AFFORDABLE HONEYCOMB HOUSING

PIONEERING A NEW HOUSING

CONCEPT FOR AFFORDABLE
HOMES IN SARAWAK

SARAWAK DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE SEMINAR 18-19 JULY 2005

AFFORDABLE HONEYCOMB HOUSING
Mazlin Ghazali admin@tessellar.com

Introduction

In “Honeycomb Housing”, instead of rows of terrace

houses, we are proposing that every house is in a cul-de-
sac with a garden in the middle (1), where giant shady
trees will be planted. The courtyard in the middle of the
houses is not just a street for transit: it is a place safe
enough from speeding cars and criminals, for even pre-
schoolers to play on.

Of course houses in cul-de-sacs (2) are very much sought

after in countries like the US and Australia. But what we
propose is suitable not only for high-cost houses but can
even be applied to find alternatives to the existing “low-
cost housing” solutions.

Figure 2 Figure 1
Instead of detached single family homes around
the cul-de-sac, we can divide the buildings into
two or three houses such that each home faces
a different cul-de-sac (3). We can also slice up
the buildings into four or six so that a pair of
houses faces each cul-de-sac. As we partition
each building into more units, we are reducing
the size of each unit, increasing the number
density of the development, but take note that
we are not reducing the quality of the external
environment found in the cul-de-sac.
Our aim is to recreate the best elements of
kampong and small-town life: where children can
play outside our homes with friends without fear
from crime and traffic, in a community where people
know and talk to each other. We are trying to create
a more suitable environment for the “kampong boy
of the future” – something better than our existing
terrace houses. And honeycomb housing can
deliver all the benefits of the cul-de-sac housing
environment, but with the cost advantages of the
densely packed terrace housing.
Figure 3
Low Cost Housing
Existing housing for the low and middle income
group in Malaysia suffers from various defects.
Studies done by UPM at a housing estate with
single storey houses has shown that three major
complains from the consumers are that the houses
are too hot, kitchens are too small and roof leaks.
Safety is another problem. A national survey
undertaken by IKMAS and NST last year showed
that the main concern of Malaysian citizens is crime
(4). Another aspect is the safety against traffic: the
straight roads found in terrace housing are too
hazardous for small children (5).

Figure 5 Figure 4
Not only is the inside of the house hot, but the external
environment too is getting hotter and hotter. Records
show that Kuala Lumpur has grown hotter by 0.6o Problem: ‘Heat Island Effect’
centigrade per decade, faster than other cities in the Many cities are getting hotter
world due to the hot island effect (6,7). This in by 0.10C to 0.60C per decade
undoubtedly due to the transformation of the natural
Baltimore USA 0.10C per decade
environment to become a concrete jungle. Despite the
Shanghai China 0.1
attempts at tree planting and landscaping, the typical
Oakland USA 0.2
suburban housing estate is an ecological desert, where Tokyo Japan 0.3
crows and mosquitoes seem to be the only wildlife that Los Angeles USA 0.4
thrive. Kuala Lumpur 0.6
Conclusion: KL holds the world record !

Figure 7

Figure 6
EXISTING LOW COST APPROACH
NEEDS REVIEW
So not only is the straight line terrace houses aesthetically
boring (8), they don’t function very well, they become social
and environmental slums.
Developers subsidize low-cost housing, yet many go
unsold. An anonymous developer laments “the Government
is forcing us to build low-cost house which people don’t
want to buy”. The government also builds low-cost housing
and sells them at a loss, but these houses are unloved.
Squatter kampongs usually fly proudly the BN or UMNO
flags before resettlement. Where are they on the new flats?
Figure 8
The auction notices in the daily papers illustrate another
problem: many low-cost houses don’t seem to appreciate in
value. For example, the reserve prices of three properties
shown in the New Straits Times (4th August 2005) were
RM 26,000, RM 35,000 and RM 42,000. The servicing of
interest on assets that do not appreciate in value is not a
privilege: it is a financial burden.
Housing policy involves many facets; the physical planning
of the homes is only one of the factors that contribute
towards a good policy. However, it is a key issue; certainly
bad design creates bad housing.
Figure 8
ALTERNATIVES TO CONVENTIONAL
PLANNING
Developers, planners and architects have come up
with several alternatives to the drawbacks of linear
planning. In trying to improve the monotony of
housing in rows, planners have devised various
strategies:

Strata-title development
Groups of houses share ownership of the
communal facilities allowing greater freedom in
designing the access route and common facilities
allowing high densities. The Desa Park Homes
development (9)is an example of this type of Figure 9
approach. It is able to achieve densities as good
conventional terrace house layouts. However,
strata- titles are considered not as valuable as land
titles.

Organic Layouts
Following the trend from more developed countries,
local planners have devised ‘organic’ layouts where
winding roads and occasional cul-de-sacs break the
boredom of the rectilinear grid, but density is
sacrificed. A Guthrie development at Bukit Jelutong
(10)is an example of this trend. However, the
houses there cost RM500,000 or more.

Figure 10
Clustered Layouts
Similarly, the cluster approach can produce interesting
outcomes but, in most cases, loses out on efficiency. The
circular clustering of houses at Brondby near Copenhagen
in Denmark (11) shows a wide expanse of green area
between the clusters.
What most of these efforts require is additional resources.
More land, more infrastructure, more money and you will
have a better environment. The honeycomb concept can
help improve the design of housing but without necessarily
having to spend more.

New Urbanism
From America comes a new trend against suburban sprawl.
The Neo-Traditional Development (12) seeks to rediscover
the vitality found in small towns by re-introducing the
rectilinear grid, often overlaid with diagonal streets to link
focal points.

Figure 11 Figure 12
TESSELLATION PLANNING
In mathematics, to tessellate means to cover a plane with
a pattern without having any gap or overlap. For centuries
artists and craftsmen have used tessellation as a tool to
create visual effects on surfaces. Tiling is the most
common form of tessellation, and in its simplest form the
tiles are regular polygons. The Muslim craftsmen in Spain
in the 15th century created beautifully complex visual
effects by tessellating a small basic tile pattern. Intricate
and complex designs can be built up from basic tile
patterns in a simple way by this process.
Looking at the example shown (13), we may think it a difficult
task to lay the multiple shapes of tiles. The nine pointed star,
the four pointed, the spear head, the leaf like, etc. But in fact
the seemingly complex pattern is built up simply by tiling a
single basic square pattern. In tessellation planning this
creative power is applied to town planning, where the colours
are not merely decorative but represent functional space.
Figure 13
 Figure 14

We start with a simple hexagonal tile is designed to Figure 15

comprise houses, the plots of land they sit on, an
access road and a communal green area. A small
number of houses, 16 in this case (14), are arranged
around a small park in a looping cul-de-sac, like friends
sitting around a table. The neighbourhood is bounded by
a hexagonal perimeter at the back of the houses. There
is only one entrance road. These factors help create a
sense of belonging to a place and to the group of people
that reside in the place.

This tile is tessellated, by translating and rotating this

basic pattern, to form a courtyard community in the
shape of a hexagon. This hexagon can be tessellated to
form a cul-de-sac community of 42 homes (15), and
further tessellated to form a block community consisting
of over 300 homes bounded by a distribution road (16).
From these elements a layout for a township on any Figure 16
given shape of land can be produced.
 In the example shown, the 150 acre site is tiled with the hexagonal blocks (17).
Then the tiles are trimmed at the edges. A road hierarchy is created by
introducing a main linear road that traverses the whole site, secondary
connecting or looping roads that all branch from the main road. All houses are
in cul-de-sacs or clusters that are accessed from the main or secondary roads,
making the plan easy to understand and navigate

Figure 17
CREATING COMMUNITIES Figure 18

Tessellation planning is used to create Honeycomb

Housing, which is a new, dense urban form that is able
to capture the best social and environmental features of
traditional rural communities.
Using the tessellation concept, a neighbourhood more
functional, complex and interesting than rows of houses
is achieved while, at the same time, land-use efficiency
is improved.

Shared streets
In honeycomb housing the network of roads comprises
looping cul-de-sacs and short connecting roads leading
to distributor roads (18). This pattern slows down traffic
naturally, rendering it safe for pedestrians and children
playing, giving the cul-de-sac the air and feeling of a
“shared street” (19). The short connecting roads with no
access to houses provides space for visitors’ parking.

Defensible space Figure 19

The honeycomb layout produces a hierarchy of private
space, semi-private space and public space, where
residents are able to exercise influence over the
environment just outside their homes: visitors know
when they are entering a semi-private domain. The
environmental design assists in providing natural
surveillance of the external spaces; every house lies in a
cul-de-sac, which naturally produces defensible spaces
(20). Furthermore, back-lanes from where 30% of break-
Figure 20
ins in Malaysia originate, are completely eliminated.
Communal space for all
The spaces outside the home (21) are made conducive to
the growing-up process by making them safe for smaller
children, with ample play amenities. Football fields several
minutes away from the home do not serve the needs of pre-
schoolers or young primary school children, who need closer
supervision.
The communal garden in front of every home is also
accessible to the less mobile people in society: the elderly
and disabled. It is this socially friendly and safe environment
that existed in the kampongs (22) that is now so much
lacking in our modern urban areas.
Figure 22

Figure 21
IN HARMONY WITH NATURE
Contour housing
Building long rows of terrace houses cheaply requires hills to
be cut and streams to be filled. Honeycomb housing units
have compact footprints that allow more level changes to be
placed between the blocks (23). In this respect their shape is
very much like big detached houses, and it is evident from
existing townships that the typical developer flattens large
expanses of land for his terrace houses, but lets the
bungalows go up and down to better suit the original
contours.

Mitigating the heat island effect Figure 23

The road shoulder along terrace houses with its underground
cables and pipes is not suitable for trees: but big shady
species can thrive in the small communal gardens of
honeycomb housing. The clearing of trees to create concrete
jungles is the main contribution to the heat-island effect. The
canopy of big trees, far larger than the actual size of the
honeycomb parks shades the roads and hard landscape (24).
Evaporation from leaves will further cool the external
environment.

Biodiversity
The islands of big trees together with smaller trees and
shrubs around the homes can become microhabitats for small
animals, birds and insects. Suitable species of introduced
butterflies, birds and small mammals will gradually adopt
these as their natural home and thus increase biological
diversity. Figure 24
 A NEW GENERATION OF HOME
DESIGNS
Tessellation Planning, without incurring any cost penalty,
allows new townships to break free from the mental grid-
lock that produces rigid rows of housing. To most
architects, designing yet another terrace house is a
boring chore. Honeycomb housing represents a new and
refreshing challenge for architects. It leads to new
generic house-types. These new forms give architects
more room for creativity.

Wide frontage detached homes

The honeycomb detached house comes with wider, more
articulated frontages, compared to the bungalows in rows
(26-28).
Figure 26

Figure 27 CONVENTIONAL Figure 28 DETACHED

DETACHED HOUSE HONEYCOMB
Detached frontages
Linked units like the duplex and triplex give the
impression of being detached units when viewed from
the entrance of each house (29-31).

DUPLEX
Figure 30
DUPLEX

TRIPLEX

1
2

Figure 29 Figure 31 TRIPLEX

Semi-detached frontages
The quadruplex and sextuplex units give the
impression of being semi-detached units (32-34).
These two building types are the honeycomb
alternatives to the low and low-medium terrace
house. In the equivalent honeycomb layout, every
SEXTUPLEX
house is a corner unit, with a front yard and side
garden.
Figure 32

1 3
QUADRUPLEX 2 4

Figure 33

QUADRUPLEX Figure 34
SEXTUPLEX
USING LAND MORE EFFICIENTLY
A honeycomb neighbourhood comprising 5 units of
quadruplexes and duplexes is compared with a terrace
house arrangement of an equivalent 5 units. We then
compared a honeycomb neighbourhood comprising 16
units of quadruplexes and duplexes against a terrace
house arrangement of an equivalent 16 units (35). It is
demonstrated in the table below (36) that the honeycomb
layout is more land-use efficient.
It is more efficient because the total area of roads have been
reduced: in the 5 unit comparison the area of road reserve is
reduced from 41% 0f the total area to only 26%; consequently,
because the green area is maintained at 7%, the saleable
house land is increased from 52% to 67%. In the 16 unit case,
the road area of the honeycomb layout is 23% compared to
35% for the terrace layout; the house land is 70%, up from
58%

Table 36 Figure 35

5 UNIT
HONEYCOMB HOUSE TERRACE HOUSE
(SM) (%) (SM) (%)
ROAD 334 26 611 41
GREEN 93 7 103 7
HOUSE 861 67 761 52
TOTAL 1288 100 1475 100

16 UNIT
HONEYCOMB HOUSE TERRACE HOUSE
(SM) (%) (SM) (%)
ROAD 879 23 1323 35
GREEN 264 7 269 7
HOUSE 2721 70 2190 58
TOTAL 3864 100 3782 100
We next looked at comparing two theoretical sites. An efficient
layout of terrace houses on an island site is compared with an
equivalent honeycomb alternative. Here again, the honeycomb
alternative produces less roads and more residential land (37-
39). In this example, the public green area and density (units
per acre) are kept the same; consequently, the average lot
sizes are 30% larger.
.

Figure 37 TERRACE HOUSING

Table 39

Terrace
Road 47% 33%
Saleable land 44% 58%
Green area 9% 9%
Number of units 15 units 15 units
per acre
Average lot size 1261 sf 1658 sf
30% larger! Figure 38 HONEYCOMB HOUSING
We have done several comparative studies to illustrate
how honeycomb layouts are more efficient than
conventional rectilinear grid layouts. We have done
several comparative studies to illustrate how
honeycomb layouts are more efficient than conventional
rectilinear grid layouts. The study of alternative layouts
at Demak Laut, Kuching (40-41) is one example.

Figure 41 TERRACE HOUSING

In this example, there are equivalent number of
units. The green areas and provisions for amenities
are about the same. The terrace alternative yields
only about 40% sellable residential land. This yield is
quite common for any landed property development.
However, the honeycomb layout can yield about
43% saleable land. The reason for this can be seen
in the reduction in road reserve – from 418% to 35%
Figure 40 HONEYCOMB HOUSING
(42).
COMPARISON BETWEEN TERRACE HOUSING AND TESSELLATION

Table 42
 It is possible to build a mathematical model where
distances and areas of a sextuplex honeycomb
layout and an equivalent terrace layout are
expressed in terms of variables x, y, and so on.
Using Pythagoras Theorem and the Solution to
Quadratic Equations, a spreadsheet model of the
two alternatives is built up. We are interested in
land-use efficiency, which is the ratio of sellable
land to total land, and in density which is the
number of units per acre. Both these output
variables are made to relate to buildable footprint,
which is the net land area in a house lot that can be
built, taking into account the building setback
requirements. This mathematical model shows that,
within the range of practical limits, the sextuplex
honeycomb form of housing is more land-use
efficient and can provide more units per acre than Figure 43 HONEYCOMB HOUSING
the terrace (43-46).
Figure 44 TERRACE HOUSING

Graph 45 Graph 46
APARTMENTS
Tessellation planning can also be applied to the design of apartments.
For an alternative to the 5-storey walk-up flats, instead of long parallel
slabs of block apartments, we have compact point blocks arranged in a
hexagonal cluster so that a communal courtyard is created in the centre
of the blocks. In addition, on every floor, the units are not strung out
along a corridor, but instead, circle around a lobby area. The long
narrow corridor is suitable only as a circulation space, but a hexagonal
lobby having the same area can be a communal area. In the design
shown(47), there is a small playground equipment placed in the centre; it
could be an indoor garden or fountain instead. The apartments are
designed to have windows facing the lobby, subjecting it to natural
surveillance, and thus avoiding the public security problem of “blind”
corridors which attract vandalism.

Figure 47

Figure 48 Figure 49
The design of the apartment in a hexagonal block need not be
problematic. Though it is more difficult to handle for those who
are so used to the rectilinear grid, it can produce efficient yet
pleasant results. The example shows a 850 square feet
apartment. There is a main entrance into the dining and living
room. There is also a second entrance through the drying
yard, into the spacious kitchen. All the service areas, kitchen,
bathrooms and drying yard are grouped together for easy
plumbing; the 3 bedrooms are accessed from a semi-private
family area. The dining and living open out into a balcony with
wide sliding doors.

Figure 51

Figure 52

TYPICAL FLOOR PLAN LAYOUT – 850 Sqft

Figure 50 Figure 53
 WEALTH-CREATING HOMES
Almost everyone aspires to own a home, and for Who wants to live in a slum?
those that do, it is probably their biggest asset. The
three factors that most affect the resale value of a
home is location, location and location. Homes that are comfortable, in a place a safe,
friendly neighbourhood, seen as a private and
It is not so much the bricks and mortar, or even the exclusive location, set in mature and lush landscape
granite tiles or the architectural style of the house will attract higher prices (54). Owners of honeycomb
that make up the bulk of the value of a house, but homes living in harmony, maintaining and improving
rather the quality of the physical and social the spaces outside their homes, creating a sense of
environment of the location. Location is more than
just a simple geographical matter: Look at Bangsar place and belonging will not only enjoy living in a
Baru Flats, low cost high rise just next to the good neighbourhood, but will benefit from the
fashionable Bangsar commercial area in Kuala financial appreciation of their valuable asset.
Lumpur, where the value of the properties are
depressed.
Figure 54

Table 42