A Study of Urban Design Elements in Tanjung Dawai, Kedah, Malaysia
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A Study of Urban Design Elements in Tanjung Dawai, Kedah, Malaysia Nurul Nadiah Zaini, Nur Atilia Ahmad Sani, Ahmad Sanusi Hassan, and Asif Ali Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/awg/article-pdf/22/1-2/102/2598354/1480-6800_22_1_102.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 School of Housing, Building & Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia Malaysia Boonsap Witchayangkoon Department of Civil Engineering, Thammasat University Thailand This study focuses on the urban design element in Tanjung Dawai village in Kedah with reference to Kevin Lynch theory. In spite of the quasi-urban sprawl of Tanjung Dawai created by the residents, it remains unknown to the neighborhood community due to lack of information regarding urban development planning. Thus, the purpose of this study will define the existence of the urban element in Tanjung Dawai. The qualitative research design of this study is based on the methodology AIFAD (Abbreviation for Archives, Interviews, Fieldwork, Analytic diagrams, and Drawings). The research findings showed that the most dominant element in Tanjung Dawai are the landmarks and edges (Lynch 1960). The pattern of the streets created by the local people encourages increasing demand in fish production and land settlement, creating the edges promotes the area, rendering it more lively, dynamic and interesting. The landmarks and edges influence the local lifestyle and uninten- tionally establish ‘architectural place-making’ in the urban settlement of Tanjung Dawai. Keywords: Tanjung Dawai, fishing village, urban design elements, AIFAD, urban space, Malaysia Introduction It is necessary to understand how the rural area can develop by inte- grating the elements of urban design. The planning process has always had an urban emphasis, with elements of urban-rural linkages and the interactions between urban and rural as well as links with the people, economy and envi- ronment of rural localities (Hassan 2002). However, the scheme of urban design has been shifted from the traditional concentration on the visual and functional aspects of design to a position which reflects a concern for the social and environmental consequences of design decisions (Latip and Shamsuddin 2012). The present study focuses on Tanjung Dawai, a small fishing village and town located on the northern coast of Kedah, Malaysia, 30 kilometers from the small town of Sungai Petani (Figure 1). It is known as a hidden gem to the people of Kedah but is not a popular tourist destination although an attractive place to visit. Tanjung Dawai is slowly endeavoring to The Arab World Geographer / Le Géographe du monde arabe Vol 22, no 1-2 (2019) 102-119 © 2019 Geo Publishing, Toronto Canada A Study of Urban Design Elements in Tanjung Dawai, Kedah 103 transform itself with the concept of resort tourism development in a new era for a fishing village that has great potential in the future. It is also close to the major archaeological site in Malaysia at Lembah Bujang, site of a former Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of the ninth and tenth century A. D. This study is to understand and seek the importance of how the role of the fisherman is integrated into shaping the layout plan of Tanjung Dawai, and to Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/awg/article-pdf/22/1-2/102/2598354/1480-6800_22_1_102.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 value the effects of urban design elements in creating the layout plan. Based on Lynch (1960), translating the image of a city into physical forms involves classification with five types of elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. Tanjung Dawai is chosen as a case study in this research due to its character as a traditional settlement in Sungai Petani area, Kedah as a fishing village located on the Merbok River. This paper will also discuss the urban design elements that can be found at Tanjung Dawai and how these influence the housing layout of the village. FIGURE 1 Key Plan of Sungai Petani, Kedah (Not to scale) Source- Redrawn from Google maps The Arab World Geographer / Le Géographe du monde arabe Vol 22, no 1-2 (2019) 104 Zaini, Ahmad Sani, Hassan, Ali, and Witchayangkoon Elements of Urban Design Lynch (1960) states that that elements like nodes, paths, districts, edges and landmarks make a city and help to create a visual image of the cityscape for people to see (Khashim, Ismail, Hassan, and Al-Ashwal 2017). Lynch explains the concept of legibility and how people can understand the layout of a place through mental mapping which contains mental images of the urban Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/awg/article-pdf/22/1-2/102/2598354/1480-6800_22_1_102.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 design, as summarized below. Paths Paths are the linkage that can act as a transportation link for people to move from one place to another. Basically, paths are something that connect people with one area to another area in order to link between two places or more. Paths are the elements that are important in urban design, since they function as passageways that can bring people to and through places (Salingaros 1998). There are many types of paths that can be used in urban planning, such as streets, walkways, transit lines, canals and railroads. It is necessary to understand the logic of a ‘desired path’ instead of having paths and tracks that have been made over time by the wishes of walkers where tracks exist on the ground that run contrary to design and planning. Any desired line as a ‘path’ can tell us much about the history of a locality. Thus, paths not only serve as desired lines but also as a historical representation that has created patterns of footsteps that also allow the past to project in a sense into the present. Patterns of paths define in certain ways a city and make each city unique. Districts Districts are areas of a city that are divided into small sections, within a scale of medium to large; they are connected to each other and merge into a subpart of a city, known as a district. Districts can be divided into zones and, can accu- mulate residents to form different living areas such as suburbs, college campuses and the like (Duany and Plater-Zyberk 1994). A district can be divided into several subareas that can reflect the character of residents living in the district with their own mental mapping. In understanding the develop- ment of certain sections of cities, that image can be represented from a personal local perspective. Edges The edge in this technical sense is one of the basic elements that must be included in designing an urban area. Edges are general physical or linear boundaries that are used to determine the limit of the area. Unlike paths, edges are more likely to be identified as lines like walls, the seashore or any kind of boundary that distinguishes between two spaces in an area (Salingaros 1998). Edges can distinguish a part of an individual building and part of the urban whole. Edges can be divided into three different types: legal edges, physical edges and social edges. Edges also have what are termed edge effects. The Arab World Geographer / Le Géographe du monde arabe Vol 22, no 1-2 (2019) A Study of Urban Design Elements in Tanjung Dawai, Kedah 105 Nodes Nodes constitute the central point of a location in areas that are strategically located as a focal point of a city. The location of nodes can gather people and act as a center of attraction of a city and portray the best side of the city itself. The location of nodes can be because of events or just the daily activities of a community that point up the uniqueness of a city that can attract people Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/awg/article-pdf/22/1-2/102/2598354/1480-6800_22_1_102.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 outside of the city (Zakaria, Ismail, Hassan, and Al-Ashwal 2018). Nodes somehow attract people and the concentrations which gain their importance from being the condensation of some physical structure, such as a functional square, for example, or a city park. Landmarks A landmark can be defined as a point of reference where people can orient themselves to understand the area although just arrived in the cityscape (Vinson 1999). Landmarks are usually a physical object that can represent the city directly and act as an icon for the specific area. It can be a structure or any urban space where people sometimes will orient themselves in a city as a focal point, such as a monument, a building like a church or mosque. Thus, land- marks can be used as a form of communication and physical orientation within the city (Abdullaha, Samad, Hassan, and Arab 2017). Case Study The case study here presented is on Tanjung Dawai, located 30 km southeast of Sungai Petani, Kedah. The majority of residents in Tanjung Dawai origi- nated from Kedah state and originally settled there to build an economy with various opportunities. Tanjung Dawai is a part of Merbok province. Its popu- lation is currently 16 243 and the area comprises 4,890 hectares. Tanjung Dawai derived its name from Thai, the term ‘than wai’ meaning ‘initial defense,’ since Kedah was long under Thai kingdom control in the past. The major vocations in the village economy are fishing and farming. The mapping of Tanjung Dawai area reflects seafood production and dry fish resources, given the riverside and seafront location (Figure 2). As shown in Figure 3, the site consists of an informal village pattern and structural village pattern. It is a result of development of the quasi-urban sprawl in the more micro-form of the village area and the necessities in everyday life of the locals in a fishing village.