The Forgotten Children: Street Children of Chow Kit – An Architectural Odyssey

Summary

This article is published in the journal Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences and is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.

Located within Kuala Lumpur is Chow Kit Road, a busy district flourishing with economic activities alongside more than 500 ‘street children’ roaming and living off the streets. This paper identifies the educational predicament in relation to their environment and poses an architectural solution. This intervention infuses concepts formed through in-depth interviews with the street children and their caretakers. Unobstructed observations were also engaged apart from literature reviews and case studies. Issues of education and place of belonging are postulated through an architectural perspective. This study suggests how architectural initiatives contribute to the social agenda of physical urban renewal.