Kampung Belemang is one of the less noticeable rural areas in Johor, located alongside Muar River. The exodus of the youngsters has caused the declination of population of the village to 600 (estimate 70 families). This issue does not just affect this village, but most villages along Muar rivers.

Kampung Belemang as well as most riverside village has suffered from inappropriate disposal of garbage that leads to pollutions. Besides, like most marginalize village, the lack of public places has led to disconnection of villagers. Starting from the year 2019, some villagers of Kampung Belemang has decided to re-organise themselves to draw focus on environmental sustainability and community well-being to transform into a new ‘sustainable village’, with this they missionize to be an example and 

reference for the other neighbourhood villages that facing the same problems. Village leader with the joint effort of some villagers has led to few new projects, andthey hope to exploring more possibilities in terms of creating awareness to public on village’s social and environmental issues. Last but not least with the hope village’s youths to return to help the village with the knowledge they’ve gained through education abroad.

From understanding the situation, we hope to contribute our knowledge in architecture (the understanding of relation of people and place) to ease some of the social, environmental and community work. To instil the importance of a community public space, we hope to innovate a participatory and sustainable play-scape that could be fun for the children, that could then lead to gathering of families. These play-scape shall be able to self-built, self-sustain (self-generated energy) hence it’s mobile in nature, and we will be assembling the piece with villagers in order to create gathering places from different sites of the village.

VISION

To innovate a participatory, sustainable & mobile playscapes systems that inform gathering places to unites the community and instill the ideas of sustainability through recycling and conserving energy with current technology.

MISSION

1. To Design sustainable public spaces to instill unity.
2. To Innovate and combine students’ intellectual and knowledge with local communities.
3. To haveparticipatory prototype buildwith villagers, in order to be able to replicate and improve among communities.
4. To influence the other communities into making sustainable public spaces.

Playscape Workshop

In order to form a successful public place for community to gather, and what we say ‘it takes a whole village to raise a kid’, we start exploring with gathering children.

Playground is one more the significant infrastructure that not only help the development of children, also engage themselves in the surrounding environment and local community with fun context. The fun of the playground also improves the bonding among the villagers and families.

PHASE 1: DESIGN RESEARCH

The project started with design research phase by studying the relation of villagers and Kampung Belemang which gives us sense of cultural insight. Village engagement, case studies will be carried out by committee teams to gather information, voices and opinions of villagers regarding the creation playground. The studies will propose several playground innovations for the next phase of the project.

PHASE 2: INNOVATION

More students from different knowledge backgrounds are invited to form a creative team that will explore the innovation of playground design with prototyping, sourcing and experiments.

PHASE 3: PARTICIPATORY

Villagers and students will build the prototype at Kampung Belemang together. It will be carried out as a workshop that participants are able to learn the construction and improve the prototype.

PHASE 4: EXHIBITION

Public exhibition will be held to motivate progress and share the ideas of playscape system with other communities.

1. Foster relationship among local communities.

The playground with unique and innovative design can be a focal point, attracting villagers to gather around, inspiring more community events to be held. It brings people together and creates a sense of belonging.

2. Influence the neighborhoods villagers

There are other neighborhood villagers along the Muar River that are facing the same issues as Kampung Belemang. The starting point of this project at Kampung Belemang aims to influence the other villagers.

3. Sustainable and replicable play scape designs

Participatory, sustainable and mobility systems are the main objectives of the playscape design. The prototype focuses on ease of construction which villagers without knowledge in construction can easily learn and maintain. In the long run, more villages will be encouraged to participate the project by replicating and improving the design at their respective communities.

4. Enhance inter-professional collaboration, communication and team building among students

Joint effort among students from various educational background is the key element to achieve the objectives of the project. Innovation design in this context, for example, require students who have the knowledge in architectural revitalization to study the people and place; construction, to assist the making of prototype and safety measurement; infrastructure technology, to enhance the sustainability of the design. The collaboration promotes effective learning environment among the students.