While some buildings look better with age, other structures require assistance to allow them to remain useful to the community. Here are three projects in neighbouring Malaysia and Japan, where architects have given them a new lease of life while still keeping much of their original character and charm.
Yoshino Cedar House
Nara, Japan
Yoshino is a little district in Nara prefecture that, like most rural communities in Japan, has seen its young people leave in droves for the big city, leaving behind stagnating industry and economic uncertainty.
But initiatives like Airbnb's Samara studio, which designs spaces that promote "rural revitalisation", could help rejuvenate the area known for its cherry blossom trees and mountainous terrain.
The house was designed by Japanese architect Go Hasegawa and built using cedar wood from the forests in Nara prefecture, home to Japan's most famous cedar trees. Everything in the house is locally sourced, from the wood to the upholstery, drawing on the heritage and expertise of the local community. The house will be maintained by the village and proceeds earned from the guests go to them as well.
That's what the Yoshino Cedar House is all about; a place where guests can discover the beauty of Yoshino through the people who live there, while also helping the community thrive economically.
Sekeping Kong Heng
Ipoh, Malaysia
By landscape architect Ng Sek San, Sekeping Kong Heng is a minimalist, almost guerrilla-style extension behind a three-storey former hostel which housed theatre performers in the 1950s. The ground floor space is still occupied by one of the more famous kopitiams in the old town, Kong Heng - hence its name.
As conservation is just as much about people and the environment as it is about buildings, many of the original tenants stayed on. So, besides the classic hawker fare of Ipoh, there are eateries by plan B and a string of cafés along the same row - Burps & Giggles, Missing Marbles, Buku Tiga Lima, Roquette Café and Patisserie Boutique and Café. Mr Ng and his partners have also bought and done up "The Old Block" next to Sekeping Kong Heng. There, a second generation news vendor has moved into the ground floor while the second floor houses a museum dedicated to Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad.
Project Kaktao46
Kuala Sepetang, Malaysia
Kuala Sepetang - a fishing village 18km from Taiping in Perak - came to the attention of architecture professor Teoh Chee Keong in 2009, when he organised field trips for landscape architecture students from Chung Yuan Christian University, his alma mater in Taiwan. "The students would be in Malaysia for two months, to do their internships in architecture or other fields," says Mr Teoh. "I took them to Kuala Sepetang because the villagers still work at traditional trades - fishing, charcoal production and boat building."
"We decided to do something that will give back to the community," he explains, adding that he also knew the political representative of the area who was keen to help. A double-storey timber house became available as its owner had moved to Taiping six years earlier. Mr Teoh, his colleagues from Taiwan and also USCI University in Kuala Lumpur, where he lectures, set out to build an "environmental classroom". He says, "It's a composite space - essentially a community space where the children can gather every day, play or read there, and there can be community events and lodging for volunteers who come to Kuala Sepetang."
Volunteers took three weeks to transform the space within the 50-year-old house, and Kaktao46 (Hokkien for corner, 46 for the lot number) was completed in August 2015. "The owner was very supportive and had even come to help us build it. And it was his idea to open up the roof space so that people could go up for the view." There were no actual plans or drawings as the architecture students and lecturers just went with the flow. "A villager came by with materials that he no longer wanted, and we just used whatever we could find or were given."
In the spirit of how things are done in the fishing village, they used a mix of metals and salvaged material. And they built onsite rather than follow a drawing. "In architecture school, we have drawings and models and simulations. But these plans are all junked at the end of the term and never exposed to real communities. This time, our approach is different," says Mr Teoh. "We wanted to relate back to the village and tried to make this project as "real" as possible." Since 2016, Kaktao46 has seen a flow of volunteers to Kuala Sepetang - teaching English, giving balloon workshops and storytelling sessions and so on, all under one community-designed roof.
Article by Cheah Ui-Hoon, originally appeared in The Business Times.