Malaysian government aims to transform rural areas into economic focal points, improves rural livelihoods, living environment and narrows the life quality gaps between those living in urban and rural areas. Inspired by the government directive-aspirations and the emergence of new technologies in national and global rural practices, this paper attempts to discuss the formulation of a framework for rural development in Malaysia based on a modern approach. The process undertakes two main stages, namely focused literature study and review of the national existing policies and strategies to identify the key assessment elements and criteria for modern rural development. The next stage was to conduct an expert view survey to validate the developed elements and criteria, and then formulate a Malaysia modern rural development framework (FMRD). The FMRD was finally formulated by incorporating the elements and criteria promoted in the national policies and strategies and integrating them with smart technologies and ICT practices to reflect a holistic approach for rural issues. This paper concludes that the FMRD is a timely approach for the rural assessment measure to maximise its performance towards the future niches in Malaysia - rural liveability-resilient-and-smart.

Modern lifestyles do influence Malaysian occupants to work long hours in a day in order to cope with large workloads and to meet a deadline. Majority of the occupants are overstressed, faced with negative emotions that lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. Studies show that nature is able to enhance human well-being by reconnecting human with natural elements in a built environment, which is known as biophilic design. Therefore, this study aims to create a biophilic design guideline to enhance occupants' well-being in heritage adaptive reuse indoor co-working space. This study is conducted in the Heritage World Site (WHS) in George Town, Penang. Mixed method research design was used to collect data from the site. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using the triangulation method to validate the overall data and research by cross verifying the information from multiple methods to gather the data. The results proved that the existing biophilic design patterns do enhance co-workers' emotional well-being significantlyand it can be used as design guideline. In addition, this study also investigated different ways of biophilic design patterns application which can affect the quality of biophilic experiences. © 2020MySE, FSPU, UiTM Perak, All rights reserved

The significance value of Traditional Malay’s House is relying on its architecture and strength ability of timber building and reflect the cultural value to the society. The uniqueness of this house is on the use of timber material such as Meranti, Jati and Chengal which prominent as a robust, long lasting and not easy to deteriorate spontaneously. Numerous factor that affects to the timber material and make it deteriorate can possibly cause by external forces, biological agents, temperature and the poor standard of workmanship. An existing information is very crucial in a way to ‘boost up’ locality economy especially in the aspect of heritage tourism. Local authorities as an administrative agency can play an important role as an ‘information provider’ to the ministry in promoting the tourism sector if they have a comprehensive database. The primary issue of tourism data is no comprehensive information about the traditional Malay house at respective administrative area in terms of building performance as well as defect analysis as to ensure a sense of historical place is preserved successfully. The aim of this paper is to develop Databased Management System for Perak Traditional Malay’s House based on defect pattern at eleventh (11) nos. of Perak which focusing on Rumah Limas Bumbung Perak. Based on that analysis, it can be summarized that defect which often attacked a timber building, especially in tropical country especially in Malaysia was mainly caused by moisture problems and biological attack. A continuous exposure to these environmental agents and pests without proper maintenance and care with preventive measures will speedily decayed the buildings materials especially timber. Therefore, this paper is intended to explore a possibility of building condition assessment activity towards a data creation for database management system by exploitation a benefit of geographical information system (GIS).