On Azy's invite, we spent part of Saturday afternoon drawing Chinese shop houses along Padungan Road; one of the older streets al Kuching. It is a precinct of the 'shop-house' - a double storey combination of the 'shop' on the ground floor with the 'house' on the upper floor. All the shop fronts are linked by '5-foot-way' or a street corridor, ideal for keeping up the tropical sun and shelter from afternoon rain-storms. This is a common feature on colonial South East Asia.
More interestingly, (as Victor pointed out) are the near extinct concrete spiral stairs at the rear of the shops - they serve as fire escapes, the spiral configuration is presumably to save space. Adopted at a time when the Fire Department accepted them. This particular one leads to an illegal roof top extension - from the looks of it, it is someone's roof top nursery or kitchen garden as some of the kitchens are on the top floor.
On Azy's invite, we spent part of Saturday afternoon drawing Chinese shop houses along Padungan Road; one of the older streets al Kuching. It is a precinct of the 'shop-house' - a double storey combination of the 'shop' on the ground floor with the 'house' on the upper floor. All the shop fronts are linked by '5-foot-way' or a street corridor, ideal for keeping up the tropical sun and shelter from afternoon rain-storms. This is a common feature on colonial South East Asia.
More interestingly, (as Victor pointed out) are the near extinct concrete spiral stairs at the rear of the shops - they serve as fire escapes, the spiral configuration is presumably to save space. Adopted at a time when the Fire Department accepted them. This particular one leads to an illegal roof top extension - from the looks of it, it is someone's roof top nursery or kitchen garden as some of the kitchens are on the top floor.
These sketches are so nice! I love sketching shophouses too=)
ReplyDeletesui!
ReplyDeletegorgeous! ;)
ReplyDeletenice!
ReplyDeletethanks guys! just came back from a meeting and saw that there are 4 comments! these sketches are special for me because they were all done on site without touching up later.
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