The Tourism Industry

I've done a little study on tourism in johor bahru..since i'm designing service apartment:)



The hotel occupancy rate from year 2002 to 2007 were averagely stable at the figure of 60 percent. Somehow the growth of tourism decreased tremendously from 2004 -05, but getting better towards year 2007.

Even though the tourist arrivals were not that popular for 2005 -2007 compared to 2004, yet the hotel occupancy rate were still able to remain stable. The factor could be support by local tourist or business trip.



Tourist from singapore consist of the highest percentage that arrives our country, net in line is thailand.

This was mainly due to the easy link into this region and malaysia is located between these two country.

Most singaporeans come into malaysia are mainly for vacation, visiting families during festive season & weekend leisure; while people from thailand were mostly for trading & business.

Source: property stock report, Q3 2009


Service Apartment - Existing Stock

Across the nation, there were 79 service apartments, offering 8,888 units for rental. By types, one and two bedroom service apartments remained popular as noted by the 51.4% (4,565 units) and 33.5% (2,891 units) contributions to the total share respectively.

Kuala Lumpur continued to offer the highest number of service apartments (2,620 units), followed by Negeri Sembilan (2,199 units) and Perak (941 units).

The highest occupancy of 75.3% was recorded by Sarawak. Labuan who had been registering the highest occupancy rates for four consecutive quarters recorded a drop from 85.6% to 71.1%.


The Demand of RoomType

My Highrise Proposal

For our final project this semester, we are needed to design a high density building-higrise in a metropolitan area.
My site is actually in wadihana context,(well,i'll explain the site later).
So, i was thinking in days of what should i proposed(again,we are free to propose any kind of highrise as long as u finish the drawings,haha)

My initial intention is to bring vibrant to wadihana..in order to be a vibrant place u need activities,purpose for people to come..so to have activities u need people. Yes,u do need people! People draw peoples!

Speaking of people,u'll have density..yes it is. So, i'm thinking that school, offices & residential consist of high density. Again, yes it is. And its just easy, out of the 3 proposal i choose residential. But it will be rather static..

I mean the people in my building are standardize..they buy an apartment or condo & they'll stay there. Basically, I like people to move in & out..today u have this group of people & tomorrow the other one..and so,i proposed to design a highrise service apartment:)


a short definition of service apartment

A serviced apartment is a rental facility, like a hotel, where you can stay for a few days or a few weeks depending on the nature and purpose of your visit. Serviced apartments can be less expensive than equivalent hotel rooms. Especially when staying for 7 days or more

Serviced apartments offer savings of up to 30% on traditional hotel accommodation. Since the beginning of the boom in cheap international travel and the corresponding increase in the level of sophistication of international travellers, interest in serviced apartments has risen at the expense of the use of hotels for short stays.

The benefits of serviced apartments are:
-More space & privacy
-Giving the feeling home away from home
-More freedom & convenient


the proposed category of building

Building Type: hybrid service apartment
 
Building Category: mix-development
 
Building Component: service apartment cum retail & community mall
 
Target User: tourist, investor, student, business personnel, and family

Proposed Density: 3000 = 2000 (static) + 1000 (mobile)
 
Proposed nos of storeys: 20-25 storeys (including basement)
 
Location: Kg.wadi hana near to
jln tun abdul razak
 
Plot Ratio: 1:4 to 1:6


site location

The Corridor

Speaking of corridor...
you might get the meaning of long narrow walkway beside your classroom
or a walkway between two blocks, maybe street some might say..

well,it is..even i made that assumption too. somehow in architectural perspective, corridor is a linkage, a link that connect two places or even more. it can be physical connection like plaza, bridge, walkway & etc..or non-physical element like echo effect, information technology and so on.

what i want to share here is our corridor design in johor bahru. It's our 2nd project of this semester. common let's have a look,



The above picture shows the context of wadihana on the right of danga city mall(stated, try look for it) and saujana on the left. There's a mall situated between these two area which is the Danga CityMall. Somehow we noticed that the whole context seems lost of vibrant, easy to say it looks dead!

So we figured it out that a corridor that link saujana & wadihana might change something out. So, here goes our proposal of masterplan corridor..


The concept of the corridor is walk of weave,(THE WOW CORRIDOR). The idea is just easy, we want people to WALK! The proposed corridor is an elevated walkway that connect saujana to dangacity mall and to wadihana.

Gradually, in 10,20 years to come..things change. There will be no longer row of houses in this context. I believe the whole area will be crowded with high density building(highrise). No way we're gonna built massive highways along these building to connect one to another...it'll look bad, i mean view from the building is spoilt, noisy, air pollution..

So, the corridor makes the different. It connect places by encouraging people to walk,that's all.
We save the mobile energy, save the air from pollution..promote health.

Of course, in our proposal the corridor is not just a walkway that u walk,walk & walk..That will create a hell of boring feeling out of it!

What draws u to walk then? If there's a purpose isn't it..well, u will walk from one place to another,would ur journey be interesting if while u walk, u see people dancing, kids playing, trees & flowers everywhere, activities, food & so on? Of course, that's what we're implementing into our proposal..

Well basically,that's the whole idea of our corridor..:)

世間を見る

SEEING LIFE - first intro of my architectural blog

It's what I would like to say for architecture.

I had my first interview at a local firm years ago, the principle asked me one simple question, "what is architecture to you?" I still remembered what i replied, "architecture is the mix of science & art, to design well-known buildings so everbody knows you.."

In a heartbeat, i knew it wasn't the way to answer such question. Well, u can't think for minutes to answer a question during an interview..so,there goes another interview i would say.

Now..Days passed, after long deliberate thought, i think architecture is all about life. pyramid wasn't built through degree holders, forbidden city are not built by graduated architects & so is traditional houses all around the world. great masterpiece have been created long ago before the knowledge of architecture is established. Mankind knew what they want & what they need, that's what makes architecture exist & evolve through time.

This is my perspective in architecture. It's broad, vibrant, senseble, imagination.. everything!