Like Every In-between Alterations to the Malaysian Row House

Jian Lin Wong

Gather around, and gather across. The ambiguity of the table allows it to act as an object which connects, and yet separates, at the same time. As a means to apprehend anew, the table might form a tool to reorganise the spatial boundaries of suburban Kuala Lumpur – expanses of single-family houses, common to much of the city, whose strict delineations echo a wider parcelisation of land during the nineteenth century spread of plantation colonialism within the territory. Like Every In-between works amongst the row houses of Taman Tun Dr Ismail, a neighbourhood on the edge of Kuala Lumpur’s metropolitan border, in order to rehouse a community of former workers from an adjacent rubber estate. The densification and provision of affordable housing within the neighbourhood’s existing fabric creates an opportunity to rethink the contemporary Malaysian row house, and uses the table to traverse and loosen its prevailing grid of discrete units. The project emerges from a study of the ee-tok, a round table typically found in the homes of the Malaysian Chinese diaspora, and builds upon an understanding of the table as an intersection of ideas, materials, and peoples within the historically heterogenous region of Southeast Asia. By expanding its metaphor to that of the horizontal plane, the proposal hinges upon the table’s potential to negotiate between and beyond boundaries, imagining a domestic landscape defined not by fixed limits, but constellations of common activity.

Files
Énoncé (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF), Planche (PDF)
LINKS
Team
Teachers:
Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mattia Pretolani, Jo François Taillieu
Supervision team:
Taillieu, Jo François (dir. pédagogique) ; Aureli, Pier Vittorio (prof.) ; Pretolani, Mattia (maître EPFL) ; Chabani, Meriem (expert)
Professor in charge of the statement:
Aureli, Pier Vittorio (ENAC IA TPOD)
Unit:
ENAC-SAR, LIF
Infos
Year:
2024
Period:
Master, Fall
Category:
Master Project
Copyright:
CC BY Licence
Theoretical statement

Round Table: Historicizing the Ee-Tok as a Transcultural Object

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