HOUSE RENOVATIONS AND EXTENSIONS- THE BANE OF ARCHITECTURE IN MALAYSIA

The most striking feature of British architecture is that most of their multi storey terrace houses remained the same throughout the years even though they are built in the era of the World Wars. The houses generally do not changed and have the same monotonous design that have withstand the test of time.
You could call it boring and monotonous, with the houses exhibiting the typically British Bay windows but it stood the test of time. Maybe this is what we called architectural conservation.
However, the modern architecture of terrace houses in Britain are different but still retaining the uniformity of small glass windows for better energy conservation. Often these modern houses are built with brown orange bricks
What ever the buildings are they are generally well kept and maintained
In Malaysia, the picture is different. Most of the double storey houses, that even include bungalows and semi detached houses are often renovated with building extensions, such as addition of porches and building extra rooms that do not take into account the conformity of the buildings with the surrounding buildings. It is almost the house owners are given a free hand in deciding how their houses look like. Of course they still have to adhere to certain building laws or by laws of the municipalities.
However, the end result is that the rows of houses looked ugly and appear as ‘squatter houses’
If the owners are restricted in their renovation, the architecture of their neighborhood would have been conserved and the beauty of the houses retained!
It is also a sad observation that once a building is bought, that is often their last major paintwork the building will have. So it is not surprising the sad state of appearance of the buildings which becomes more of an eyesore than a delight to the sore eyes.
The architects need to find a practical solution to all these problems by recommending laws or even in their designs of buildings with low maintenance.



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