Light please!
12/11/2006 Sunday Star By KL Quah, Kuala Lumpur

I REAd with great interest Andrew Sia’s interview with Prof Dr M. Tajuddin entitled We don’t have to live like this (People, StarMag, Nov 5).

I am not an architect but have often wondered why the designs of our terrace houses and apartments are so devoid of sunlight. Some of the rooms and kitchens have windows that open out to another part of the house, such as the wash area or the kitchen itself, resulting in no direct sunlight entering them at all, year in, year out.

Even those that face an air-shaft are not much better since very often, these shafts are narrow. The darkness and the need to switch on the lights during day-time are most depressing, what more if the room is used by a person with limited mobility or is bedridden. It would be difficult to maintain sound mental health in such gloomy rooms.

I whole-heartedly agree that there should be no back lanes. Instead, all lanes should be roads. I especially like the part where Dr Tajuddin said that terrace houses could be redesigned as clusters so that every unit was a corner lot.

This can be applied to apartments or flats too, thereby allowing more sunlight into them, brightening up everyone’s life.

Hopefully, there are some conscientious politicians who will take up this conscientious architect’s suggestions and make it a standard to follow.