House Renovations and Extensions in Malaysia: An Investigation of Mechanical Changes and Modification of House in Klang Valey, Malaysia

Abstract

House, is a valuable asset in human’s life and is one critical and important setting in developing lives of human being. Therefore, as time goes by, people develop and wanting to improve the state and quality of their house so that they can live their lives towards better meaning parallel to their up growth. But, easy said than done, renovation is some work that needs thinking about. In fact, most of houses which are dwelled by modern Malay people in Malaysia nowadays did not evolve in synchronize to the Malay people’s needs. We could see lots of houses being renovated or extended by owners after the houses get dwelled in especially of those terrace housing in Malaysia. The renovations scenario upon these terrace houses is indeed one of the serious housing issues and problems in Malaysia. This writing thus will focus its investigation towards the phenomena of renovations upon selected double-storey terrace housing within Klang Valley, Malaysia. Investigations will be carried out by questionnaires, statistic analysis of findings from site visits, and interviews with the owners of the houses. Among those things that will be investigated are about the type of renovations that have been done and the factors which influence the act of renovating. Results show that the type of renovations varies, be it on a major or minor scale. Those renovations of houses involving numerous parts or sections of houses such as the kitchen, rooms, bathrooms, and so forth and were done because of many different factors or reasons.