LANGIT – LONG HOUSE AS COMMUNITY HEART

BUILDING COMMMUNITY THROUGH COMMUNITY

 

A one stop community-cum-residential mixed use development, Langit : A Long House In The Sky is a flagship project that brings together a whole fleet of programmes under one roof. Developing a strategy to engage with the community became the focal point of the project, the scheme’s main innovation point anchors upon the traditional concept of a Sarawak Long House. Long House living is all about community. Architecturally speaking, the Long House is a wooden structure built on stilts with one side being sectioned off into a row of family rooms while the other being used as communal space. A Long House is basically a covered communal area where social activities are being performed together and meals are to be shared with each other.

Langit looks into the traditional qualities of a Long House and saw this as an opportunity to activate the site as a new community hub for the people. The proposal relies heavily on creating a vibrant community space that will allow social activities to be carried into the site. The ground floor is comprises of two main zones – Retail and Public (semi commercial). The ground plate is raised 1.2m from the Road level to make room for the sub-basement car park below. The raised ground floor reinforces the idea where traditional Long House is built on stilts to prevent unwanted intrusion from wildlife, flood and providing parking spaces for their residents’ vehicles. This scheme allows Langit to design a feature staircase that will serve as a cascading seating area to greet visitors into the sheltered community spaces of the ground floor.

The ground floor features People’s Plaza that will act as an urban living room that the extended community family comes home to. It also act as an activity space and a gathering point for the visitors. The hawker centre (within the Retail Zone) is located next to the People’s Plaza. Deriving from a similar concept to the urban living room, the hawker centre is designed as a communal dining space for all guests alike. Langit acknowledges the importance of food culture in Sarawak and its ability to bring people of multi-cultural backgrounds together. With a relaxed and casual ambience built for slowly savoured meal and extended conversations. The hawker centre, a familiar dining scene that has been ingrained into every Malaysian lifestyle will be the driving force to celebrate Sarawak delectable local cuisine in Langit.

To ensure that the communal programmes did not stop within the People’s Plaza, a series of floor plates are duplicated and stacked above the Plaza to bring visitors into a more intimate and semi-private community gathering space above. At the upper floors, Langit will introduce Cabin Pods, a commercial venue inspired by the traditional shape of a Sarawak Long House to host different commercial programmes such as Co-working space, Bookstore, Library and Cafes. Scattered throughout the open floor plan to maintain the porosity of the Public Zone, the Cabin Pods will act as a social veranda that overlooks the activity in Jalan Tabuan.

With most of the communal activities located within the Podium levels. The Tower became a private retreat for the residents. Yet, the communal spirit of Long House will continue to be the driving inspiration in the project’s housing design.  A series of private and shared space are devised in the form of Sky Gardens for Langit residents. These outdoor Sky Gardens are designed as an external social space in the sky, decked with seating benches and planter ledges under a shady tree. Residents will be encouraged by the sheer lushness of the Sky Garden, to take shelter and enjoy the unobstructed view of the city of Kuching.

Langit: A long House in the Sky is designed with long term vision to create new commercial venues that are socially inclusive not just for the residents but for the neighbouring communities as well. Through its sheltered decks, sky gardens and large activity area (People’s Plaza), the building will strive to be the “Long House” for the community.