A design studio is a critical venue for design students, as they are educated to develop design thinking and other skills through studio courses. This article introduces a design studio project in which Korean and Malaysian students worked jointly for one semester to design affordable urban housing. The Korean students were interior design majors and the Malaysian students were architecture majors; thus it was thought that the students' areas of expertise were likely to differ. It was also anticipated that the students would display cultural differences in terms of housing and planning practices. The motive for starting the joint design studio was the idea that a cross‐cultural collaborative working setting could redefine students' thinking styles and stimulate students to obtain non‐routine perspectives on the design of buildings and spaces. Through observation and interviews, we explored how students tackled affordable housing problems within the context of cross‐cultural and interdisciplinary design education. Collaborative learning in a joint studio situation supplemented students' expertise, re‐orienting approaches to design and opening up a holistic approach to the design issues of affordability, sustainability and community. Overall, the practical learning in the joint studio project validated the importance of exploring alternative solutions based on varied levels of information, and input of those from different educational and cultural backgrounds. The cross‐cultural and interdisciplinary collaboration allowed for a previously unavailable enhancement of design education by encouraging students to obtain divergent thinking for innovative design ideas.

Kampong Baharu (KB), literally meaning "New Village", is located in central Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It came into existence in 1899 as a reserved area only for ethnic Malays. Over time, urban growth resulted in the settlement losing its agricultural value and now it is a unique preserved housing area for Malays. Many vernacular Malay houses that were built in the 1900s still exist in KB. These houses were not original vernacular houses and were transformed and modernized into unique typologies that lie between the traditional and modern typologies.This study defines these houses as 'modern' vernacular Malay houses and attempts to explore the typologies of such houses built during the 1900s in KB. More than 100 vernacular Malay houses in KB were investigated and analyzed with respect to three major elements of order of the traditional Malay house elevation: roof, wall and pillar. As a result of this study, several representative 'modern' vernacular typologies were proposed. It is important to document these typologies because they demonstrate how traditional vernacular Malay houses were transformed into modern houses through the modernization process.

The Javanese in Indonesia believe that the cosmos (the natural world) is composed of various opposing concepts -day and night, brightness and darkness, heaven and earth, left and right, male and female, etc. Given that Javanese people perceive a house as a microcosm of the natural universe, they seek to find balance in their housing as well. Such dualism, which is represented in the form and use of Javanese housing, causes the house to consist of various separated units assigned with contrasting concepts. Through case studies of the traditional houses existing in Kotagede, Yogyakarta, this paper aims to clarify how this type of dualism is realized in Javanese houses and how dualism has been transformed as the society changed.A field survey conducted in August 2014 includes measurement of five houses and interviews with the residents using a semi-structured questionnaire in order to understand the history of the houses and families as well as the meaning and use of the housing spaces. Among the diverse concepts of dualism, the study focused on the three major dualistic concepts of public/private, male/female, and god/ when analyzing each of the Javanese buildings and its spaces.

Through colonization and modernization, the British introduced multi-racial immigrants into Malaysia, resulting in a plural society of people with unique social and cultural backgrounds. Kampong Bharu, located in central Kuala Lumpur, came into existence in 1899 as an enclave reserved for Malays only and their various sub-ethnic groups. Over time, urban growth resulted in the settlement losing its agricultural significance, and at present it is a uniquely preserved Malay community. Many vernacular Malay houses that were built in the 1900s still exist in Kampong Bharu. According to previous research by the author (Ju et al., 2012), there were four major types of vernacular houses that existed in Kampong Bharu: traditional vernacular houses type I -Bumbung Panjang, traditional vernacular houses type II -Bumbung Perak, colonial vernacular houses and modern vernacular houses.The purpose of this paper is to investigate and identify colonial vernacular houses among the four types which originated from the early period of colonization and later evolved into an eclectic style due to the social, ethnic and cultural changes occurring in colonial Malaysia. To achieve this, the paper conducts case studies on five colonial vernacular houses in Kampong Bharu.

Currently, almost 80% and 50% of Singapore’s and Korea’s residents, respectively, live in apartments. Despite their earlier unfamiliarity with apartments compared with traditional housing, they have accepted apartments for the convenience they offer and as a symbol of modernity. However, the climatic conditions of these countries are extremely different. Hence, this study first examined the critical regionalism that should be considered from the environmental context, such as the geography, climate, and topography, when building apartments. Reviewing the transformation process of apartments, we can determine the types of design elements and principles developed under different climatic conditions. The representative unit plans from 1960 to 2010 were collected for analysis from Singapore’s Housing and Development Board and the private sector in Korea. The analysis revealed that Singapore’s apartments have evolved to facilitate natural ventilation. Irregular unit forms, an atrium, and the location of the utility space are unique elements. The atrium-type apartment can be considered the most regionalized design. Conversely, in Korea, the focus is on heat gain and cross-ventilation, resulting in simple square-form units oriented toward the south and double enveloped by additional windows. The staircase-type apartment predominates. Thus, this study shows that apartments evolved differently in each country, resulting in unique regionalized forms primarily determined by climatic conditions.