Rumah Sewang: An Integrated Community Centre and Alternative School for Orang Asli Temiar in Pos Perwor, Sungai Siput, Perak, Malaysia.

Rumah Sewang plays many roles and purposes in the community of Orang Asli Temiar, be it community socializing activities or to carry out their ancestral belief-related rituals. Rumah Sewang can be related to the identity of the place and settlement too. Orang Asli Temiar has unique values, traditions, ideologies and lifestyles that are distinctive in their encounter with their environment. However, modernization has slowly crept into their settlements and it could lead to identity crisis, loss of culture which eventually led to the degradation of the customary and cultural value to the community.

Therefore, this proposal aims to regenerate the local culture and identity of Orang Asli Temiar by offering adequate facilities and programmes to rejuvenate culture in the immediate neighborhood with the sense of belongings. This Rumah Sewang project is enhanced with community centre and alternative school for the benefits and welfares of the young generation of Orang Asli Temiar. In order to respect to its context, the vernacular approach is adopted in spatial planning, construction techniques and materiality. The complex is separated into several blocks performing various functions and connected with modular walkways, which are designed to celebrate the journey from one end to the other end. The building programmes are designed as support facilities to the Rumah Sewang, which include a vocational school and workshops, community clinic, kindergarten, community library and gerai areas. The vocational school and workshop are the highlight of the complex, where the training of the traditional construction techniques and the production of sustainable timber and rainforest materials are taught in order to preserve the unique and distinctive identity of the people.

Successively, with the help of the local vernacular knowledge, a traditional method of timber construction and joinery is employed, innovated and optimised to celebrate the originality of Orang Asli Temiar architecture. With the adoption of the modular coordination, 28 modules of timber modular components are designed and aimed to become the prototype for later development and application. In addition, with the great assistance of the ‘Community Participant Architecture’ approach, the project will validate the architecture participation by Orang Asli Temiar to produce an architectural solution. This will meet their needs in parallel with the theory of Community Base Conservation in order to improve local people's lives while preserving knowledge and nature.

Locality: Pos Perwor, Sungai Siput, Perak, Malaysia
Land Size: 4 acre
Development type: Institutional

Muhammad Ismail Rahim

Rumah Sewang: An Integrated Community Centre and Alternative School for Orang Asli Temiar in Pos Perwor, Sungai Siput, Perak, Malaysia. by ismail rahim in Malaysia won the WA Award Cycle 35. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.