The Role of Culture and Religion on Conception and Regulation of Visual Privacy

Abstract

This paper examines the role of culture and religion in the conception and regulation of visual privacy and design attributes affecting it. The study involves a survey interview of 381 respondents and 11 case studies of Malay Muslims living in two-storey terrace housing in urban areas in Malaysia. Findings indicate despite changes in living condition and a new paradigm in culture-housing, culture and religion play an important role in the conception and regulation of visual privacy. Successful regulation through the physical element and behavioural norms provides visual privacy despite the lack of visual privacy due to design attributes.Keywords: Visual privacy; culture; religion; privacy regulationeISSN 2398-4295 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. http://dx.doi.org/10.21834/ajbes.v3i11.112