Hello every body, fellow steemians out there.
I am better known as an architect who draws cartoons. Therefore, most of my works seemed to be blended together between cartoons and architecture, at least in the back ground, if not as an issue that I portrayed.
Introduction
This one was supposed to be telling stories about Eid Ramadan celebration in a village where most of traditional houses were located and maintained. Many of the houses with very unique architecture and philosophy were no longer around caused by so many reasons, particularly, old ages.
My earlier sketch.
The black & white version is displayed on the wall at the entrance to Cartoon Exhibition in Malaysia National Museum now. An old bicycle was added as decoration.
Visitors busy taking photographs
Accompanying a special guest to the exhibition.
The cartoon was also printed on ‘money envelopes’ which normally given to children during the festive celebrations.
I need another post or more to tell about Malay house architecture as I mentioned, very unique and interesting to elaborate. Now, I will only pick on one element that makes the whole Malay house so ‘special’. I will touch generally on the main ‘subject’ that makes the frontal elevation of the house, the stairs .
The back ground
This is a traditional house in Penang (northern state in peninsular Malaysia) , which survived until today, built by my wife’s great grand father nearly a century ago.
My wife and I posing on the concrete stairs, known as “tangga batu” ( direct translation ‘stone staircase’) by the “anjung” (verandah) of the wooden house.
That is only an example of how the stairs were “incoorperated” with the raised floor of the house. There are many more other design and charecter of stairs for other different types and styles of traditional dwelling units throghout the country.
source
Various designs of stairs for various styles of architecture.
We are having not less than eight distinctive and obvious styles such as Melala house, Kelantan House, Perabung lima (limas house), Minangkabau house and many more. They are having something in common, the elaborated stairs in front the entrance. There is also where visitors remove their foot gears, another traditional custom of the people here.
The spiritual meaning of the 5 steps of the traditional stairs (sorry, Malay and Arabic language) as the concept of design. I am not going to elaborate more, this time...
Come back to the main story...
The Story
I found out, among all the designs of stairs to the houses, Melaka Houses are the most elaborated and celebrated,. They created the welcoming feelings to enter. The Malay people are also known to be very inviting to their guests.
The Malaka house and stairs that I had chosen to feature. Besides providing people an easier way to climb up to the raised floor of the house, the decorated concrete stairs also act as a plase to sit, resting, gossiping, playing etc...
Step to step sketching process
Completed.
The captions:
The children who were playing and singing the folks song were interfered by their grandpa jokingly, changing the usual lyrics.
Till next post, bye bye.
