Yahaya Ahmad

The Scope and Definitions of Heritage: From Tangible to Intangible

Since the adoption of the Venice Charter in 1964, there have been many conservation guidelines in the form of charters, recommendations and resolutions that have been introduced and adopted by international organisations such as UNESCO and ICOMOS. This article focuses on the scope and definition of heritage as promulgated by the various charters across the globe. The term ‘historic monument’ used in the Venice Charter 1964 was reinterpreted by ICOMOS in 1965 as ‘monument’ and ‘site’; and by UNESCO in 1968 as ‘cultural property’ to include both movable and immovable. The different terminology between the UNESCO and ICOMOS was reconciled at the World Heritage Convention 1972. At national and regional levels the scope of heritage was broadened to include gardens, landscape and environment, and later reinterpreted and defined quite differently in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and China. Although the scope of heritage, in general, is now agreed internationally to include ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ as well as ‘environments’, the finer terminology of ‘heritage’ has not been streamlined or standardised, and thus no uniformity exists between countries.

Incentives for the conservation of traditional settlements: residents' perception in Ainokura and Kawagoe, Japan

This study emerged from the author(s)’ experience in conducting a survey with the residents in Ainokura Village at the Toyama Prefecture and the Kawagoe in the Saitama Prefecture, Japan. With the comprehensive legislations bound into the cultural heritages sophisticated systems, Japan is often regarded as one of the leading countries in promoting cultural heritage protection despite the tendency for westernization and modernization influences prevalent after World War II. At present, the establishment of the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties in Japan has increased public awareness for the conservation of the cultural heritage including tangible and intangible heritage. This research intends to look at the perceptions of the residents on the implementation of the cultural heritage conservation and incentives programme in those two traditional settlements. By using questionnaires and interviews involving the residents in the two areas, this study has employed the quantitative and qualitative approach in order to gather factual data. This research is conducted in order to address the overarching question of whether the incentive programmes that have been created for the community have been found to be suitable for the fulfilment of their aspirations and real needs.

Development of Mobile Deformable Barrier for Side Impact Crashworthiness Evaluation in ASEAN New Car Assessment Programme (ASEAN NCAP)

Side impact crash test simulates a road crash wherein the side of a vehicle is being impacted, either perpendicularly or at an angle, by the front-end of another vehicle of about similar mass. In Malaysia, this crash configuration is the second leading cause of fatality and injury in road crashes after frontal collision. Extensive research have been carried out worldwide in order to mitigate occupant injury in side impact collision through provision of side impact protection system in vehicle such as side impact airbags and side door bars. As a result, various global regulations and consumer test requirements concerning side impacts have been established to evaluate the effectiveness of the said protection system. Recently, the Malaysian government has implemented the United Nation’s regulation pertaining to side impact protection (UN Regulation 95) for new passenger vehicles in the country. Hence, as a newly established automobile safety rating programme in the region, the ASEAN New Car Assessment Programme (ASEAN NCAP) has a plan in the pipeline to implement UN R95 side impact crash test tentatively in its future assessment scheme. A mobile deformable barrier (MDB) was developed as a preparation towards implementing the ASEAN NCAP’s side impact crashworthiness evaluation. This paper describes characteristics and requirements of the UN R95 as well as the development of the MDB according to the regulation. Several tests and improvements were conducted to ensure the MDB is reliable and having high repeatability for testing.

Prefab Materials for Self Build Housing System in Malaysia

Prefabricated system has been used extensively in many developed and developing countries to provide low cost housing. There are many case studies that took the advantage of prefabricated system as part of self help approach in house construction. Prefabricated system in self help housing proved to be cost effective, provide employment opportunities, utilise low skill levels and maximise local natural resources. Malaysia is also promoting prefabricated system to be used in low cost housing provision. There are obstacles to implement such technology into the conventional construction industry. This paper investigates the possibility of adapting local resources, such as timber, into prefabricated components as a mean to promote not only modular coordination concept but also promote self build approach in the community at a lower skill labour. It is not an immediate solution to housing issues yet it provides alternatives to house the low income group and contribute to increase the supply of housing.

The Legal Aspects of Heritage Protection and Management in Indonesia: Toward Integrated Conservation

The cultural heritage protection and management in Indonesia has been experiencing many challenges, obstacles, and changes from a century. This paper discusses the legal aspects of cultural heritage management and protection in Indonesia based on the current heritage legislations as well as its relevancies with the international instruments issued within the same period. The study relied on a literature review highlights that the current heritage legislations still have many loopholes and unparalleled to the heritage trends at a global level. Alsothe current issues in heritage protection and management have become more complex and unintegrated with a development plan.

Exploring Training Factors as Incentive Tools in Safeguarding Cultural Heritage of Malaysian Traditional Settlements

Training and education has become one of the key aspects in improving incentives programme, thus leading to improved cultural heritage preservation within heritage sites. The study investigated the relationship between the importance of training as a tool on incentivizing cultural heritage in selected traditional settlements in Malaysia. Data were collected through a survey from a total of 63 respondents in both Morten and Chitty Village situated at Melaka Historic City and was analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 by means of running an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The 10 indicator items studied for tangible heritage training have satisfactory factor loadings ranging from 0.59 to 0.77 and distribute across 2 extracted factors having satisfactory cumulative variance of 58.36 per cent. Furthermore, the themes of the distributed indicator items enabled the labelling of the 2 extracted factors to being ‘soft skills’ and ‘hard skills’ for tangible heritage training. Similarly, the 9 indicator items studied for intangible heritage training have satisfactory factor loadings ranging from 0.41 to 0.90 and distribute across 2 extracted factors having a satisfactory cumulative variance of 64.42 per cent. Furthermore, the themes of the distributed indicator items across the 2 extracted factors enabled the labelling of the factors to being ‘intangible arts’ and ‘legislation’ for intangible heritage training. These results found that the ‘explored’ indicator items are fit to be used in further structurally modelling both tangible and intangible heritage training as non-financial incentives in sustainably preserving traditional settlements. The implication of this research is its serving as an information support tool for such intended modelling purpose.

Causes of high variance in building conservation tenders in Malaysia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the reasons for the variance among tenders for conservation projects in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interview approach was adopted because this method allows for effective probing of issues. The interviews are conducted with experienced conservation contractors. The interviews are transcribed and the data are analysed using thematic analysis. Coefficient of variation (CV) measure was also used to determine the level of variance that occurs in tenders for conservation projects. Findings – The study found that contractors faced difficulty in pricing competitively due to the following four factors, namely, uncertain information on the actual work on site, inexperience in conservation construction works, information in the bill of quantities is incomplete and uncertain labour and material cost. The study of 22 tenders also ascertains that there is a high variance among the tenderers for building conservation projects. This is deter...

A rethink of the incentives programme in the conservation of South Korea’s historic villages

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the overarching question, which was whether the incentives programmes formulated for the community have been found to be suitable to the aspirations and needs of the local residents. Design/methodology/approach – This study has resulted from the authors’ experience through conducting a survey with the local residents in three locations, namely the Bukchon Hanok Village located at Seoul metropolitan city; the Hahoe Village, Angdong and the Yangdong Village, Gyeongju; both the latter are located towards the west of the Korean peninsula in the Gyeongbuk-do Province. This study has hopefully tried to analyse the residents’ perception of the effectiveness of the current incentives policy by using the Bennett’s programme evaluation method. Findings – Results show that there was a divergent direction between the current incentives policy and the local aspirations between sites. In most cases, the cultural heritage conservation has been found to be a catalyst to f...

Importance of Preserving the Non-Use Value of the Cultural Heritage: Case Study of George Town, Penang World Heritage Site

This paper aims to focus on the attitude and responses of the stakeholders on the importance of preserving the non-use value of cultural heritage for George Town, Penang World Heritage Site (GPWHS) conservation. This research has examined the possibilities of several attitudes of the stakeholders in explaining the importance of preserving the non-use value for the GPWHS conservation. Pearson’s Correlation and Multiple Linear Regressions were used in predicting the dependent variable using a set of several independent variables. The purpose of the correlation test was to prove whether the correlation between the dimensions of the independent variables has had any influence on the non-use value of cultural heritage for the GPWHS conservation. A face-to-face interviewing technique using the structured CV questionnaire aided by photo images-supported was applied in this survey. The numbers of completed questionnaires were 294 from local residents and 147 from tourists (domestic and foreign) in GTWHS. This paper reveals that there was a relationship between the local stakeholders’ attitude and responses on the importance of preserving the non-use value and the WTP value for the GTWHS conservation.

Interpretation of Simon Stevin's ideas on the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East Indies Company) settlement of Malacca

Simon Stevins (1548–1620) treatises had an influence on the construction of settlements in Southeast Asia as well as on the settlement of Malacca. In the treatise ‘Ideal Plan for a City’, published in 1649, Stevin developed a city design in which he was influenced by ideas of an ideal town according to the principles of the Italian Renaissance (fourteenth century until the sixteenth century). This treatise had an influence on the development of settlements in Southeast Asia. The settlement of Malacca was influenced, apart from the Dutch, by Portuguese design and architecture. The influence of Simon Stevins treatise was also noticable on the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East Indies Company – VOC) settlement of Jayakarta (Batavia). VOC architecture and town planning in general was influenced by the ideas of Simon Stevin. The findings are that the three requirements, defence, agriculture and location, are met as mentioned by Stevin in ‘Ideal Plan for a City’. The other requirements of design (as mentioned in his treatise Vande Oirdeningh der Steden of 1599) – arithmetic, symmetry, placement of buildings and a system of streets – are not met.