Environment Design: World Creation (South-East Asia)
Angelina Lee An Qi (0334272)
Environment Design
World Creation (South-East Asia)
Instructions
Slides
Notes
Baju Kebaya
cloth
is embroidered in hand-made, we can choose to use machine or technology
to help too but the result it come out won’t be as nice as hand-made.
Therefore, Baba-Nyonya clothes are usually hand-made.
Since it takes lots of work and time to create a Baba-Nyonya clothes, the price for Baba-Nyonya clothes is usually very high.
Baba-Nyonya
traditional clothes normally embroider with Chinese tradition lace
modification and totem which make the clothes luxury and refined.
The colour of Baba-Nyonya ethnic clothes have Chinese tradition red and pink also have Malay auspicious turkey green.
Reason
why including this is because the old dark spirit which is the guide
for this lvl is wearing a traditional groom’s attire.
Bakul sia
Tiered
baskets such as this example made of woven cane and wood and then
lacquered in black and red and gilded were ordered from China’s Fujian
province by the peranakan (localised) Chinese of Southeast Asia
including the peranakan of the Straits Settlements, Phuket, Sumatra,
Makassar and Java.
The baskets were used in the elaborate wedding rituals that had evolved in many peranakan Chinese communities.
Among
the peranakan Chinese of the Straits Settlements, such baskets were
known as bakul siah (‘auspicious baskets’) and were used to transport
wedding gifts during the twelve-day wedding, as well as during the
engagement. (Bakul means basket in Malay and siah means auspicious in
Hokkien.)
Among the peranakan Chinese of Phuket Town on the Thai
island of Phuket (who were closely related by marriage and migration to
the peranakan Chinese of Penang), the groom’s relatives would let off
fire crackers and then move the khanmak (trays of wedding gifts) in a
procession to the bride’s hose. The procession would include musicians
playing Chinese horns and gongs, making sounds like ‘tee tor tee cheng’ –
apparently an idiom for ‘marriage’ in Hokkien.
The small wedding gifts such as money, gold and the wedding ring were carried in the procession in small baskets that the local
peranakan
called huatnah. The larger items as well as paraphernalia to do with
the rituals such as snacks, beverages, tea sets, candles and incense
sticks were carried in larger baskets such as the example here, which
locally were known as sianah.
Traditionally, Chinese wedding baskets
are used to provide the bride with necessities and gifts needed for her
wedding day and night, but it can be used in any interior as a bohemian
storage piece for small trinkets.
Nyonya needlework is characterised by workmanship, complex textures and fine motifs, often out of scale with each other.
Patterns
were often worked in silk floss and twisted silk yarns, peacock
feathers, glass and metal beads, and gold and silver threads of
different textures.
nyonya needlework generally embodied labour
and expensive materials, communicating both wealth and fine taste. Their
designs also incorporated the use of symbols, stories and customs.
In
the closely-knit circles of Peranakan Chinese society, family
reputations were fiercely guarded and a person’s behaviour was closely
scrutinised and often critiqued. In such an environment, symbolic and
non-verbal cues were equally indicative of one’s upbringing,
understanding of tradition and family background, and some of these
aspects filtered into nyonya needlework designs.
The practice of
embroidery in Peranakan Chinese culture goes back at least 300 years,
although the oldest extant nyonya embroideries we know of date to the
mid-19th century. Women’s footwear and purses were the most commonly
embroidered items, but it was at wedding celebrations that nyonya
needlework was the most intricate and detailed.
nyonya needlework
was typically decorated with auspicious images of flowers, animals and
precious objects drawn from Chinese art and symbols. Chinese embroidered
textiles provided the models for many designs. Imagery for needlework
could also have been copied from furniture, silverwork and ceramics
found in the homes of Peranakan Chinese families. These familiar motifs
conveyed wishes for good fortune, longevity, a blissful marriage,
successful progeny(descendants) and good health.
To start, there are four main architectural styles for these houses
Early shophouse
Southern Chinese shophouse
Straits Eclectic Shophouse
Art Deco shophouse
Early shophouse (18th century)
A continuous row of panelled or louvred shutters appears at the front part of shophouses.
Timber walls and plain masonry pilasters are used at the second/upper floor.
Attap was used in the early shophouses but was banned due to fire regulations and later replaced by Chinese terracotta tiles.
The profile of these tiles has changed slightly over time from a U shape to a more V shape which is lighter and smaller in size.Southern Chinese Shophouse (19th century)
The front wall were change to masonry with can include the plaster figures or ceramic renderings decoration.
below the eaves, frieze decoration was added with paintings or ceramic shard work on it.
Louvered shutters are remained but either iron or timber grilles were inserted in the windows.
The top part of pilasters were enlarged to support the purlin at the end of the eaves.
In late 19th century, The pilasters also become taller and with plaster renderings decorating it.
Straits Eclectic Shophouse (1900-1940)
Influenced by the western culture, therefore include some western style (around the time of Dutch Colonization)
full-length French windows + pair of full-length timber shutters
Wider roof
Pilasters with classical design
Art Deco Shophouse (1940-1960)
Most adopted from European style.
Long and thin rectangles, circles and continuous horizontal bands are use on the front facade
Reinforced concrete used to create more cantilevered plans
Most of the shophouses throughout all stylistic periods were built with a series of gable and pitch roofs; with the exception of courtyards or air wells and balcony.
Some have a jackroof which is a raised mini-roof locating at the peak of the main roof.
The space between the two roofs is filled with patterned grilles or timber louvres. It provides both cross and stack ventilation which reduces the internal heat build-up especially during day time.
Load-bearing walls at both sides of the shophouse support the roof load through timber purlins which span horizontally across the width of the building. The walls are at least 15" thick from ground to first floor and 9" onwards.
After attap was banned, Chinese clay tiles of a V shape were widely used. The tiles are similar in origin to those used in the Mediterranean roofs, being introduced to Malacca by the Portuguese.
In the early 1900's, the inter-locking French Marseilles tiles were introduced to the shophouses in the Straits Settlements. However, these terracotta tiles were later replaced with modern roofing materials including metal and asbestos sheets.
Most of the Peranakan Cina were westernised during the period and many preferred living in European-style villas or colonial bungalows.
a colonial bungalow is a two-storey residential building which expresses the Western and local architectural traditions modified by the use of local methods of building materials. Often such building responds to the local climate.
This can be seen from the introduction of verandah, front porch, internal courtyard, ventilation grilles, big openings and high ceilings.
The term bungalow was originated in the 17th Century Bengal of India which means indigenous hut or bangala. The bangala hut was constructed of mud-walled structure raised a foot or two above the ground, enclosing by a verandah and with a roof curved at the ridge. The Europeans, mostly the British adapted the bangala hut and modified it to suit their needs by adding more bedrooms and bathrooms but retaining the front and rear verandahs for natural ventilation.
Colonial bungalows or villas were built in many parts of the British Empire including India, Jamaica, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.
They were built in late 19th and early 20th centuries which mostly combined the architectural styles of the Anglo-Indian, Straits Eclectic and Malay.
the architectural styles, grandiose scale, decorative building elements and lavish interiors of the bungalows became distinctive characteristics of the elite Straits Chinese communities including the Peranakan Cina.
Typical characteristics of the colonial bungalows built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries include raised structures, projecting porches with arches or classical columns, high ceilings, wide verandahs, big openings or French windows with semi-circular fanlights, plastered brick walls and hipped roofs with short ridges. Some have internal courtyards, stables, circular driveways, ample gardens and servants' quarters. In these bungalows there were marble or timber floors, coloured tiles, chandeliers, blackwood furniture and teak cupboards filled with Nyonya wares.
The colonial bungalows were brick-wall construction. The upper floors of the colonial bungalows were usually constructed of timber including Chengal and Jati while the ground floors were made of either brick, concrete or Portland cement finished with red Malacca clay floor tiles.
unpolished granite slabs were used sparingly either as the trimming to floor egdes, airwells and verandahs or as paving in airwells, courtyards and patios. Both external and internal walls which were made of brick were rendered with lime plaster prior to lime-wash painting of white, pale yellow or light green colour. Before reinforced concrete was introduced, many bungalows had timber staircases with timber handrails and cast-iron or timber balustrades.
green glazed earthenware were usually found on the first floor verandahs.
The colonial bungalows occupied or owned by the Straits Chinese families including the Peranakan Cina were distinguishable from the European residences in terms of their architectural details and uses of the internal spaces reflecting the social customs.
The size and number of rooms are also distinguished. More rooms were needed to accommodate the extended family household tradition. In regards to the uses of the internal spaces, the front hall or sitting room area of the Chinese bungalow functioned as the reception hall while the dining room, rear verandah and side rooms formed the private family area. The family ancestral altar was usually placed in the front hall of which the arrangement is similar to that of the shophouses.
Both the shophouses and colonial bungalows owned by the elite Straits Chinese suffered immensely during the 1930's and after the World War II.
Houses were stripped of valuables.
The family jewels worn by nyonyas were dismembered and traded for other comforts.
After the war, several currencies and deposits became worthless.
A lot of the houses were then left abandonedA typical Peranakan Cina shophouse usually has the first hall (ruang tamu), second hall (tiah gelap), the first air well, the second air well (for family area), ancestral hall (thia abu), bedrooms, bridal chamber and kitchen (dapur). In those days, visitors to the house were normally allowed to the first hall. The second hall or tiah gelap was usually used by the unmarried Nyonyas to peep through small openings dividing the first and second halls. Now, as the social life changes, the younger generation of Nyonyas no longer hide in the tiah gelap.
They use a lot of greens and reds
Reflections
I based my level concept off of the Baba-Nyonya culture, and while there is no specific country I can base it off of, I took influences from the shophouses of Penang, Malacca and Singapore that date back to the time period where the Peranakan people were most prominent.
While proceeding with the development of my world level, I was excited to do this because it was my own culture. I also never had much of an interest in my culture beforehand, however this helped give me an insight of traditions and behaviors I have never learned about. Through my research both from online sources and from asking family members, I have a more solid sense of what theme I want to carry on with for this module. The next step is to be able to visualize what I want to create, taking influences from the peranakan culture and fusing it with otherworldly fantasy.
Week 2: I have to do more research for the concept of my game lvl, which is Baba
Nyonya. I read into articles about the architecture as well as props
and interior. I will have to read up more into colonial bungalows
though.
I have decided on three locations--
- shophouse street (much like jonker walk malacca)
- colonial bungalow
- shophouse ruins in a cave/underground
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