Theories of Architecture & Urbanism [ARC61303] [ARC2224]

Project Part 2 : An Illustrated Essay With Cognitive Mapping of Selected Urban Spaces.

Name : How Pei Ngoh

Student ID : 0316929

Tutor : Mr. Lam Shen Fei

Introduction

Bukit Bintang is located at the heart of Kuala Lumpur and it is known as

golden triangle, where is actually a large area that encompasses a number of major

streets. The city roughly covers the area of Jalan Pudu, Jalan Imbi,Jalan Bukit

Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail. The city is famously with the shopping and

entertainment district that is a place for fashion, merchandise and accessories, IT

products, designer brands and electronic goods. So the range of users generally are

teenager, adults, foreign worker and tourist, it is hardly to see senior citizens walking

around except old taxi drivers hooking around. Nevertheless, the senior citizens are

active at the shophouses and residential area where is along Jalan Changkat

Thambi Dollahand and located behind of Berjaya Times Square, a place where is

inactive and duller than Jalan Imbi.

Besides that, It is a convenient location that can access by all kind of

transportation available in Malaysia, because there are few monorail and LRT station

are located at the city and also the city’s boundary are contributed by expressway

and smart tunnel that allowed vehicle by road can easy access to the city from

outside of the central Kuala Lumpur. However, the roads always suffer from acute

congestion due to corporate districts around that causes traffic jam especially during

the peak hours.

For the understanding of people’s perception and spatial behaviours that how

the selected area is being recognized and impressed the people of public, there are

4 people from public have been interviewed and 4 different cognitive maps are

obtained with different background. 2 of the 4 reviewers are the workers at the

Berjaya Times Square, one is a male foreigner security guard with middle aged but

another reviewer is a local young girl who working at a cosmetic counter as salesgirl

with the age of 20. The cognitive maps created by both of them are covered two

different area of the city. Furthermore, another two cognitive maps are created by a

pair of lovely couple from university, who went to the site for dating and shopping. So

the cognitive maps created by them are more or less similar. Not to mention, I had

amazed by the result of the interview with taxi drivers, who should have very strong

memory and understanding about the Bukit Bintang and Kuala Lumpur, with the end

of they could not able to draw anything on paper and claimed that they were too

familiar to go to any destination and sometime make the turn based on their feeling.

In order to analysis and compare the cognitive maps obtained from the

reviewers and a map created by myself, I combined the maps got from similar

background of the reviewer into one and summarized the maps into 3 maps, which

are foreigner security guard and cosmetic counter girl into one, the combination of

lovely couple and the last one would be the cognitive map created by myself. A

comparative essay will be discussed in the paper and which will focus on how the

urban planning of Bukit Bintang influences the people’s perception and the way they

create the cognitive map based on human facet, architecture, spatial and temporal

dynamics.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the cognitive map drew by a middle aged of male

foreigner security guard and young cosmetic counter salesgirl. I have summarized

both of their maps into one which as shown as Figure 3, because both of them are

working at the selected area and might have different perspective compare from

other reviewers.

As a matter of fact, the cognitive map (Figure) created by the foreigner

security guard shown that he only able to drew out the southern area of the Bukit

Bintang, his way to back hotel, where is the shophouses behind of the Berjaya Times

Square and along the Jalan Nyonya. According to the interview, he only actives at

the southern area of Bukit Bintang and seldom go beyond the Jalan Imbi due to the

expensive branded item and food, so the Jalan Imbi become an kind of edges for

him . However, he was able to tell me a few famous landmarks, where are shopping

malls beyond the Jalan Imbi, such as Lowyat, Sungai Wang Plaza and Pavillion,

although all these names are not showing in the map he drawn.

By analysing his cognitive map( Figure 1 ), some building’s name is found on

the map such as LRT Station, Furama Hotel and Berjaya Time Square. Based on

this point and the theory of Kelvin Lynch, large and iconic global landmarks such as

public transportation station, hotel and shopping mall are the memorable location

and navigator of people to memories and orientate themselves within a wide area.

Besides that, the path on the map ( Figure 1 ) seem inconsistent, every dot along the

path is supposed to be a junction or a cross over where the guard stops during his

journey and caused the path on map inconsistently when he was recalling back and

drawing the map.

By comparing the cognitive maps of Figure 1 and Figure 2, Figure 2 seem

detail and cubical than the map of Figure 1. The map covered the area, where is

beyond the Jalan Imbi and it does not show on the map of security guard, is the area

where most of the commercial and cooperate building located. According to the

interview, the impression that the Bukit Bintang impressed her was the high-rise

buildings and the shopping malls. She claimed that the location of Bukit Bintang is

convenient that could access by all kind of public transportation. Thus, most of the

time after work she would meet up with her friends who are working at Bukit Bintang

as well for dining or shopping before they go back home, that’s made her so familiar

with the area beyond Jalan Imbi.

On the other hand, she also mentioned some of the infrastructures are old

and dirty, so she would rather choose walking through the shopping mall as

alternative route to reach to next destination. However, when a question about the

southern Bukit Bintang been asked, she was not able to answer because she did not

know that was such an area behind of BerJaya Time Square. As a result, the

cognitive map she drawn is much different from the security guard’s cognitive map,

that it shown the shops lot, shopping mall, traffic light and public transportation

station with shape than word. The commercial buildings of the selected area on the

map is always bigger than other, which again proves that the Kevin Lynch’s theory,

“global landmark provide orientation cues and memorable locations that provide

instant recognition of one’s location.” (Lynch, 1960)

Furthermore, figure 4 and figure 5 are the cognitive maps obtained from a pair

of lovely couple and figure 6 is a summary map of their cognitive maps. The

summary map (Figure 6) has a result of that besides all of the famous shopping

malls located, LRT and Monorail stations are the second thing marked on the maps.

The result is similar to what shown on the Figure 2, the shopping malls again been

drawn with bigger shape and stated clearer than Monorail station but the shop lots

and the southern part of Bukit Bintang are missing from the map.

The couple told me, that they come to Bukit Bintang is because of the

entertainment district and they can get their needs easily such as food, clothes and

IT product. Also the monorail station (Figure 7) or entrance of shopping mall always a

gather point for their meet up and also for their friends. Based on this point , we can

see that the place where the journey begin and end always had a strong image in

the people’s memory, especially the public transport station.However, the orientation

of the shopping malls on both of the maps are different. On the basic of Kevin Lynch,

“the mental map is the product both of immediate sensation and of the memory of

past experience.” So, it is to be believed that the experience of them on the way to

meeting each other might be different. It could affect by the environment or any past

experience that resulted different orientation of their memorable location on the

cognitive map. (Lynch, 1960)

Figure 8 is a cognitive map created by myself that is seem much different as

compared to the cognitive maps above. The cognitive map created based on the 5

elements proposed in “the image of the city” by Kelvin Lynch. The 5 elements are

known as paths, edge, district, node and landmark. As a freshman and an observer

to the selected area, the edges of the site is define by wide and high circulation road,

which known as Smart tunnel, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Pudu and Jalan Changkat

Thambi Dollah, because they are the expressway access by car. However, for

middle age of user such as the foreigner security guard, the boundary of the city

might set not beyond the Jalan Imbi as I mentioned above because the resources

available there probably not suitable for middle aged people, but it is more likely for

teenagers and young adult.

Figure 9 A big tree at the corporate district

After compared all of the cognitive maps, I observed that besides of the

commercial districts, the educational district and cooperate district are missing in the

reviewer’s maps. It is because the city is distinctive districts and of crooked and

confusing path. Also, the buildings at cooperate and educational districts are short

and old, so it is hardly to attract the attention of outsider or tourist except the senior

citizen and local residents. In addition, the educational and cooperate district have

more greenery compared to the commercial district, that’s made the districts have

their own feature and made a clear boundary to commercial district.

Conclusion

In a nut shell, as a matter of fact that the shopping malls at Bukit Bintang are

the most important landmarks and memorable location to navigate the people for

their wayfinding. However, research shown that not every district will be memories

and impress everyone although it is nearby. Certain area such as educational district

and corporate district will only remember by local resident and senior citizen but not

teenager or young adult from outside of city. That’s come to a conclusion that the

people will only remember the way with iconic building design during the journey

they experienced in the past or the necessaries they desired. For example, most of

the people go to Bukit Bintang because of the shopping malls, quality food and

branded product, but there is certain places will be missed by them due to the place

is not important to them and the necessaries they desired are not available there. In

order to making information spaces effectively navigable, kelvin lynch proposed

some of the principles for effective wayfinding in urban city. Firstly create an identity

at each location, different from all others. Secondly, use landmarks to provide

orientation cues and memorable locations. Obviously, Bukit Bintang is successful

navigate the people with different scale or function of shopping malls that made the

people remember the landmark so well. (Ai.mit.edu, 2015)

ReferencesAi.mit.edu,. (2015). 5. Design Principles for Wayfinding. Retrieved 19 November

2015, from http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infoarch/publications/mfoltz-thesis/

node8.html

Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Themobilecity.nl,. (2015). review: Kevin Lynch – The Image of the City | The

Mobile City. Retrieved 21 November 2015, from

http://themobilecity.nl/2009/05/08/review-kevin-lynch-the-image-of-the-city/