Design Pre-thesis 1 | Social Culture

Kampung Bharu is located directly adjacent to Kuala Lumpur City Center. Founded as a Malay enclave by the British Empire in 1900, Kampung Bharu has served as a cultural nucleus that was a draw for the Malay population and is now situated at the crossroads of Kuala Lumpur’s development path. The towering skyscrapers that represent the new growth and development of the capital city have quickly surrounded the area, embodying the juxtaposition of modernity against tradition. Although it is gazette as reserved Malay land, it failed to provide a social platform for the local, as a result the societies have a fragmented activities happening around Kampung Bharu. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the potential on “New V[illage]” and how it affects the social culture in bringing the local back to the traditional lifestyle but in a modern way residential. The idea is to provide a place for the community to have a safe activities place for social interactions and exchange skills and to fill in the gap between the present and future generation. Questionnaires and site visit techniques of analysis are used to reveal this imprinted principle of social culture and social interaction in Kampung Bharu; in the attempt to unlock, thus record the wisdom of the traditional home setting that was still visible in this urban set up.