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Konsep Defensible Space dimana diadakan

ruang persendirian, separa persendirian,

separa awam, dan awam, merupakan idea

yang mula-mula diketengahkan lebih 30

tahun dulu yang kini diterima umum.Tatatur

cantum-adu boleh dilihat sebagai teknik

merekabentuk perumahan di mana setiap

rumah berada dalam halaman terkawal

yang diakses melalui jalan gelung atau

looping cul-de-sac.

Rangkaian jalan dalamperumahan cantum-

adu dikandungi jalan jalan gelung yang

bengkang bengkok. Corak ini

memperlahankan kenderaan, justeru

menjadikannya lebih selamat untuk pejalan

kaki.

Honeycomb layout at Sungai Lunchoo Johor Bahru

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NEIGHBOURHOOD LAYOUT FOR SAFE

CITIES

The issue of public security in residential

areas is a hot current topic. In a national

survey conducted in July 2004 by Merdeka

Centre and Ikmas (2), 42% of Malaysians

surveyed said crime was their biggest

worry.Day in and day out, the pages of our

newspapers are full of stories about

burglaries, robberies and snatch thefts that

make us feel unsafe in our own homes. The

public areas and playgrounds often seem

constantly vandalized. The streets areunsafe for our children; not only from

criminals but from vehicles that speed. We

coop up our children, ferrying them about

to school, to the mall and to visit friends.

We grill up our windows and doors. The

front entrance door has long been kept

permanently shut. We put up 6 foot high

fences to secure our homes. The wealthy

among us live in exclusive gated

communities to insulate themselves from

the dangers outside. Neighbourliness

suffers but that is a secondary

consideration.

However, the main thesis of this paper is

that a sense of community is of prime

importance. In good neighbourhoods, with

strong community spirit, the people dont

just complain about crime and safety

issues. They organize night watch groups

along the principles ofrukun tetangga. They

look after the amenities that make their

environment pleasant and add value to their

homes. Vandalism would not be tolerated.

The streets are safe for children. Car drivers

are mindful of pedestrians and share the

road with them.

Burglars and robbers are discouraged by

strong communities that recognize

strangers in their territory that politely asks

strangers: Can I help you.

Safe Streets

Fotress Home

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But a housing estate or residential precinct

contains too many houses, maybe 200

houses of more, for the ordinary resident to

relate to. Studies suggest that a small

housing group of 15 30 household groups

work better encouraging social networking

(3).

The straight roads in the terrace house

layout encourage high traffic speeds and

make them unfriendly for pedestrians and

unsuitable for children. Pedestrians interact

with their neighbours much better than

drivers in their cars. Children make friends

with their neighbours much faster than their

parents, and they are unparticular about the

social, racial religion background of their

friends. Friendship between children is an

important component of the sense of

community in any neighbourhood.

The roads and public spaces in a terrace

house neighbourhood become no mans

land. They are public areas for which no

individual household or resident feels

obligated to help maintain or defend

against vandalism. Everyone to his own

castle. Residents complain the local

authorities neglect the maintenance of the

padang and playgrounds. Authorities

lament the residents lack of civic

consciousness. Oscar Norman in /

Defensible Space 1972 introduced the

idea of hierarchically organized housing

with private, semi-private, semi public and

public areas. The clear structure

strengthens natural surveillance, helps the

inhabitants know which people belong,

and improves the possibility of making

group decisions concerning shared

problems.

Hierarchically organized housing with private, semi-private, semi-public and public areas, from Oscar NewmanDefensible Space 1972

Defensible Neighbourhoods

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Closely Supervised

In contrast, the terrace housing estate can

be described as having a diffuse spatial

structure. There is no sense of hierarchy.

Play is an important arena of learning for

children. Hence the provision of green

areas suitable for childrens play is an

important feature of any housing. Charles

Mercer in his book (Living in Cities (4) cited

studies by John and Elizabeth Newson (5)

to make a particular emphasis on the

importance of providing the child,

especially at pre-school age, with the

opportunity to play further and further away

from the confines of the house and the

close supervision of the parent. It is

suggested that this opportunity is best

presented in small discreet steps to allow

the child to explore the world and become

more independent at his own pace.

Letting go ..

.little by littleFrom Lat Then and Now 1993

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Thus, a defect of row housing with unsafe

streets just outside the gate is that the pre-

school childs development stops there.

When he is finally old enough to be allowed

to go outside on his own, he lacks the

intermediate steps available to children who

live in safe neighbourhoods with play areas

just outside the house. These studies note

how children who lack the social skills that

come from play that gradually become less

and less supervised would be more

susceptible to peer pressure.

If badly designed housing is not conducive

to the creation of good neighbourhoods,

can good design foster it? Social and

human factors play the major role in the

creation of strong communities but can

housing design too play a role?

This diagram shows the plan for a medieval

fortress by military engineers. It was

designed for an overwhelming functional

purpose: defense.

This fortress at Palmanova, Italy was

actually built and is still standing today. It

served its purpose well. Its walls were

never breached: they were demolished

when they became obsolete. I believe that it

is possible to design housing that helps to

foster social life and a sense of community,

and the existence of a strong community

spirit reduces the incidence and source of

crime.

Palmanova PlanFrom Spiro Kostof The City Shaped 1991

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We all want better houses and safe

neighbourhoods with plentiful and well-

kept green areas; childrens playgroundswell maintained amenities, wide

uncongested roads and plentiful green.

Developers recognize this and the

brochures advertisements present their

ideal vision, albeit with the disclaimer insmall print: artist impression only.

Palmanova TodayFrom Spiro Kostof The City Shaped 1991

Artist Impression OnlyFrom Gamudu Taman Botanic Advertisement 2003

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They also know that the promise of security

can be a major selling point. Therefore, we

see the proliferation of gated or guarded

housing schemes.

However, these schemes are affordable

only for the rich and will tend to segregate

society in such a way as to perhaps fuel the

source of crime.

We believe that it is possible to design

affordable houses for all that can better

meet the social need for a sense of

community, and by meeting that need,

make our homes a safer place.

Cluster House in rows

The more innovative developers have

introduced to the market what they call

cluster house. This is a block which

contains four units of houses linked on oneside and at the back. Unlike the terrace

house which has the front garden and

backyard, here we have the front garden

and side yard.

Cluster HouseFrom Bukit Mahkota Development 2002

4 units in one blockCluster House

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Our honeycomb houses are similar but we

dont lay them out in rows; we arrange

them around a courtyard. In the illustration

we lay out 14 units all facing a central

garden, like friends sitting together around

a table.

Communal space is created in the middle,

surrounded by the houses. The road

accesses the individual units internally and

creates an extremely efficient circulation

system. Through design we have created a

spatial boundary, a central area that can

become the communal focus, and a sense

of entry into this place. The design is such

that there is a clear, common perception of

the neighbourhood.

The communal garden, easily accessible to

all, acts as a social focus for a small,

friendly neighbourhood and is a defensible

space designed to naturally reduce crime.

The short winding roads reduce traffic

speed so that urban areas become safe

and pleasant for children and pedestrians,

encouraging outdoor social interaction and

the development of a community. The

green area is not a few streets away but

where it is most wanted - in front of each

house. The houses face towards each other

but with a central garden in between. This

design allows for privacy.

Cul-de-sac neighbourhood

Honeycomb housed arranged around acourtyard like friends around a table

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Designing bigger neighbourhoods

When the community neighbourhood tile is

repeated in a process called tessellation,

the roads are linked to create larger

neighbourhoods without loss of efficiency.

Opportunities to link dwelling units into

multi-unit blocks exist along the tile

boundaries.

The result of joining many neighbourhood

tiles on a real site is simple and efficient. It

creates more livable spaces with an

improved relationship between people to

people, people to cars, and people to their

environment.

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Cars versus pedestrians

Planners have long realized the negative

effect of fast moving traffic to

neighbourhoods. Radburn in New Jersey,

built over 70 years ago in the US, is the

prototype for the separation of pedestrians

from traffic. Delft in the Netherlands, built in

the 1960s, is one of the first examples

where the roads are designed with traffic-

calming features to slow down vehicles (3).

Terrace Houses

In Honeycomb Housing the network of

roads comprise looping cul-de-sacs and

short connecting roads leading to

distributor roads. This road pattern slows

down traffic naturally rendering it safe for

pedestrians. The short connecting road

with no access to houses provides space

for visitors parking.

Honeycomb neighbourhood

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Defensible Space Creating Communities

The concept of Defensible Space with

hierarchy of private space, semi-private

space and public space, first proposed 30

years ago by Oscar Newman (1), is now

widely accepted. Residents must be

allowed to exercise influence over the

environment just outside their homes:

visitors should know when they are entering

a semi-private domain. Environmental

design can assist in providing natural

surveillance of the external spaces. The

Honeycomb layout can be seen as a

technique to design townships where every

house lies in a cul-de-sac which naturally

produces defensible spaces. Furthermore it

completely eliminates back-lanes from

where 35% of break-ins in Malaysia

originate, according to UiTM researchers

(8).

The outdoor space between buildings is an

important arena for social interaction. Social

contact and spontaneous interaction are

important building blocks towards creating

a sense of community. The creation of a

safe, pleasant and shady area of suitable

size, just outside the home, is a basic

feature of Honeycomb housing. The central

courtyard becomes the social focus of the

neighbourhood. In this location it is

accessible to all to enjoy, the very young,

the old and the disabled. Sociologists find

that individuals relate better to small groups

rather than large. In Honeycomb housing

the neighbourhood contains only 5 to 40

units defined clearly by the single access

road and the communal courtyards. It is

easier to recognize each other, to get

acquainted, to form informal social groupsand to initiate collective action.

Honeycomb Courtyard

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Looking further at our example, the size of

the courtyard is 34m(112 ft) across, which

Jan Gehl (3) thinks is of a scale suitable for

human interaction. Within 30m the eye can

discern facial features of people we meet

infrequently and within 20 25m most

people can perceive relatively clearly the

feeling and moods of others.

The size of the courtyard then makes it

suitably recognized as a semi-public area.

Friends will be greeted, strangers queried.

This will discourage petty criminals.

Residents doing their normal routines in the

front yard have ample opportunities for

social interaction with their neighbours.

The green area at the center of the

courtyard is about 2000 square feet. It islarge enough for a set of childrens

playground equipment. The priority is to

provide play facilities for the smaller

children below ten who lack independent

mobility. Older children can perhaps go to

the central padang that caters for the

housing estate or take advantage of the

school sports facilities. Old people and the

disabled in the courtyard neighbourhood

who also lack mobility can also access the

public green in front of their homes, and is

thus not excluded from social life.

We are now vigorously promoting this

vision of a new form of housing in which the

layout of houses, the system of roads and

the distribution of green spaces are

radically different from that of the

conventional terrace. We believe that one

day honeycomb housing may be accepted

as one of the patterns of choice for the town

planning of residential areas.

References

1. Oscar Newman Defensible Space 19722. New Straits Times 23rd Sept 20043.

Jan Gehl Life Between Buildings 1971

4. Charles Mercer Living in Cities 19755. John and Elizabeth Newson 4 years old

in the City 1968

6. Lat Then and Now 19917. Spiro Kostof The City Shaped 19918. M.Y. Abas and Sugianto Break-ins

Malaysia 2004

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Duplex

Detached

Triplex

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Quadruplex

Sextuplex

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