Sunday, October 30, 2011

SQUARES AT HULU SELANGOR #4



These are not quadruplex or cluster houses that look like semi-D's. These are the real ones!



They are located at the edges of the site accessed from cul-de-sacs within the site, and with the dining rooms at the rear looking onto the main road or a neighbouring land.



Like the other houses, each Type C Semi D house has a spacious 42' x 20' front garden with a porch for at least 2 cars.



But the Semi D lots are slightly bigger - 42' x 45' (ratehr than 42' x 42') such that the house is 32' wide and 25' deep.







Friday, October 28, 2011

From Pekanbaru to Siak Seri Inderapura and the past Sultanate of Siak


The boat passed under an attractive slender bridge. Here a modern highway crossed over a much, much older one. Early Malay civilization was based along coastlines and navigable rivers, but I had never experienced this in a personal way until today. I'm on a 90 km river trip down the Siak River in the Riau Province of Sumatra, from Pekanbaru (literal translation: “new town”) to Siak Sri Inderapura, once the seat of the Siak Sultanate.



Roads in Sumatra are notoriously bad. The boat I was on sped by a regular succession of not only wooden jetties, outhouses, and houses on stilts, but also concrete docks with gantries, silos, gas tanks, containers and tall piles of timber. There are occasional signs of decay - abandoned warehouses, rusty cranes on decrepit timber docks. It is said that cheap air travel has largely killed the passenger traffic between peninsula Malaysia, Singapore and Pekanbaru. But for now at least, this old river route still has life in it.

The landscape is familiar -mangrove and thick jungle line the banks, rubber and oil palm, just behind. The country here flat; just outside Pekanbaru it was undulating but since then I hardly seen a hill. There are also timber plantations. In a few places, I saw tall closely planted trees in rows of varying maturity and heights. I found out later at Universitas Lancang Kuning back in Pekanbaru. that they were gum trees - aparently, a local specie of the eucalyptus.



Two hours from Pekanbaru, we reached Siak Sri Inderapura, the centre of the old Siak Sultanate which started at the turn of the 18th Century with the murder of Sultan Mahmud Shah II of Johor (a descendant of the Melaka Sultans). His wife, Encik Pong, ran away to Singapore, then Jambi, and whilst on the run, gave birth to Raja Kecik, later to become Sultan Abdul Jalil Rahmat Syah.



Raja Kecik did try to reclaim the Johor throne but without success. He then retired to the Buantan region of the Siak river. Thus a new kingdom was established with Senapelan (now Pekanbaru), Kota Tinggi, Mempura Kecil and Siak Seri Inderapura being some of settlements in it.

It was the 11th Sultan, Syarif Hasyim, who built the palace in Siak Sri Inderapura, which stands just a short distance away from the town jetty where I disembarked.




Designed by a German architect in a style that blended Indian, Arab and European influences, it may be grand but not big. It has one big hall in the middle - a sort of throne room - and smaller galleries on all sides. In the front was a reception hall and to one side was the dining. Two ornamental spiral staircases are placed in the room just behind the throne room. Upstairs were four rooms for guests. The Sultan and his family stayed in a modest bungalow next to the main palace.

Nearby, is the Sultan's mosque; next to it, the tomb of Sultan Syarif Qasyim, the 12th Sultan of Siak. He was an ardent supporter of Soekarno and declared his Kingdom to be a part of the Republic of Indonesia. He did not have any children. He died in 1968 leaving two wives, but no heir to the throne.



In 1997, the Republic declared the last Sultan of Siak as a National Warrior.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Squares Housing at Hulu Selangor #3

Cluster House Type A
In addition to the type C house, there is this smaller and cheaper alternative.



Like the Type C clustre house, each residential block is composed of four houses. These houses are clustered around pocket parks, creating a collection of "Village Squares" throughout the development.



The houses proposed have large front yards. Each lot is 42’x 42’ such that the house can be 32’ wide and 22’ deep.



Each house has a spacious 42’ x 20’ front garden with a porch for at least 2 cars. The front elevation portrays the look of a 40’ x 80’ high end semi-detached house.



Unlike terrace houses, the 'Squares' house is not confined by their neighbours on each side. Every unit is a corner unit with more visible external walls for windows to provide light and ventilation.



Sunday, October 23, 2011

Last week, Wednesday evening, I attended a talk by Malaysia's "Condo King" held by PAM (the Malaysian Institute of Architects).




Dato' Tong studied architecture in Australia, came back in the sixties just in time to experience the economic slowdown of 1964, brought about by "konfontasi"- between Indonesia and the newly formed Malaysia. His first job was with DBKL on a year to year contract. When his time was up, he set up a small consultancy doing unglamorous jobs to survive.

After some time he thought, "instead of working to help other people make money, why don't I make money for myself". In 1968, Sunrise Properties, his famous development company was born. However, success had to wait with a return of hard times. This time it was the "13th May" incident in 1969. But not too long later Sunrise started with a few shop houses, terrace houses and other small schemes, mainly in his hometown of Klang. Then he started with terrace factories, and with this high margin product, he made his first fortune.

Next, he got involved with politics, spending the next 10 years in politics, (he appears to recount this period with a tinge of regret) became a State Assemblyman, but in the 1982 elections, he lost his seat! Returning to Sunrise, he found that it had hardly advanced since he left. And for some reason, it was now involved with, of all possible ventures, gold-mining. It took 3 years for Sunrise to extricate itself from this venture. But what came next made it all worthwhile.

In 1984, Sunrise started on it's first condominium - O.G. Heights. The company had somehow acquired a 10 acre site adjacent mainly vacant bungalow lots. Instead of terrace houses, Dato' Tong bet on high rise apartments. It wasn't easy. Nearby terrace houses were selling for about RM130,000 and the project's apartments were going for between RM70,000 to RM130,000. This was in the midst of a recession; it took a lot to get customers interested.


OG Heights fromIproperty.com

The project was launched in the old Kimisawa supermarket in nearby OUG Heights, with the Mayor in attendance. He set up teams of dedicated salesmen, knocking on doors. He held concerts, with songstress, Elaine Kang wooing in the crowds. And during the concert evenings, he had the contractors work overtime to impress the people who came. Building skywards, freed up land for landscaping and recreational facilities. The project boasted of not one, but two swimming pools, multiple tennis courts, squash courts and children's playground. This was not just apartments, this was a new category in the property market - the condominium!

OG Heights became a hit and the subsequent phase sold very well. Undertaking it taught Dato' Tong most of what he needed to know to make a the mark he was to make in the history of property development in Malaysia. He had bought, reluctantly at first, a ten acre plot of land in Segambut. Despite it unglamourous location and its lack of an actual road frontage, Dato' Tong could see that this land was in a strategic location. He found that there was an unmade access reserve leading to the land, he bought more land off this access reserve, and he got an agreement with the City Hall that he would build the road at his own cost. If developers of neighbouring land also wanted to use that road, they would have to contribute a share of the cost. And the name Segambut wouldn't do; the new area was given anew name: "Mont Kiara".


Mont Kiara Astana from montkiara.org 

 This was the 90's and Sunrise rode the boom market for as long as it last lasted. He was introduced to aluminum formwork, adopted it, and got it working so well that he was building condos faster than City Hall could approve them. He could afford mistakes, In the case of "Sophia", the condos were initially meant for silver haired retirees (only for +50 year olds). But they soon needed a severe re-marketing. Eventually, it sold off without too much damage to the bottom line.


Fast, fluid and flexible. These words weren't invented by Dato', but when he first heard them uttered, he recognized instantly that this was his motto.


Mont Kiara Sophia fom iproperty.com

By 1996, at the age of 62, Dato' Tong decided to retire. He took a lucrative offer and sold Sunrise. The timing was good: two years later came the Asian Financial crisis. But Sunrise is still doing well. The purchasers of his condominiums, from OG Heights through to his Mont Kiara projects, have all done well, becoming very profitable investments. As it turned out, Dato' Tong's "retirement" turned out to be an extended golfing holiday. He's now back with his new vehicle - Bukit Kiara Properties - which he describes as a boutique developer. At the young age of 77, there's no clue at all as to when he will finally call it quits.

Dato' Tong' s lecture offered several lessons for would be developers. One is the inevitability of hard times. He has a keen memory of the economic recessions: in 1964 (konfrontatasi), 1969 (13th May), 1984 (the worst recession, he says), 1998 (Asian financial crisis), 2008 (US and Europe still not recovered). So be careful! Yet taking risk is a necessity for developers - being fast, fluid and flexible helps. Even so, defeat or loss is often inevitable. Then, the ability to bounce back comes into play: the loss of his job at DBKL, led to better one, and then led to his own consultancy. The loss of an election led him to his real calling - the business of property development. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

Another lesson he offered was to beware of bankers - especially when times are good. Study the small print, especially where it says that the loan will be subject to annual review. He also had a specific advice for budding architect-turned-developers: when you become a developer, think like a developer, not like an architect!

I asked him after the lecture the one thing about regulations on housing that he would like changed. His answer came without hesitation - it was to discourage low density terrace housing. He was initially pushed into high rise high density housing by economic and commercial factors, but he now sees low density terrace housing as creating an unsustainable sprawl. Ha,ha,ha (...LOL to younger folks). His response touched a raw nerve - I felt like Dato' Tong (without knowing about me and my work) had challenged me to show how Tessellation planning can be applied to high density development – the very issue that is preoccupying me now.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Squares Housing, Hulu Selangor #2

TYPE C QUADRUPLEX 

In this development are quadruplex and duplex units. Below is one of the quadruplex housetypes.



The proposed quadruplexes have large front yards. Each lot is 42’x 42’ such that the house can be 32’ wide.and 22’ deep



Unlike terrace houses, the 'Squares' house is not confined by their neighbours on each side. Every unit is a corner unit with more visible external walls for windows to provide light and ventilation.





The 'Square' layout is based on a patent pending concept of a cluster layout design which creates a neighbourhood that is:
  • safe
  • friendly, and
  • green


This is the layout for the following Phase 4B



This is the area breakdown for this housetype: