Figure-ground mapping to identify urban fabric characteristics of George Town Heritage Zone

Abstract

The traditional Penang shophouses with its unique architecture elements constitutes the largest portion of the heritage zone which form a massive and coherently unique urban fabric. Conservation guidelines have been enforced to preserve the pre-war shophouses, by implementing classification of heritage buildings, façade/structural restoration, height control and so on. Are these measures truly effective to ensure meaningful intervention within the existing urban fabric? Preservation and conservation of the physical elements of existing shophouse will remain a superficial effort if no attempt is made to understand first the urban sense of place, the town planning language, the very fabric that weaves the solid formed by buildings with the void spaces of roads, parks, courtyards, foot paths and back lanes. Hebbert (2016) reckons figure-ground plans as the commonest type of image used in town planning, so common that it is easy to overlook their peculiar characteristics. This paper aims to revisit the power of figure-ground mapping and illustrates how its imaging will lead to deciphering the unique fabric of George Town. The author also employs an "Integrated Approach" (Trancik, 1986) by layering the two-dimensional solid-void mappings with linkage study and sense of place to analyse unique patterns of two case study archetypes that reveal exceptional urban spatial characteristics of George Town that few have come to appreciate.