The township planning in Perak was affected post-signing of the Pangkor Treaty in 1874, as the state became the first state in Malaysian Peninsula intervened by the British. Introduction of grid system by the British has apparently affected the early layout of major cities such as Ipoh, Taiping, Kuala Lumpur, George Town and Singapore. This study attempts to investigate the theory of town planning during the British era after noticing a knowledge gap in regard to early town planning system of small towns in Perak. Based on purposive sampling using varying topographies as the criterion of site selection, 10 out of 20 small towns in Perak were selected for data collection. The small towns were Kuala Kurau, Klian Intan, Bagan Datoh, Lumut, Parit, Tanjung Rambutan, Pusing, Sungkai, Padang Rengas and Lenggong. Besides measured drawings, interviews were conducted with the locals and historical manuscripts of the research locale were also revisited. Based on comparative analysis, the study found that topographical factor was insignificant in influencing the early layout of small towns in Perak since linear system was used at different topographical background (riverside, coastal, hilly terrain and flatland areas). Moreover, location factor was found to be significant in terms of influencing the arrangement of early shophouse buildings into rows, which influenced the early layout of small towns in Perak.

Since the 19th century, old shop houses remaining in Malaysia have been a primary indicator of the country’s physical landscape which can inform significant historical background of early cities and towns. The old shop houses testify in the uniqueness and diversity of the nation’s architectural gems, which were shaped by the Malay, Chinese and British entities. The current study attempts to understand the influence of varying entities towards the architectural identities that the old shop houses’ facade bear. Purposive sampling of 16 towns in the state of Perak was made to gauge information on the earliest row of shop houses at each of the towns. Both secondary and primary data were then leveraged based on documents analysis, interviews and measured drawings to explore the relationship link between the entities and identities through the old shop houses’ facade design. The findings suggest that there is a relationship between the entities and identities, in the sense that the early entities were influential in determining the identities of the old shop houses’ facade design. Interestingly, the Malay style was found to be the most dominant identity depicted by the facade design of the old shophouses from the 16 towns of Perak.

This paper identifies the physical space design that could influence the Penang youths’ state of well-being positively. The objectives of this study to comprehend the relationship between the psychological influence of physical space and the state of well-being of youths in the youth institution to determine the relationship between physical space and its significance in perpetuating end users’ state of well-being of Penang youths and enlighten on the understanding of physical space design that is influential to the state of well-being of Malaysian youths. This analysis will look onto aspects of physical space, including design elements, physical condition, and space sufficiency in youth’s current living space such as choices of colours, presence of daylighting, utilization of indoor landscape, open spaces concept, ventilation, and sense of privacy. The finding of this study generally helps to enlighten the understanding of physical space design that are influential to the state of well-being of youths in Penang.

Perak’s Malay Sultanate is known to have the longest root in the Malaysian Sultanate tradition with the most numbers of Sultans (35). Interestingly, 27 of them built a new palace, each for themselves, rather than using the inherited ones. However, those 27 locations of the royal palaces of the Perak’s Malay Sultanate are yet to be identified and recorded. This has called upon the needs to conduct a preliminary investigation on those locations based on scrutiny of secondary data (theoretically through old manuscripts and historical writings) and primary data (empirically through interviewing local people and utilising GIS technology). Analysis based on the data triangulations hence would provide a scientific and systematic inventory of the royal palaces of Perak’s Malay Sultanate.

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