Where the Five-Foot Way Ends: The Making of Malaysia’s Everywhere Cities

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A CITY STILL FUNCTIONS, BUT NO LONGER FEELS LIKE HOME?
Malaysia’s cities are growing faster, higher and farther. Yet many are becoming harder to walk, easier to forget and increasingly difficult to tell apart. Where the Five-Foot Way Ends asks how this happened. Through the kaki lima, serambi, padang, pasar, waterfront and everyday street, it explores how identity emerges from the relationships between buildings, climate, culture and daily life. This is neither a rejection of progress nor a retreat into nostalgia. It is a call to build cities that are coherent, humane and unmistakably Malaysian. Once you learn to read a city this way, you may never see your own streets quite the same again.

“Though well-established in private developments and shopping malls, urban design as the art of shaping public spaces to breathe identity and connection into everyday civic life has remained frustratingly elusive. Through a sharp and distinctly local perspective, Shuhana Shamsuddin paves the way towards an enlightened vision of urban planning – equipping authorities, designers, and aware citizens with the insights needed to cultivate genuinely liveable Malaysian cities.”
Khoo Salma, former president, Penang Heritage Trust –

I like to think that the kaki-lima has its antecedent in Melaka; there are sufficient anecdotes to that effect. Dr Shuhana’s treatise on the ideal Malaysian urban space depends on the coming together of many features in the traditional Malaysian pekan/bandar and the most important component, in my view, is the Five-foot way. This simple device allows an intermediate space navigating between indoors and outdoor domain and facilitate communication, commute, and communal life.
Having known her since our college days, I am sure she will be thorough in her research, and analysis and more importantly, exhaustive in her conclusions. And I hope the future of the Malaysian urban landscape will in future be a case of “Where the Five-Foot Ways Meets”
Ar. Tiong Kian Boon, UNESCO/ICOMOS Expert Panel-

FOREWORDS BY
MAIMUNAH MOHD SHARIF
KEN YEANG, AND TIM HEATH

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
Noor Aiman Samsudin, Rahmat Bayudi, Kamal Ariffin Zaharin, Nurul Syala Abdul Latip, Nurul Shakila Khalid, Mohd Ramzi Mohd Hussain, Choo Heng Huat, Nurulhusna Qamaruz Zaman, Norhafizah Abdul Rahman, Izham Ghani, Ati Rosemary Mohd Ariffin, Esmawee Endut, Noor Syarafina Sallehudin, Suhaila Abdul Rashid, Zalina Samadi, Noor Shazea Ahmad Nordin, Nur Rasyiqah Abu Hassan, Maheran Hamzah