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Architecture Conservation Report PDF

This document discusses the issues and challenges of heritage building conservation in Malaysia. It begins by defining heritage and conservation, noting that conservation aims to maintain heritage assets and enhance their significance. It then outlines various conservation approaches like restoration, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse. The document also examines the key stages of conservation work. It identifies several issues, including environmental pressures from development; human errors from poor communication; and technical challenges around resources, materials, and skills. In conclusion, while Malaysia has many heritage buildings, understanding of conservation practices can be unclear, and it is often mistakenly viewed as mere renovation.

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488 views

Architecture Conservation Report PDF

This document discusses the issues and challenges of heritage building conservation in Malaysia. It begins by defining heritage and conservation, noting that conservation aims to maintain heritage assets and enhance their significance. It then outlines various conservation approaches like restoration, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse. The document also examines the key stages of conservation work. It identifies several issues, including environmental pressures from development; human errors from poor communication; and technical challenges around resources, materials, and skills. In conclusion, while Malaysia has many heritage buildings, understanding of conservation practices can be unclear, and it is often mistakenly viewed as mere renovation.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

ARCHITECTURE CONSERVATION (ARC60703)

PROJECT: ESSAY WRITING (HERITAGE BUILDING


CONSERVATION IN MALAYSIA: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES)

TUTOR: MR. AZIM

NAME: WONG CHO MUN


STUDENT ID: 0322723
Heritage building conservation in Malaysia: issue and challenges

Heritage building can be found in everywhere, it is in the ground beneath our feet,
in the shape of our landscape and in the spacing and arrangement of our fields, village,
towns and city. Heritage is all that has been passed to us by previous generation, it is all
around us. heritage can be divided into two type which is tangible and intangible heritage.
Tangible is like movable possession, from our national treasured in our museums and in
the intangible, such as our history, traditional, legends and language. Many words may
be used to describe the heritage buildings conservation. However, what is conservation?
Conservation is the very important process of maintaining and managing change to a
heritage asset in a way that sustains and where appropriate enhances its significant.

Conservation is an activity taken to prolong the life of historic buildings. It involves


various action includes reservation is keeping cultural property from being destroyed, for
example the historical building around Kuala Lumpur are all renovate and preserve in
good condition. Restoration is reviving the original concept and fabric to its original known
state, for example the original purpose of Royal Selangor Club is a club and until now it
is still a club but the only different is the ladies cannot go into the club in old time but now
everyone can go in. Rehabilitation is to make old building reusable, for example the
heritage building in Kuala Lumpur are all renovated to reuse. Replication is imitating what
previously existed, for example the clock in Kuala Lumpur old government center is still
working.

Relocation is moving the building or monument for economic geographical reasons,


for example the traditional British fountain in Dataran Merdeka is actually moving for three
time from china town to Dataran Merdeka due to the chinese feng shui, although the
Chinese people like water because for Chinese people water mean money but the design
of the fountain does not look good so that at the end the relocate the fountain. Adaptive
re-use is changing building main function while maintaining its original form and
characters, for example the post office building, in last time it actually is a post office but
for now it become a museum and the Kuala Lumpur Gallery, the gallery is actually a
printing office last time and now it become a gallery. The last one is maintenance, it is
continuous care and protection just like the historical building in Kuala Lumpur.
The five basic stages framework for conservation are preliminary investigation,
dilapidation survey, preparation of tender document, conservation works and heritage
management. Preliminary investigation is that we need to know all the historical,
agriculture, social background of the building and after that we need to do a survey for
example we need to diagnosis which is observe, investigate and do more research about
the building and document which is collect the measured drawings and color photographs
of the building. The most important things in building conservation is we need to
understand the state or level of building defects, the work method system, the estimating
project cost, additional item in tender document and the consultant and building contractor.

Wrong perception on conservation makes the public attitude towards local heritage
building conservation has remained rather dismal. There are few conservation issues that
we are facing now a day. First are the environmental issues referring to challenges
caused by external factors such as economy pressure, building condition, building
location, business opportunity, and third-party interference. Among the threats identified
for conservation of historic buildings was the continuous change in economy and
development patterns that created development pressures in urban and rural areas. For
example, the quality life of the people that live in the capital for example, Kuala Lumpur
will higher than those people who live in the village because their business opportunity is
higher than those people in the village.

Second is the human issue, many of conservation problems are related to human
errors. Among them, miscommunication brought about by different corporate structures
and cultures is a common problem in conservation works due to the involvement of
multiple organizations such as consultants, contractors, suppliers and sub-contractors
assembled together as a team. Poor communication between professionals, craftsmen
and general laborer result in different framing of tasks caused by misinterpretations of
instructions or difference in understanding of scope of work. Differences in contingent
power and blurred lines of demarcation cause disputes within the team. Additionally,
stringent bylaw requirements and building code provide a challenge to comply with correct
principles and guidelines of historic building.
The third issue is the technical issue, among the biggest challenge in building
conservation is the limited availability of resources and financial support. Insufficient
resources to fully redevelop the building into an appropriate new use left the building to
remain vacant. Another issue is the shortage of material and labor to reproduce
composite materials and replicate crafts. Due to lack of conservation skills for the repair
and maintenance of historic architecture, it was discovered that about 60% of
conservation and maintenance of historic buildings are done by inexpert and
inexperienced workers resulting in 50% of the problems that emerged thereafter.

Conclusion, although Malaysia has lots of heritage buildings all over the country
but the understanding on some practice is vague or unclear. In general, conservation is
a technical activity towards historical buildings. It involved physical action to preserve the
fabric and material of the heritage buildings. It is a process to prevent decay and the
action is aiming to prolong the life of the buildings. Although the meanings quite easy to
understand but in reality, conservation always been though as renovation. Lastly, in my
opinion actually the heritage building conservation in the Kuala Lumpur are very good,
especially the idea how they reserve the river and renovate the space and add in more
activities around the river.

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