Alice Sabrina Ismail

Elderly Care Centre

The demand for elderly centre has increased tremendously abreast with the world demographic change as the number of senior citizens rose in the 21st century. This has become one of the most crucial problems of todays era. As the world progress into modernity, more and more people are occupied with daily work causing the senior citizens to lose the care that they actually need. This paper seeks to elucidate the best possible design of an elderly care centre with new approach in order to provide the best service for them by analysing their needs and suitable activities that could elevate their quality of life. All these findings will then be incorporated into design solutions so as to enhance the living environment for the elderly especially in Malaysian context.

Regional design approach in designing climatic responsive administrative building in the 21st century

The objective of this paper is to explicate on the study of modern administrative building in Malaysia which portrays regional design approach that conforms to the local context and climate by reviewing two case studies; Perdana Putra (1999) and former Prime Ministers Office (1967). This paper is significant because the countrys stature and political statement was symbolized by administrative building as a national icon. In other words, it is also viewed as a cultural object that is closely tied to a particular social context and nation historical moment. Administrative building, therefore, may exhibit various meanings. This paper uses structuralism paradigm and semiotic principles as a methodological approach. This paper is of importance for practicing architects and society in the future as it offers new knowledge and understanding in identifying the suitable climatic consideration that may reflect regionalist design approach in modern administrative building. These elements then may be adopted in designing public buildings in the future with regional values that are important for expressing national culture to symbolize the identity of place and society as well as responsive to climate change.

Historical development of administration architecture in Malaysia (15th-21st century)

The main purpose of this paper is to document the development of the state administration building in Malaysia before and after the independence era, in relation to the evolutionary period of Malaysias political, social and economic history. Multiple case study approach [19] is applied by referring to six prominent case studies to represent state administrative buildings from various phases of Malaysian history beginning from 14th century to 21st century as exemplar. Since this paper formulates new ways to approach and describes state administrative building design and factors that influence them, it uses interpretivism paradigm and (semiotics) as methodological approach to study the relationship between the building design and contextual elements. This paper, therefore, offers new insights, which not only add to knowledge in this field by widening and strengthening the understanding of state administrative architecture in Malaysia, but also are valuable for range of associated fields including architectural semiotics and non verbal communication. This is because this paper reveals deep understandings of the built form and material environment operating as a sign in a cultural and social context.