KL system flats near rapid completion
FROM most aspects Kuala Lumpur Municipality's pilot venture into build- ing low cost housing by industrialised methods can be counted as a success. Construction, or site assembly work, will be completed this month and the last of the 3,009 home units will be handed over on schedule in March only 20 months after superstructure work began.
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Primarily the scheme has proved that high quality construction can be achieved at high speed and at a reason- able price in a region where, though. labour is cheap, traditional building skills are at a premium.
It has shown that prefabricated construction ensures quality control, that men from the Kampong and de- void of any skills will quickly adapt to work on factory production lines, that from a single factory such labour can produce 800 homes in four months from local materials, and that indus- trialised building can be a valuable aid in reducing the region's urgent housing shortage and squatter problems.
The only doubt that has been ex- pressed locally has been on the ques- tion of costs. Rents on the estate have been fixed at M$47 a month for a two-room flat and M$67 a month for a three-room flat. These rents are based on actual costs and are a good deal higher than other low-cost flats in the
area.
However the reason for this increase falls entirely on the cost of land which was originally estimated at M$3 mil- lion but was eventually priced at M$ 7 million. Construction of the pre- fabricated homes is being carried out at a reasonable M$8.5 per square foot and, since mass-production techniques are involved this cost could be expect ed to decrease on any future large- scale projects.
From the contractors point of view the project can be termed satisfactory. Following the sorry outcome of the Singapore pilot scheme for industrial- ised building carried out by a French consortium, where only five of ten projected blocks were completed, the
S.P. CHOW, BA, BArch (Hons), FRIBA GAMMON-LARSEN & NIELSEN
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municipal architect contractors
Four-storey blocks complete - 17-storey block (A) under construction Kuala Lumpur project has convincingly demonstrated that system building is worthwhile in S.E. Asia.
Danish/Malaysian consortium
quickly converted to the production of precast units for terrace housing in the villages around the capital.
While no immediate further orders have been given to the Kuala Lum pur factory, the contractors are op- timistic and now that the factory exists it can take on orders for further multi-storey dwellings or be
Malaysia's first entry into the field. of industrialised building was initiated in 1965 when the Kuala Lumpur Municipal Architect, Mr. S. P. Chow made a study of factory production and housing estates in several European centres.
Mr. Chow later drew up an out-
Far East BUILDER, January 1969.
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