Nawit ONGSA VANGCHAI’s research while affiliated with Chiang Mai University and other places

Clarifying the process of urban formation and the form of townhouses in Malacca, this paper discusses the characteristics of urban space in comparison with other Dutch colonial Cities: The research project this paper is based on was launched under the title 'Field Research on Origin, Transformation, Conversion and Conservation of Urban Space of Colonial Cities' the major target of which are the Dutch colonial cities. To compare the colonial cities of all over the world is ambitious objective of our project. With numerous historical buildings and houses, Malacca municipality with Malaysian government tries to be registered as UNESCO World Heritage. The Dutch is well known as a developer of high-dense settlements with townhouses. One of major focuses of this paper is what and how the Dutch designed the townhouse. The paper is composed by historical analysis of the process of establishment and development of Malacca and considerations on block formation and typology of townhouses. Analyzing the block formation and form of the house plan, the paper suggests the townhouses in Malacca were merely influenced by those in Netherlands and were introduced by Chinese called Baba-Nyonya.

Shophouses of Ratanakosin, as its name suggests, are bi-functional buildings, one of them is commercial and the other is living. Variations of shophouse spatial organization are found in composition of their elements such as open court, stair, toilet and backlane. However, at the first stage of construction, shophouses of the same group generally had same patterns of spatial organization but later underwent changes depending on usage patterns. Finally, their spatial organization transformed into various types regardless of their origin and spatail articulation. Purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of the spatial organization of shophouses. Three blocks of shophouse from three main landholdings, namely temple; Bureau of the Crown Property; and, the private sector have been selected as objects of study. A comparative study is carried out to determine the similarities and differences in their transformation process. Finally, the relationship between Building Code and transformation in shophouse will be discussed.