Historical Intimacy in Malay Urban Core Configurations: A Comparative Analysis

This paper analyses the historical pre-Colonial configurations of a series of urban cores in Malay sites along the Straits of Melaka. The objective of this research is to identify the pattern and variations of each pre-Colonial royal urban core from the perspective of urban design principle such as “intimacy” and “walkability,” which can affect in a long term sustainable parameters such as the reduction of “urban heat island”. This traditional character is increasingly disappearing due to urbanisation. There is a difficulty to reconstruct the urban core of these case studies because of their past layouts’ degree of organic character, particularly in terms of randomness. This paper argues that such configurations reflect the degree of “intimacy,” which was ruptured during the Colonial eras. Patterns were identified using available maps and lithography related to the case studies. The findings indicate that the Malay royal urban core does obey the urban design principles of intimacy and walkability. The “intimacy indices” for a historical Malay city are as follow: distance from palace to mosque (170 metre), padang/open spaces (130 metre), settlement (310 metre), market (195 metre), and aristocrat houses (60 metre). This finding can be used to inform the baseline for the preparation of the Malay principles guidelines.