Rani Prihatmanti

The 'sense of place' of a religious building can be sacred for the community that frequents the architecture. It is deeply embedded with cultural attributes that made the architecture more meaningful and became a structure that ties the community. This article examines the St. Peter's Church in Melaka which is seen as the epitome of the Portuguese community as a place for them to congregate. This study is influenced by Lefebvre's space triad theory on the production of social space based on the 'perceived,' 'conceived,' and 'lived' space to form the interiority through sense of place. This qualitative research delves into ethnography to understand the Portuguese culture followed by the phenomenological analysis on the architecture. The church embodies the spirit of the Portuguese community as they struggle in the mixed cultures of Melaka. It stands tall to remind the people of the monumental historical past, a culture that refused to be put aside.

Physical design studio (PDS) and live critique sessions are essential elements in design school pedagogy. It enables students to construct their socio-spatial ability through creativity and rationality in a simultaneous way. However, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, all teaching and learning activities must be conducted remotely in a virtual design studio (VDS). Unfortunately, VDS could be a placeless place for the students and significantly affects their overall learning experience. 'Sense of Place', or the people-place engagement, is an important concept in the virtual learning context from the cognitive, affective, and conative domain. VDS not merely provide the 'place', but should be able to support dynamic social interactions between students and the tutors as well as to conduct pedagogical activities. Without 'Sense of Place', the emotional and psychological engagement in creating learning experiences could not be fulfilled. This paper reviews the previous studies that concentrate on the pedagogical method and 'Sense of Place' in VDS at a higher education level. There are several strategies for constructing 'Sense of Place' in a VDS. Those are humanization, socialization, the presence of a teacher, guiding structure, graphic tools used, and the student contribution during the learning process. Another strategy is to blend both online and classroom that encourages teachings with multiple learning styles. This conceptualization of 'Sense of Place' in VDS is beneficial in further research with empirical data.

Adaptive reuse is known as one of the conservation methods to prevent the building from being abandoned, dilapidated, as well as to halt further deterioration of the fabrics, both in interior and exterior. Surabaya has a number of Dutch colonial buildings as evidence of the Dutch settlements for 350 years. The aesthetic value, location and the historical significance of the buildings have made the proprietors conserving those buildings and reusing them as commercial spaces. In this research, two prominent Dutch-colonial mansions have been chosen as the research objects. Those buildings have been transformed into an upscale dining place in Surabaya, Indonesia. Based on the local regulation for heritage building conservation, the designated buildings have adhered to the conservation regulations. However, in some parts, alterations were still discovered and not according to the original of the building. These changes were purposely done in order to accommodate the business owners’ need...

The ‘sense of place’ of a religious building can be sacred for the community that frequents the architecture. It is deeply embedded with cultural attributes that made the architecture more meaningful and became a structure that ties the community. This article examines the St. Peter’s Church in Melaka which is seen as the epitome of the Portuguese community as a place for them to congregate. This study is influenced by Lefebvre’s space triad theory on the production of social space based on the ‘perceived,’ ‘conceived,’ and ‘lived’ space to form the interiority through sense of place. This qualitative research delves into ethnography to understand the Portuguese culture followed by the phenomenological analysis on the architecture. The church embodies the spirit of the Portuguese community as they struggle in the mixed cultures of Melaka. It stands tall to remind the people of the monumental historical past, a culture that refused to be put aside.

This study investigated the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) level in heritage buildings that have been adaptively reused as office buildings. These buildings are located within the vicinity of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in George Town, Penang. The aim of this study was to determine the IAQ level in the designated buildings using thermal monitoring and chemical and microbial tests. Mixed methods were used in this cross-sectional study to achieve the objectives. The IAQ tests variables were the temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, airborne pollutants (Particle Matter 10 (PM10), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and formaldehyde), total bacteria count and total fungal count. These variables were adopted from the Industry Code of Practice on Indoor Air Quality, Department of Occupational Health Malaysia and the Malaysian Green Building Index-Non Residential Existing Building (NREB) rating tool. The measurements show that the IAQ level in the identified buildings was unacceptable wit...

Designing a healthy building has become a trend between designers and architects at this time. The main objective of the scheme was to protect the health of its occupants and improve the productivity of employees if the building is an office. A building is considered healthy when the airborne pollutant on the indoor air is still within the normal range. In most cases, airborne pollutant originated from the indoor environment itself, in the form of air contamination, inappropriate application of interior design components and also related to inadequate ventilation system. Therefore a research is needed to analyze the quality of indoor air in the associated building, which includes several techniques like survey and air sampling. Thus it can be understood that the study of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) always deal with the content of indoor air that could affect health and comfort of the building occupants. This research was conducted in a clinical laboratory and the result shows that more...

Biophilic design is a well-known design philosophy based on human-nature relationships. However, it has not been explored extensively in the Malaysian context and most of the previous studies were based on plants which were not suitable for tropical climate. This paper analyses the application of biophilic design and the usage of local edible and medicinal plants in Baba-Nyonya heritage shophouses’ courtyards in George Town UNESCO World Heritage Site, Penang, Malaysia. The aim of this research is to enhance the human quality of life through biophilic design with local knowledge application in the urban setting. Qualitative method strategies were applied to collect the data: photographic survey, plant inventory and building observation. Three heritage shophouses that had been adaptively reused into contemporary cafes were selected for this study. Significant results showed that Biophilic Design Pattern under the ‘visual connection with nature (P1)’ has been achieved through the appli...

Biophilic design is a well-known design philosophy based on humannature relationships. However, it has not been explored extensively in the Malaysian context and most of the previous studies were based on plants which were not suitable for tropical climate. This paper analyses the application of biophilic design and the usage of local edible and medicinal plants in Baba-Nyonya heritage shophouses' courtyards in George Town UNESCO World Heritage Site, Penang, Malaysia. The aim of this research is to enhance the human quality of life through biophilic design with local knowledge application in the urban setting. Qualitative method strategies were applied to collect the data: photographic survey, plant inventory and building observation. Three heritage shophouses that had been adaptively reused into contemporary cafes were selected for this study. Significant results showed that Biophilic Design Pattern under the 'visual connection with nature (P1)' has been achieved through the application of edible and medicinal plants. Unfortunately, the local knowledge for applying edible and medicinal plants for achieving biophilic design compliance is weak. In the future, a further study is needed to identify the species of local edible and medicinal plants which can be applied in the Baba-Nyonya heritage shophouses courtyards.

This paper reviews the potential of transitional space in building for improving thermal comfort by using Vertical Greeneries System (VGS). Transitional space could be defined as a space that is indirectly occupied, located in between the interior and exterior environment. This place acts as both buffer spaces as well as the circulatory routes. In reality, transitional space is commonly used for communal area in public building and utilised for domestic purposes in residential building, such as in balcony. Based on this issue, balcony could be optimised for replacing the greeneries on the ground level since the development of infrastructure in the urban areas has significantly reducing the quantity of green spaces. To overcome this issue, integrating vertical greeneries in building is a promising solution although there space is limited. In order to maximise the VGS performance, multi-layer plant canopy concept could be introduced. It is believed that multi-layer plant canopy could improve the thermal quality instead of using single layer plant canopy.