LABUHAN DAGANG - tourism terminus

This is my design project which was done during diploma 08. The site is in Tasik Timah Tasoh, Perlis. We were assigned to design a Small Medium Industries (SMI) exhibition centre for our traditional product. The centre should not just be a place to display our traditional product (Batik, Songket, Tembaga, Anyaman etc) but also as a centre for SMI training.

At first the site was analysed in groups. We had to make the site model and site analysis for our reference. Then, in the next stage would be a study on various SMI which was related to our project. Both studies were then being referred to formulate our own individual design brief. I chose to create a centre for learning Batik, Songket, Tembaga and Kompang.

These series of studies on the traditional equipment had enlightened my knowledge on my own Malay culture. It would have needed a great deal of lectures to put these cultural seeds in our architectural learning. The understanding of our own culture was then incorporated into our design could be a journey to understand who we are. Someday when we get drown in the latest modern designs we would stand firm on our cultural roots and create our own unique design identity in the future.

There was a lot of design idea being thrown into the project. I didn’t have enough time to make further design development. My old Pentium 2 PC took ages to generate drawing, visuals or even to print. To over come these difficulties I had to cut-and-paste various ideas onto the final board. And to maximise the time I had left, I had to dump all the design that I had done during my part-time office to formulate a new design. This would reduce the amount of time needed to think of the toilet layout, lift lobby, staircase design, roof detail and many other typical design and focus on the main design idea.

But I got carried away with making a complete detailed 3d model. Then when it got completed I fell like taking all the angles on the model to show how much design input that I had applied on it. That was a mistake that I learnt. I should have gotten a priority list on my design. I had so much idea that I felt like presenting it all.

Now when I re-visited this work I could see a lot of design idea that have the potential to be re-used in real projects. Ideas that I wish I could further develop. My excitement grows even more wildly when I could import the old 3d model into the current 3d software and explore it in real-time. Being able to feel the adventurous elements in this design gives satisfactions that I hardly get in real practice. It makes me realised that only imagination is the boundary.

LABUHAN DAGANG-tourism terminus Diploma Architecture 08, UiTM
original write-up

IDEA:
A newly wed couple went to 'nat', pekan sehari - a one-day market just to buy mangos. This 'nat' offers a variety of mangos, from imported mangos to local mangos. The loving couple moved from one stall to the other looking for the best and cheapest mangos. While dropping by other stalls, the wife had a glimpse of 'rebana'. She was thinking, "Is that a 'rebana' that I've just seen? Or it was just my imagination". Interested in the existence of a 'rebana' in the middle of 'nat', she pulled her husband's hand and headed for the place where she saw the 'rebana' just to proof that she was not dreaming. Once they got there, they saw a man demonstrating the making of a 'rebana'.

Sounds familiar ha? I'm confidently sure that most typical type of Malaysians experiences this when they go to certain places. A typical Malaysian has a common habit known as 'singgah sat' which means dropping by a place for a while just to look around with no purpose at all.

This concept is applied to Labuhan Dagang to buy local people's attention as it places different types of things at its so called 'nat', varying from food to furniture which are mainly originated from the northern region of peninsular Malaysia.

Traditional design applied in ancient building constructions, is a heritance that no money can buy. These ancient heritages had never spoken arrogantly like the modern buildings that we have today; instead they spoke and behaved in the most polite manners - using the humble language, revealing them as down to earth type of building. Today's modern construction stands and acts alone, being isolated from other building population.

Labuhan Dagang, is an industrial tourism terminus which had been generally designed to promote tourism through small and medium scale industrial activities throughout Malaysia. Located in Timah Tasoh, Perlis, Labuhan Dagang will be one of the main tourism attractions as it locks together all the traditionally woven industries such as songket, batik, traditional music instruments and 'tembaga' - a brass metal, in order to exploit these industries. Hopefully, the exploitation of these industries will enhance the preservation of all the characteristics that belongs to a historical, traditional building by applying these qualities to all the buildings constructed in Labuhan Dagang.

DESIGN ANALYSIS:

Some scanned sketches that being able to documented.

PRESENTATION BOARD:Conceptual Board'Nat' Market SMI Board Generator SMI board Batik and Songket SMI BoardTembaga Handicraft and Music Instrument SMI BoardAdministration and Facilities BoardElevation - PENAMBANG TIMURSection - PENAMBANG TIMURElevation - PENAMBANG BARATSection - PENAMBANG BARATSection 'Nat' - Admint (perspective) Section 'Nat' - Admint (To Scale)

Being able to feel the adventurous elements in this
design gives satisfactions that I hardly get in real practice. It makes me
realised that only imagination is the boundary.

LABUHAN DAGANG - tourism terminus by Fadzlan Rizan Johani is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.