Landscape alteration in urban residential areas of Selangor, Malaysia
Abstract
A residential landscape is one expression of the intrinsic and cognitive values of a relationship between humans and their environment. "Experiential landscape‟ is established when people shape and construct their living environment and in turn, they are shaped and constructed by this living environment. In Malaysia, the rural cultural landscape is one example of the above phenomenon. The rural cultural landscape is the result of human adaptation and subtle modification of the natural environment in the effort of creating preferred living settings. Rural villagers are communally involved in the establishment of place identity, developing sense of place and a sense of belonging towards their living places.
Urban dwellers who live in urban housing areas in Malaysia experience a contrasting situation. Their physical living environments are pre-constructed with homogenous characteristics by the residential developers. This includes not only the houses, but also the public landscapes surrounding the residential areas in which they live. These "prepared living settings‟ present different living phenomena compared to the "naturally evolved‟ rural cultural landscapes. In these conditions, the residents may experience a sense of alienation towards their outdoor living spaces and community members. It has long been known that urban dwellers in the majority of residential schemes in Selangor remove trees planted in public landscape areas and replace them with their desired species in order to create small orchards and herb gardens. I refer to this phenomenon as the "altered landscape‟. This study investigates this occurrence, which has been given little attention by local landscape architects and in the landscape architecture literature.
I investigate the reasons for the alteration of the existing landscape by rural-urban migrants in low, medium and high-cost residential areas. The majority of migrants to Kuala Lumpur originated from rural areas and are strongly attched to the village cultural landscape. A comparative study of the original landscape submission plans (before development) and existing inventory plans was undertaken to document the changes that were made by the residents. In-dept interviews were also conducted with three parties; namely the policy makers (government body) who were responsible for the policies that lead to the development of the plans, the landscape architects who developed the plans and the migrants who live in the residential areas under investigation. The findings of this research provide evidence that the majority of residents' made an effort to re-create meaningful home landscapes, which reflected their attachments and feeling of belonging to living spaces. This research will contribute to an understanding of how the cultural landscape in an urban residential area provides a means of integrating people and place. This study will also contribute to promoting awareness among policy makers, landscape architects and developers of the importance of developing a responsive and conducive living environment for the community.... [Show full abstract]
Keywords
Malaysia; urban residential landscape; landscape alteration; rural landscape; everyday landscape; meanings in landscapeFields of Research
12 Built Environment and DesignDate
2010Type
ThesisCollections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Landscape analysis: Investigating the potentials of space and place
Stahlschmidt, P.; Swaffield, Simon R.; Primdahl, J.; Nellemann, V. (RoutledgeAbingdon, U.K., 2017)Analysing landscapes within a planning context requires both skill and insights. Drawing upon concrete examples, together with an examination of some theoretical concepts, this book guides the reader through a wide range ... -
Landscape - visual resource: the concept of landscape, analysis of 6 New Zealand assessment studies: [dissertation] submitted for the partial fulfilment of Diploma of Landscape Architecture, Lincoln College, University of Canterbury
Chiu, J. E. (Lincoln College, University of Canterbury, 1982)People are mainly visual animals. For the sighted person, vision provides the key to synthesis of experience, although sensory data from other sources are used to ‘correct’ and ‘enrich’ what data the eye receives. That ... -
The application of a new visualisation producing strategy in landscape planning and design: A case of visualisation in public participation in Kura Tāwhiti | Castle Hill : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University
Huang, Xinghua (Aria) (Lincoln University, 2021)With the rapid development over the past few decades, visualisation today was not just limited to the conventional still image, such as photomontage. Techniques like video simulation and panoramic video simulation drew ...