Investigating visual privacy of high-rise residential apartment layout in context of Islamic architecture

Abstract

A home is one of the basic human needs that protects its occupants from harm of the outside world, provides peace and preserves privacy. In the ethos of Islamic architecture, visual privacy especially is desired in one's home. Visual privacy in a Muslim home is a balance between public space for gatherings and private spaces to allow segregation between genders. This study focuses on the design and layout of Malaysian High-rise Residential Apartments (HRA) in fulfilling the occupant’s needs and requirements especially on maintaining visual privacy. The Muslim majority community in Malaysia has of late migrated from Malay Traditional House built on ground to high-rise residential apartments especially in the cities. This increase of high-rise residential apartments is due to rise in population and limited available land leading to demand for mass manufacturing and modernisation. This circumstance has led to a neglect in visual privacy for this modern housing typology with less emphasis on culture and religious requirements especially for Muslim occupants. Through plan-based analysis of different residential apartments design and layout in Malaysia, this study observes physical factors and social factors, two of the main factors in order to achieve visual privacy. The outcome of this study is expected to contribute to future application in different layouts which would optimize visual privacy regardless of cultural and religious background for apartments in Malaysia.