A TOUR TO TAMARIND SQUARE: AN ARTISTIC URBAN VILLAGE WITH CO-EXIST NATURE AND ECOSYSTEM| 生态与艺术概念的城市村庄

Last month I was visited Malaysia through Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL-Land) to Malaysia to visit my relatives and family members. So I no need quarantine in hotel. After the Covid-19 ART test, I could straight away went around the Johor Bahru for shopping. It has been 2 years I never visit Malaysia as Singapore borders closed due to Covid-19 pandemic.

After reaching Kuala Lumpur, my friend brought me to a popular square for visiting. The square is called Tamarind Square, where a place combine artistic, nature and ecologically architectural design meet commercial market co-exist community and work places.

When we was arriving, we saw the creepers and climbers spreading over the building wall by the wire mesh that fixed in between the structures. The planters were built for the climbers which’s looked like Ipomoea sp.

We took lift to second floor. We saw the maze garden structure was constructed with seaters inside the structure walls. The structure walls with planters were planted creepers, Ficus pumila that makes the walls looked nature and greenery.

The long leave climber is Vernonia elliptica, common name Bridal Veil Creeper. I remember I saw this plant growing wildly in a Bali resort. It has widely planted in Bali resorts and hotels.

Continued my journey, I reached a seating built by concrete with planters on top and bottom. It was planted Ficus nitida shrub in the planters. But I felt the design of seating was uncomfortable and wrongly choosing the plant species that made the plants need to be trimmed always as the proposed shrub size was too big.

Another shrub, Ficus nitida is suitable to be planted as hedge in the planting area with full sunlight condition. It requires trimming regularly to keep the size as hedges in the garden.

The second floor plants has been grown wildly and lacking of landscape maintenance. It can be seen the over grown of the climbers and creepers.

The ropes tied from bottom to the top of the building to let the climbers to climb up to the top of buildings as greenwall system.

Continued our walk to the other side of second floor, there were a stunning view of fantastic building design with many small pocket gardens in between the units which painted in red. The beautiful skyline greenery increased the value of properties.

We took lift to 1st floor of the building, there were an open plaza named Centre Court. I was surprising most of the show rooms and units are unoccupied. Only few of them are occupied by the business. Perhaps the recent Covid-19 enforcement measures have ruined the business in this mall.

The greenery trees looked like Cratoxylum cochinchinensis were planted in cluster that providing the shade to the courtyards.

The strip pattern pavement in between the hardscape and softscape is creating the modern and contemporary sense of place while I was arriving the ground floor courtyard gardens.

Continued our journey, we reached a garden which’s planted with many Tabernaemontana divaricata. The pathway and steps lead me to another garden court.

Obviously it was lacking of landscape maintenance. The proposed plants were nice but the maintenance need to be executed regularly to maintain the landscape designer masterpiece and hard work.

The green shelters with greenwall concept by planted with climbers are great design. They are creative F&B, specialty, boutique cafes and restaurants. But I found many are still unoccupied due to pandemic.

The unpainted structure wall and bricks adds stylishness to this modern architectural design. But sometimes feel like uncompleted construction works to me.

The overall architecture design idea is good but unfortunately it is poorly executed. I hope that the pandemic will be over soon, so that all the new development and economy will be back to the right path.

The design is combined the lush green, koi ponds and water feature in ground floor. I saw a Book Barter Café that a great place to hang out as inside has lots books for me to read and relax while having the coffee.

The stone paths were quite unique in the sense of slow down my walk to enjoy the garden views and surrounding cosy cafes and retail shops.

If the botanical name label on each of the planted trees can be shown that will be great as some of the proposed trees are very unique and significant. It also can enhancing the landscape design value as well.

Finally I ended my tour at the B1 of the square which linked to Grocery supermarket. We went for the lunch before our next destination in Kuala Lumpur.

Really appreciate for those who reading my post.

Wish you have a wonderful day! Thank you.