A Critical Review of User Fit-out in Habitable Rooms in High-Rise Residential Apartments in Malaysia

Nowadays, high-rise residential apartments (HRRA) are developing very fast in major urban areas in Malaysia. However, the layouts of these apartment units seem to be too typical and lacking certain contextual socio-environmental considerations. A residential unit accommodates more than just rooms. There are distinct spaces with various Use-Territories (UTs) inside every room created by furniture layout. During the design stage, usually less importance is given to UTs. In search of their impact, the objectives of this study were firstly to identify the most popular furniture with their approximate dimensions, secondly to find their location in terms of distance from window, and thirdly, to identify typologies of furniture layouts in terms of UTs. Based on a questionnaire survey distributed among 98 HRRA residents in the city of Johor Bahru, the conceptual furnished plans of studied rooms were drawn. That was followed by a qualitative categorization carried out to extract the typologies of mostly-used UTs. Four typologies for living room and six of that for bedroom were identified through comparative analysis. The study showed that the social behavior of occupants in terms of arranging UT may be against their indoor environmental condition of daylighting. The significance of the study lies in the fact that in a tropical country like Malaysia with abundance of daylight but associated with glare, thermal heat gain, and low air movement, social needs can bend the users’ decisions to arrange pre-conceived convention of UTs in habitable rooms. Therefore, designing layouts or orienting habitable rooms should need more investigation.