Development of outdoor neighbourhood framework incorporating Islamic values for social community interaction

• Main Author: Rozhan, Arinah
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Neighbourhood planning - Malaysia; Social interaction; Islamic architecture
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/89979/1/FRSB%202019%2017%20ir.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/89979/
• Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia

Malaysia is always dwelled within the effort towards building a stronger and united community. This is also emphasized by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad when he introduced Vision 2020 and among the challenges in the vision is to develop a caring, moral and ethical society. However, there is a significant drop for Malaysia in the World’s Happiness Index ranking. The report on index of happiness include the level of generosity among the community that are able to interact and corporate with each other. In relation to this matter, neighbourhood environment provides the social landscape that indirectly influences human interaction and develops sense of community. In order to ensure the right approach for development of social interaction, deciding on a set of values to be integrated in a neighbourhood design is a necessity and it can be comprehensively referred from Islam as the religion always emphasizes on the concept of ummah (brotherhood and unity) as well as the rights of neighbours not only with the muslims but non-muslims as well. There is yet a study that incorporates the elements of Islamic values with the outdoor neigbourhood design as a framework to provide opportunity for community social interaction. Qualitative research method is applied and the research involves several processes in proposing the final framework which includes; expert semi-structure interview to validate and refine the components from the preliminary framework; and Case study in Putrajaya which includes interview with Community Representatives and Field Observation to refine the final proposed framework. Data from the expert and case study semi-structure interview were analysed with the aid of ATLAS.ti software, and the data from field observation is analysed manually. The findings show that main component in the proposed framework is mainly related to the value of khalifah which includes identification of spaces and facilities that provides active and passive type of interaction for development of Ummah, implementation of neighbourhood design and layout, which is guided by principles of Amal Ma’ruf & Nahi Munkar which includes values of taharah, mizan, amanah and ihsan. The final proposed framework highlighted the design components that reflect these Islamic values and are validated by the experts as well. This framework contributes in providing the physical details which entails the values of Islam as guidelines towards the implementation of the neighbourhood design that provide interaction opportunity among the community.