Asian architecture case study paper_8d_house

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING & DESIGN
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
ASIAN ARCHITECTURE (ARC60403 / ARC2234)
PROJECT: CASE STUDY PAPER
AN ANALYSIS OF THE APPLICATION OF DESIGN STRATEGIES OF
VERNACULAR MALAY ARCHITECTURE TO ACHIEVE THERMAL COMFORT
IN 8D HOUSE, BUKIT DAMANSARA
GROUP MEMBERS:
CHAN YI QIN (0315964)
CHIA CHENG WEI (0322091)
CHEW JIA CHEN (0322852)
KOOI YONG KAI (0323152)
LEE XIANG LOON (0322090)
LECTURER: MS NURUL ALIA AHAMAD
SUBMISSION DATE: 29 NOVEMBER 2016

An Analysis of the Application of Design Strategies of Vernacular Malay Architecture to Achieve Thermal
Comfort in 8D House, Bukit Damansara
2 | Asian Architecture (ARC60403 / ARC2234)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
Abstract 3
1.0 Introduction 4
2.0 Objectives 5
3.0 Methodology 5
4.0 Limitations 6
5.0 Case Studies 7 – 8
5.1 Vernacular Malay Architecture 7
5.2 Overview of 8D House 8
6.0 Findings 9 – 24
6.1 Choice of Local Materials 9 – 12
6.2 Building Form and Orientation 13 – 15
6.3 Landscape 16 – 20
6.4 Roof Design 21 – 22
6.5 Louvered Sun Screens 23 – 24
7.0 Conclusion 25
8.0 References 26
9.0 Appendix 27 – 33

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research paper aims to investigate how the application of vernacular Malay
architecture design strategies help to reduce solar heat gain and achieve thermal comfort in 8D
House, Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur. Due to the rise of commercial developments in Bukit
Damansara that contributes to the increase of thermal heat, the 8D House was designed to curb
this climatic issue to improve the thermal comfort for the building occupants. To assist the
validation of research, literature reviews based on various sources such as books and articles
on the building and thermal comfort were conducted to complete this case study paper.
Vernacular Malay architecture is greatly influenced by climate and it is the most appropriate
to attain thermal comfort in Malaysia. 8D House is efficiently designed to adapt local climatic
requirements by using raw local materials, carefully orientated to the direction of prevailing
winds, landscaping placed in relation to sun paths, usage of large insulated overhanging canopy
and metal louvered sun screen to reduce solar radiation. Hence, it is concluded that the
application of these design strategies in reference to vernacular architecture does reduce solar
heat gain and achieve thermal comfort in 8D House.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Twenty years ago, Bukit Damansara began as a residential scheme for government servants.
Commercial projects were slowly poured into the area and buildings began to develop into
office complexes, which give rise to temperature and significantly affects the housing estate
including where our research building is situated. The 8D House project started off with the
intention to design a three-storey bungalow incorporating vernacular elements in response to
climate change within the area to achieve thermal comfort. Malaysian architecture started off
with a vernacular design approach to suit the local hot and humid climate, adapting to its
surrounding context and were designed to fulfil the needs of the user. Thermal comfort,
according to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55, is the condition of mind which expresses
satisfaction with the thermal environment.
This research paper focuses on how the application of design strategies of vernacular Malay
architecture helps to reduce solar heat gain and improve thermal comfort in 8D House by
responding to the following questions:
 How does the choice of materials address solar heat gain issues to achieve thermal
comfort in 8D House, Bukit Damansara?
 How does the implementation of shading devices improve thermal and visual comfort
in 8D House, Bukit Damansara?
 How does the site response contribute to the reduction of solar heat gain in 8D House,
Bukit Damansara?
 How does local materials, site response and shading devices modernize traditional
vernacular architecture in 8D House, Bukit Damansara?

2.0 OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this research paper aims to conduct a thorough study on the implementation of
various vernacular Malay architecture design strategies in 8D House, Bukit Damansara. It also
aims to investigate how these strategies help to reduce solar heat gain and achieve thermal
comfort in this building.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
The research data that has been found is collected from online resource materials and also
books. The research was conducted with the aim to gather an in-depth understanding of what
vernacular architecture and how its design strategies are implemented into the 8D House in
order to achieve thermal comfort. Components of a vernacular Malay house such as roof, built
form, landscape, materials and sun screens have been studied upon and analysed. Architectural
drawings of the research building obtained are also studied and analysed.

4.0 LIMITATIONS
Although the research has reached its aims, there were some unavoidable limitations. Firstly,
due to time constraints, this research is being studied as a data comparison between and
traditional and contemporary Malay vernacular architecture. Thermal comfort conditions
achieved in 8D House are examined by comparing passive design features in traditional Malay
architecture. Besides, we were unable to set up an appointment with the architect to obtain
more information about the building due to limited resources. Since 8D House is a private
residential building, the public is strictly prohibited to enter and visit the building without
proper permission. Therefore, the information collected for the purpose of this study was
mainly through photo documentation of traditional architecture within the area of study where
many deviations from the traditional ways of designing and construction of houses were
noticed.

5.0 CASE STUDIES
5.1 Vernacular Malay Architecture
Figure 1: A typical traditional Malay house (Source: musimpanas, 2010)
Traditional vernacular Malay architecture is greatly affected by climate, hence, this architecture
includes dwellings and other elements which relate to their surrounding climate and weather.
Since Malaysia is situated in a tropical region, vernacular Malay architecture uses raw materials
such as timber, rattan, tree roots, bamboo and leaves as they are easily obtained from the
tropical rainforests and have high specific heat capacity to ensure the spaces inside a building
are cool and comfortable. Vernacular Malay houses attempted numerous methods to respond
to their climate including building orientation to avoid direct sunlight, large openings to allow
natural ventilation and eaves to reduce the glare of the sun. These ideas and concept responding
to its climate are still being implemented and referenced into today’s contemporary architecture
in places like Malaysia and other tropical countries.

5.2 Overview of 8D House
Figure 2: 8D House sits on a sloping site in Bukit Damansara (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
Situated on a slope looking over the views of the Petronas Twin Towers in the suburb of Bukit
Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, 8D House is designed by architect Dr Tan Loke Mun. The site, in
which the building sits, comprises a long and narrow lot sloping down the Lengkok Setiabudi
road by about 10 meters. The intention behind the design of this bungalow was meant for two
family generations with resort facilities and green sustainable features. The opportunity of the
long road frontage allows the architect to design a 70-meter long tropical verandah made of
contemporary materials such as steel and off-form concrete with sawn timber finish to shelter
the house from the evening sun. Large insulated overhanging roof and metal louvered sun
screen wraps the entire building to provide the necessary shade and shelter to curb the hot and
humid climate for 8D House.

6.0 FINDINGS
6.1 Choice of Local Materials
The lightweight construction of the vernacular Malay architecture with minimum mass and
much voids, using low thermal capacity and high insulation materials, is the most appropriate
for thermal comfort in Malaysia’s climate. 8D House, a contemporary architecture, is
efficiently designed to suit the local climatic requirements using raw local materials.
In Bukit Damansara, most masonry finishes like bricks, marble and slate are thin veneers that
have been adhered to the structural wall and floor of the building, and are mostly found on
ground and eye level around the entrance of the building.
Figure 3: Raw clay red brick boundary wall of 8D House (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)

Figure 4: Brickwork as the flooring seen on the patio of the living area of 8D House
(Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
With thermal mass and high specific heat capacity, even long after the air conditioning has
switched off, masonry walls will remain cool to reduce heating loads and improve occupants’
comfort. In addition, the commonly available red bricks require comparatively less energy to
sustain thermal comfort conditions. Thus, the internal temperatures in such buildings remain
fairly stable despite external diurnal fluctuations which make it a good choice for a building
material especially in hot climates.
Concrete seems to be the material of choice among contemporary vernacular architecture in
Bukit Damansara as it gives stability, versatility and lightness to the appearance of the buildings.
With high thermal mass, concrete is the most common building material and has the property
to store and delay heat conduction through structural elements and thereby provide thermal
comfort.

Figure 5: Concrete as the walls of the annexe and staircase (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
Standing out from its neighbouring houses, timber is heavily used in 8D House mainly because
of minimal maintenance required. The decision of using wooden wall panels and sun screen
gives warmth in contrast with the dull concrete and cold marble flooring. Timber is acceptable
in terms of thermal insulation properties that are suitable for all kinds of applications in
windows, doors, roofing and flooring. Moreover, timber has a higher heat capacity and
relatively low density compared with other building materials.

Figure 6: Both 8D House and vernacular Malay house use timber as a wall material
Figure 7: Wooden panels in contrast with cold marble flooring in the interior of 8D House

6.2 Building Form and Orientation
A traditional Malay house exhibits a quality of openness with large voids in windows and
features an open plan interior layout with minimum partitions. This quality reflects the
importance given to ventilation in the design of such Malay houses. The open plan layout
makes use of spaces while encompassing multifunctional spaces to allow easy passage of air
and proper cross ventilation within the interior spaces. Traditional Malay houses are oriented
in an east-west direction to face Mecca for religious purposes and this also helps to minimize
areas exposed to solar radiation and best suited for the wind patterns in Malaysia.
Figure 8: Open plan layout of a typical Malay house (Source: W. B. W. Abidin, 1981)
The 8D House has a perfect rectangular building form with low surface area-to-volume ratio
(S/V) and this makes it inherently more efficient than buildings with complex shapes. The
building is thin and has low building depth (narrow building shape) which allows internal heat
to be lost to the outside. The interior buffer zones such as stairs, lift and entry corridors are
placed in the building’s west side to protect the living and working areas from the hot afternoon
sun as highlighted in Figure 9. This house demonstrates a similar spatial layout to that of a
typical Malay house with minimum internal partitions for cross ventilation.

Figure 9: Buffer zones shield living areas from hot afternoon sun (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
Figure 10: Cross ventilation within the interior spaces of 8D House
The long facades of the building is orientated to the east-west direction, relatively 23 degrees
away from the north. Ample shading devices are used to reduce solar heat gain in the building
on the narrow site which east-west orientation is not possible. The long sides of the building

are arranged to face the direction of incoming prevailing winds and since these sides are
difficult to shield from the low sun, special shading devices such as the long verandah and
sufficient fenestration are used on the west and east elevations.
Figure 11: The long facades facing the direction of incoming prevailing winds
(Source: meteoblue, 2016)
Figure 12: View looking towards the main and into the verandah

6.3 Landscape
Traditional Malay vernacular landscape design consists of soft and hard landscape elements.
A typical Malay house is separated into three areas; the front, side and rear compound.
Placements of landscaping features depend on the different compounds. As shown in Figure
13, the front is not obstructed by any vegetation but the vegetation on the side and rear
compounds slowly densifies. Coconut trees are often the favourable choice as the thin bark
does not disrupt air circulation into the house and the large vegetation at the top of this tree
provides sufficient shading from the sun.
Figure 13: A vernacular Malay house (Source: Connor, J., 2015)

Figure 14: Functional spaces in a vernacular Malay house (Source: Yuan, 1987)
Figure 15: Climatic impact on vernacular Malay houses
(Source: Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2008)

The landscaping around 8D House is designed to respond to sun paths and prevailing winds
where vegetation allows shadows to be casted on the north-east façade and also cools down
prevailing winds. Landscaping such as trees, bushes with dense foliage acts as a vertical
shading device to prevent direct solar radiation onto the façade of the building.
Figure 16: Landscaping in the 8D House (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
Evapotranspiration, the process by which water is transferred from land to the atmosphere by
the help of wind, evaporation from the soil and other surfaces, and by transpiration from plants
and leaves, will help cool down surrounding air. Ground elements such as grass and water
features replacing pavements to reduce overall ground temperature. These features do not
reflect heat like how harder materials such as paving and stones do.

Figure 17: Relationship between prevailing winds and landscape (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
Figure 18: Climatic impact on 8D House (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)

Materials such as stones and paving may have higher specific heat capacities, which enable
them to store mass amounts of heat. However, clay brick pathways are kept in the shade,
preventing them from heating up quickly. Water features are also strategically positioned
around the east and south sides of the building to cool down prevailing winds through
evaporation.

6.4 Roof Design
Figure 19: Overhanging roof of 8D house and traditional Malay house
(Source: ArchDaily, 2016; fjodolf, 2008)
Vernacular Malay architecture uses large thatched roofs with large overhangs to provide
shading and protection against driving rain. 8D House applied similar strategies and
modernized it by using large insulated overhanging canopy roof to control the penetration of
solar radiation. A 7.5-meter overhang on the east side of the building helps to avoid direct
exposure from sunlight. Due to the house built mostly with exposed materials, the roof tends
to be under lighted to give a psychological effect of coolness as strong light is often mentally
associated with heat.
Figure 20: North elevation of 8D House (Source: ArchDaily, 2016)
Beside overhangs, the roofing material is another factor to improve building’s thermal comfort.
Vernacular Malay architecture uses attap due to its good insulting properties and it retains heat

into the building. In the modern context, attap is no longer suitable as a roofing material and
therefore, the 8D House roof was constructed with lightweight metal deck in a light grey with
0.52mm total coated thickness (TCT). According to the Reflectance Index of Roof Surface,
light grey colour may absorb less than 50% of incoming solar energy. The internal layers
include highly insulated by 200mm rock wool and have an air gap of 300mm that acts as a
barrier to heat flow.
Figure 21: Sectional detail of the 8D House roof (Source: Foo, W., 2016)

6.5 Louvered Sun Screens
Similar to the climatic control concept of vernacular architecture, 8D House controls glare from
the open sky and surrounding by using metal louvered sun screen to wrap the entire mass of
the living spaces. Sun screens extend rather than attach to the facades to form a distance for air
ventilation as well as preventing large amount of heat to pass through the transparent glasses
directly which may cause overheating.
Figure 22: Climatic design of a traditional Malay house (Source: Yuan, 1987)
Extended corridor without any form of blockage is formed through the distance of facade and
sunscreen. This helps the spaces to remain cooler as air flow is encouraged. Louvers are also
incorporated into the shade to prevent the high-angle sun falling on the glass facades, but also
to allow small portion of sunlight to provide some passive solar heating. Louvered sun screens
are very effective at shading south-facing glass facades when sun angles are high. However,
the same device is ineffective at blocking low afternoon sun from entering west-facing areas
during peak heat gain. This explains why the west side sun screen is longer than the east and

north side. The sun screen at the east side of 8D House extends until the head level to ensure
no blockage of air flow occurred, maintaining good air ventilation at the main side of living
areas.
Figure 23: Extended walkway and sun screen detail of 8D House
The reason why an egg-crate sunscreen is chosen for 8D House is because the ideal orientation
of this type of sun screen device is at east and west and as such, visual restriction is also low.

7.0 CONCLUSION
8D House demonstrates a series of different design strategies in relation to vernacular
architecture to attain thermal comfort in its building in a modern context. The use of local raw
materials helps to reduce solar radiation and promote coolness in the interior spaces. Utilization
of building materials and passive technologies in buildings can effectively offer the solution
for thermal comfort demands and substantially reduce energy demand. The rectangular
building is orientated with the long facades arranged to face the direction of incoming
prevailing winds. Landscaping such as vegetation and water features that help promote
evapotranspiration to cool down surrounding air are carefully placed in relation to sun paths.
Large insulated overhanging canopy roof constructed with lightweight metal decking is used
to provide necessary shade and control the penetration of solar radiation. This bungalow also
controls glare from the open sky and surroundings by using metal louvered sun screens to wrap
the entire mass of the living space, varying in lengths on different sides of the façades.

8.0 REFERENCES
American Society of Landscape Architects (n.d.). Combating Climate Change with
Landscape Architecture. Retrieved November 19, 2016, from
https://www.asla.org/climatechange.aspx
ArchDaily (2016). 8D House / DRTAN LM Architect. Retrieved September 13, 2016, from
http://www.archdaily.com/784182/8d-house-drtan-lm-architect
Green Home Building (n.d.). Shaping buildings for the humid tropics - Green home building.
Retrieved October 6, 2016, from
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/pdf/shapingbuildings1.pdf
Janzen, C. (2016). Vernacular Architecture in Malaysia. Retrieved November 16, 2016, from
http://connorjanzen.com/vernacular-malaysia/
Lim, J. Y. (1987). The Malay house: Rediscovering Malaysia's indigenous shelter system.
Pulau Pinang, Malaysia: Institut Masyarakat.
Lim, W. S., & Tan, H. B. (1998). The new Asian architecture: Vernacular traditions and
contemporary style. Hong Kong: Periplus Editions.
Vernacular Architecture (2011). Malay houses. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from
https://vernaculararchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/hello-world/

9.0 APPENDIX

Asian architecture case study paper_8d_house

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