To House-owners, Style Does Matter

This study attempts to discover the alteration trends of house renovations focusing on the frontal area of terrace houses. A housing neighbourhood in Section 7 Shah Alam, Malaysia was chosen as the site for the investigation. A total of 30 renovated houses were identified and they were visually observed and analysed. Using a digital camera, the houses were photographed from approximately similar viewing angle and sorting out process was carried out for analysis at the studio. The data show that the altered houses can be classified into four established architectural styles namely; traditional, modern, post-modern and “others”. The findings suggest that there is no one particular style of facade that was significantly more popular among these styles. However, it appears that there is a growing interest towards a style which can be described as modernist. Among other things that can be learnt from this study is that people are quite able to express their stylistic preferences even under the constraints of the typically narrow-frontaged terrace houses.