buildings live.

2.0 FACTORS THAT IMPACT THE BUILDING

2.1 Open Common Spaces

As stated by Alexander et al. in the pattern #60 Accessible Green, people require

green places to go to, and if they are close, they will use them. However, if the green

place is too far away, then the distance overwhelms the need. The proposed solution

was to build one open public green within three minutes' walk -‐ about 750 feet -‐ of

every house and workplace. This means that the greens need to be uniformly

scattered at 1500-‐foot intervals, throughout the city. (Alexander, Ishikawa &

Silverstein, 1977)

Image 1: Accessible green areas in Tropicana Grande

(Source: http://www.tropicanametropark.com.my/TropicanaGrande/siteplan.html)

As seen from the site plan, the compound of Tropicana Grande is abundant in

greeneries, which are accessible by the residents. Different kinds of facilities were

providing the greens for the condominium, such as a Japanese Garden, Reflexology

Garden, Gathering area, and viewing deck, all of the mentioned are within walking

distance and in the center of the condominium compound. Christopher Alexander

believes that these green areas act as a mean of escape from the city, and gives a

relaxing and tranquil quality to the city environment.

Image 2: Sports facilities in Tropicana Grande


In addition to having public green areas, the pattern #72 Local Sports insist on

a scatter of places where the community is able to perform sports, and is visible to

passers-‐by as an invitation to participate. (Alexander, Ishikawa & Silverstein, 1977)

Small sports facilities are integrated among the green areas in the compound of

Tropicana Grande. Such facilities include gymnasium, pool, tennis court and a

basketball court. These facilities are scattered (referring to Image ) in order to

promote the residents to walk through the compound to get to the courts as well as

giving optimum visibility to residents of what sort of sports community are available

for them.

2.2 Technological Advancement

Pattern #207 Good Materials expresses only using biodegradable, low energy

consuming materials, which are easy to cut and modify on site such as concrete and

earth-‐based materials like brick, tile, wood planks, gypsum, plywood, corrugated iron

and bamboo. (Alexander, Ishikawa & Silverstein, 1977) however, Tropicana Grande

consists of mainly steel, concrete and glass. This is possibly due to the technological

advancement in industrial building material production. Through this advancement

as well, it allowed the building to be built at a height of 38 storey.

Building a high-‐rise residential may pose a problem. Even with the advancement

currently available, high-‐rise buildings still contribute to sustainability issues since

they are very difficult to compensate, especially in really tall buildings. Other than

that, pattern #21 Four-‐story Limit states that in any urban area, no matter how

dense; keep the majority of buildings four stories high or less. It is possible that

certain buildings should exceed this limit, but they should never be buildings for

human habitation. (Alexander, Ishikawa & Silverstein, 1977)

It is contrast to the condominium’s height. The reasoning behind the pattern is

due to that above four-‐storey, residents become isolated and unattached from the

street level and thus the environment which may lead to depression and other

psychological problems. Despite that, there are many high-‐rise residential being built

not only as sign of progress, but in order to accommodate more of the population

living.

2.3 Gradients of Space and Movement

According to ‘A Pattern Language’, the spaces inside a building should be

arranged according to their degree of privateness, to enable people to experience

the dimension of added meaning for activities at the chosen space. Homogenous

spaces, where every room has a similar degree of intimacy, nulls all possibility of

subtle of social interactions in the building. (Alexander, Ishikawa & Silverstein, 1977)

The essence of the Pattern #127 Intimacy Gradient, is that as you move in to the unit

through the entrance, there is an increase to the degree of intimacy until the

farthest spaces from the entrance are the most intimate, such as bedrooms.

Considering Tropicana Grande is a condominium, there are limited spaces for the

residents thus it is usually small families or a handful group of people occupy each

unit. Constricted to the finite sizes of condominiums, the rooms and spaces must be

arranged carefully in order to achieve the gradient of intimacy stated in ‘A Pattern

Language’.

Image 3: Arrangement of spaces according to degree of intimacy (Block B)

(Source:

http://www.tropicanametropark.com.my/TropicanaGrande/images/floorplan_block_d_b.jp

g)

Through observing of the floor plan of one of the Tropicana Grande’s blocks, which is

Block B, a pattern could be seen. Emerging from the lifts, residents will be lead to the

unit’s private lobby. Upon entering the unit, they will arrive at the living room that

connects immediately with the dining area and the dry kitchen, while the bedrooms

are located further in the unit. The architect had defined the gradient of intimacy in

the arrangement of spaces within the unit, with the private spaces are from the semi

or public through the use or a narrow corridor.

In reference to Alexander et al., in order to create a house, which is bright, sunny,

and cheerful, the right rooms must be facing towards the south; otherwise the house

will become dark and gloomy. This pattern helps to place the rooms along the

intimacy gradient where indoor sunlight is needed most.

Image 4: Location and orientation of Block B


Image 5: Position of sunlight coming into the building

(Source:

http://www.tropicanametropark.com.my/TropicanaGrande/images/floorplan_block_d_b.jp

g)

From the site plan, the chosen block is orientated towards Northeast and

Southwest, which means to say that the spaces are receiving sunlight mainly from

the Northeast and Southwest (referring to Image ). The Pattern #128 Indoor Sunlight

states that the most important rooms are placed along the south edge of the

building, and spread the building out along the east-‐west axis. Fine tune the

arrangement so that the proper rooms are exposed to the south-‐east and the south-‐

west sun. (Alexander, Ishikawa & Silverstein, 1977)

3.0 SYNTHESIS

With an abundant number of green areas, the condominium provides relaxing

places and integrating nature with the compound to create a relaxing atmosphere.

The presence of greeneries will also encourage the residents to use the areas for

outdoor activities. Along with this pattern, the different sports facilities provided are

beneficial to the residents of Tropicana Grande. Not only does it encourage outdoor

activities, it also helps promote a close-‐knit relationship between members of the

community.

Regarding high-‐rise buildings, although Alexander et al. recommended the height

to be less than four-‐storey, the construction of high-‐rise may be dependent on its

contextual conditions. Since Malaysia is a still a developing country, many high-‐rises

are built to show progress, especially in upper class residential. In spite of the

possibilities of psychological issues mentioned, there have been many people who

still chooses to live in high-‐rise buildings compared to individual houses. The

reasoning behind this selection is due to high rise provide better security in terms of

break-‐ins, as it is difficult to steal big items through a small door without dismantling

it and the fact that some residencies, require access cards which only brings them to

the resident’s floor.

The Block B of Tropicana Grande does not fit the ‘optimum orientation’

recommended by Alexander et al. exactly, however it does not run from it either.

Considerations were still taken by the architect of the condominium in order to

achieve maximum indoor sunlight in while keeping in mind of the thermal issues.

Which is why Block A (referring to Image ), the only block that is facing directly

towards the East and West sunlight, has compact shape in order to minimize the

Eastern and Western sun.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Tropicana Grande Condominium does incorporate patterns from

Alexander et al.’s theories. However, there are discrepancies in the design. This is

mainly due to contextual conditions like population, and technological progress that

allow for more modern adaptations of the patterns.

5.0 REFERENCES

Albany.edu,. notitle. Retrieved 11 June 2015, from

http://www.albany.edu/mumford/wtc/forgey.htm

Alexander, C. (1979). The timeless way of building. New York: Oxford University

Press.

Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. (1977). A Pattern Language. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Lifewithalacrity.com,. (2004). Intimacy Gradient and Other Lessons from

Architecture -‐ Life With Alacrity. Retrieved 11 June 2015, from

http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/08/intimacy_gradie.html

Propertyguru.com.my,. Ara Damansara Homes, properties and houses for Sale/Rent

| PropertyGuru Malaysia. Retrieved 10 June 2015, from

http://www.propertyguru.com.my/selangor/ara-‐damansara

Propwall.my,. (2015). Tropicana Grande, Tropicana | Propwall. Retrieved 10 June

2015, from http://www.propwall.my/tropicana/tropicana_grande?tab=property

Simedarbyproperty.com,. Sime Darby Property -‐ Ara Damansara. Retrieved 10 June

2015, from http://www.simedarbyproperty.com/township_ara_damansara.aspx

Theories Project 1 final

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