Introduction

As Malaysia which is a developing country it is common for the increased rate per

capita in energy usage. Several problems arise regarding supply and the exhaustion of

energy resources raised concerns over as the rapid increase of energy usage. Our primacy

energy sources such as petroleum, natural gases and other fuels that are created a few

million years ago are limited will comes to exhaustion if it is continuously used. Natures are

gifts to human beings and it is our duty to preserve it. However, much pollution created by

humans such as the change in climate, global warming, greenhouse effect and thinning of

the ozone layer are slowly destroying the nature.

It is known that developing of houses and buildings contribute negative effect to the

environment. Due to the process of construction, natural resources are often used as

building materials even being the core substance for the construction or even just for

temporarily. For instance, timber is a vital building material that might only be used as

temporary support and later being disposed. The construction site may be a forest where

trees are required to be removed from site. All these bring a negative impact to the natural

environment and also for the living inhabitant. Likewise, the process of construction also

contributes to the water and air pollution. Undeniable, despite all these negative impacts on

the environments which will soon lead to natural disaster, we humans need a home to stay.

Consequently, sustainable housing development is our only solution. Thus, sustainable

development is introduced into the market to promote environmental friendly houses.

Sustainable development is when achieving the present demand without upsetting

the ability to accomplish the future demands which emphasis usage of energy and resources

with lower consumption. In order to increase sustainable development, the energy intensity

should be running in the same level with the production and usage. To take an initiative

toward sustainability environment, employment of more renewable energy should be used to

reduce waste. Sustainable houses that are houses that promote energy efficient in the

aspect of electric, water and so on. This help to decrease the impact, on the environment

before construction and after construction. On the other hand, the sustainable house must

satisfy human needs that include the aspect of safety and security; simultaneously protect

the environment.

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As Malaysia is still in a developing stage, the energy demand remain high which

means there is a needs for Malaysia in energy efficiency strategies to lower down the energy

consumption of building. Basically, energy conservation has a close relation with energy

efficiency. An energy efficiency is how efficient the usage of energy and energy conservation

is regarding saving of energy. In an energy efficiency building, everything within the inner

layer of the wall can contribute in improving energy efficiency. Energy conservation in a

building is to make sure the energy consumption is kept to the minimum with the help of

energy efficiency features. Design and construction are one of the most important factors

and it must be based on low-energy usage. The designed structure of the sustainable house

must be able to reduce the need for heating and cooling systems. In order to achieve this

statement, the use of solar panels or wind panel might be needed. Besides that, the

designed structure is advisable to enable natural light and ventilation for energy saving.

Likewise, the water usage should be at the most optimum state.

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Location

It is decided that Setia Alam will be used as a suitable location for this proposal. Setia

Alam is a new township located in Shah Alam, Selangor, spanning over 4,000 acres. The

town can be accessible via Setia Alam Highway from New Klang Valley Expressway

(NKVE), and Federal Highway and Klang via Jalan Meru.

Figure 1: Map of Setia Alam

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Existing development

1. Schools

Tenby Schools in Setia Eco Park houses both the national private school and the

international school on the same campus. It accommodates students aged around 3 to 18

years from around the world. The campus caters Tenby International School, Sekolah Sri

Tenby, and the Sixth Form. Tenby International School instils international education system

to its students starting from the Early Years stage, then the Primary School, and finally the

Secondary School. Sekolah Sri Tenby adheres to the national academic system in which the

students will take examinations as such required by the State i.e. UPSR, PT3 and SPM. The

Sixth Form offers the students to take up Cambridge International A-Level and AS-Level

Programme. Besides that, there are also government school in the area which are SJK (C)

Pin Hwa 1 (Chinese Primary School), SJK (Tamil) North Hummock, and also SK Bandar

Setia Alam.

Figure 2: Tenby Schools, Setia Eco Park (Source: Tenby Schools Website)

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2. Shopping Malls

Setia City Mall is the biggest shopping mall in Setia Alam, offering shopping, dining,

entertainment and park life experience, all in one place. In addition to that, Tesco and

Giant Hypermarket Klang Sentral are also available in the area.

Figure 3: Map to Setia City Mall (Source: Setia City Mall Website)

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Figure 4: Setia City Mall (Source: Setia City Mall Website)

3. Commercial Buildings

Currently, there are a few commercial buildings available in the township. This

includes Setia Alam Club, Setia City Convention Centre, Seria 88 and several more.

Setia Alam Club, located right next to Eramas Commercial Centre, is a four-storey club

designed from top to bottom to provide an extensive range of facilities and activities for

the whole family. The rooftop consists of saunas, swimming pool and children’s pool,

playground with landscaped garden and an open area for other activities. This is done so

that the residents can enjoy the outdoors in private. The other floors contain gymnasium,

badminton and squash courts, pool table, music rooms, studios and more. There is also

a selection of retail outlets and restaurants available.

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Figure 5: Swimming Pool Area in Setia Alam Club

Setia City Convention Centre offers a wide variety of indoor and outdoor venue,

specializing in customizing any event the residents’ desires. It is located in the heart of

Setia Alam Township, easily accessible through the New Klang Valley Expressway

(NKVE). It is only 40 minutes away from Kuala Lumpur City Centre and Kuala Lumpur

International Airport (KLIA).

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Figure 6: Setia City Convention Centre

4. Hospital

The nearest hospital to this township is KPJ Klang Specialist Hospital (KLGSH) which is

located within a 30km radius. It is accessible from several highways including KL-Klang

Federal Highway, Kesas Highway, Lebuhraya Damansara Puchong (LDP), Ekspressway

Lingkaran Tengah (ELITE) and New Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE). KLGSH has multi-

specialty in it acting as tertiary care hospital with international standard.It has 220 bed acute

care private medical facility equipped with outstanding operating theatres and medical

equipment that uses the latest technology. KLGSH claimed that it is supported by a team of

world class medical experts and dedicated healthcare professionals (KPJ Klang Specialist

Hospital, n.d.).

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Why this location?

Setia Alam is located in Klang Valley, which is a rapid developing place in Malaysia.

Several key destinations are approachable from Setia Alam accessible via the NKVE

link, Federal Highway and many more accessible links. This is very convenient to head

to anywhere with so many highway around this neighborhood. SP Setia Berhad has

invested RM 20 billion in this township to improve it into a city. It will be blooming into a

successful township under the development of SP Setia Berhad Group in the future. The

prices of land and property will also increases correspondingly which will attract more

investor.

Setia Alam is fully equipped with facilities such as shopping malls, schools, and

commercial area. With a sufficient facilities, population will increase and also the demand

of the properties. There are also future developments such as SEGi International School

and other developments planned for the township. Therefore it is very convenient for all

the residents of this township, everything is within reach. Most property buyers looks at

the facilities around the property to see if it is convenient to stay there or if there is any

future development that will boost the property prices in the future.

We have chosen that piece of land to promote our sustainable houses due to the

available facilities surrounding that area. House buyers often look into the available

facilities around the desired area before deciding on to proceed on buying or not. Some

of the facilities were as discussed earlier. Besides that, Setia Alam falls under the

jurisdiction of the Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) which had placed restrictions on the

establishment of entertainment outlets such as pubs or live music venues. This provides

a more peaceful neighborhood to live in.

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Housing Concept

The upcoming housing development in Setia Alam, Shah Alam Selangor which is a

modern green-rated housing, designed to save energy and natural resource of the earth.

This newly developed housing features semi-detached houses and also private villas. These

houses are built with the most sustainable material in order to achieve efficient energy

savings. It is an environment-friendly development which complies with MASMA (Manual

Saliran Mesra Alam Malaysia) requirements.

These modern designed houses are designed with stunning and elegant architecture

design that uses simple geometrical, giving it a unique look and aims to involve as many

natural elements into the interior as possible. For instance, natural lighting, which shines

through the interior providing a vibrant glow to the interior of the house. Moreover, providing

absolute natural ventilation. It also features spacious outdoor space where family or friends

can gather around for some quality time of togetherness. Besides that, it uses natural

barriers such as plants and water bodies for security.

The modern house comes with a shed roof design to give it a modern look. This kind of

roof does not only provide shelter but also provide natural ventilation, at the same time

increasing the aesthetic view. Besides that, it provides wide space for the interior of the

building. The roof also comes with a built in solar panel that provides hot water for the

household and enabling energy saving. It is also designed with clean and simple lines that

feature large windows to allow the movement of natural light into the interior of the building.

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Distinctive Features of this Housing Development

Our housing development is different from the other housing development. This is

because we are trying to build our housing development to be sustainable from construction

until occupancy of the building to reduce waste and also promotes energy efficiency. We

strived to provide a house that is energy efficiency which uses sustainable building materials

such as solar tiles, vacuum-insulated windows, rainwater harvesting and so on. These

energy efficiency features to help reducing the potential to increase in usage of electricity

and water. Likewise, building houses with a modern designed. The electric cables and

drainage are all concealed underground. This provides a elegant outlook to the building.

Houses are all gated and guarded that provide a safe and secure community, fully

installed with 24 hours CCTV surveillance. Residents are able to carry out their recreational

activities freely like taking a stroll in the park, jogging or cycling or even relaxing in their yard.

Besides that, there is only single entry to every neighborhood to facilitate vehicle entry to

maximize security. Moreover, there are also built-in security alarm system connected to a

local CMS and Internet broadband access which will notify the owner through his phone if

the alarm went off.

Moreover, it consists of facilities like park and clubhouse. The park is equipped with

jogging and bicycle track, football court, surau and so on. Whilst the clubhouse consists of

facilities like gym, swimming pool and sauna. On the other hand, the private bungalow villa

has its own guard house and clubhouse which provide the same facilities but exclusive for

the residents of bungalow. Our housing development also provides wide roads which is

about 15m wide which make this car flow smoothly and also a spacious environment.

Going into the interior side, the house is designed with open floor plan at the ground

floor level where there are less partition walls in between living room, dining, dry kitchen and

wet kitchen to show a continuous living space. These also enhance the movement of natural

light into the interior. Besides that, our housing development is all north south orientated

which means it will not get direct sunlight during the morning or in the evening which will

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increases the heat in the house. This will helps reduce energy consumption to cool down the

building.

Target Buyers

Based on our housing development plan and the surroundings, we target families

with children, foreigners and investors. In Setia Alam, there are many proposed development

especially in the line of education such as the proposed SEGI International School. There

are several international and government schools which provide wide varieties of education

choices for children also available in this area. We attract buyers with families to stay nearby

schools to ease them to send their children to school.

We target foreigners and investors because we believe that Setia Alam will be

become another blooming development like Kuala Lumpur. Setia Alam has everything one

needs, shopping malls, educations, commercial area, business area, restaurant, recreational

area and so on. They would not need to travel as far to Kuala Lumpur to get something.

Everything is within few minutes of drive. This also helps to improve the economy of our

country when foreign investors invest in our proposed housing development. Investor can

invest as this area is in the developing stage which means there are potential for the

property to increase in price in the future.

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SUSTAINABLE BUILDING MATERIALS

1. Solar Tiles

Figure 7: Solar Tiles (Source: thisbigcity website)

Roof tiles are the building materials that are exposed to sunlight the most. From this

inspiration, many companies are developing solar tiles that provide both functions of

providing protection from weather and generating electrical power for the building. These

solar tiles are fully integrated into the building acting as a roof.

Solar tiles are also known as solar shingles or solar slates. Solar tiles works the

same as solar panels where the presence of photovoltaic cells absorbs sunlight that are

shine on it and creates an electric field that provides electrical power of the household.

Advantages of Solar Tiles

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- Produces electricity

- Has the same function of a roof

- Can be installed for most of the building structures.

2. Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater harvesting is a technology used for collecting and storing rainwater from

rooftops, the land surface or rock catchments using simple techniques such as jars and

pots as well as more complex techniques such as underground check dams.

Figure 8: Example of Rainwater Harvesting (Source: English Eco Energy website)

The advantages of rainwater harvesting are that it:

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• Saves money by reducing your water usage

• A volume of water is kept out of the storm-water management system thereby

helping to reduce flooding risks

• Gains Eco-homes rating points for your property,

• And rainwater is better for your garden as it has a balanced ph and is free of

chemicals such as chlorine.

3. Vacuum-Insulated Windows

Insulated glazing (IG), more commonly known as double glazing (or double-pane,

and increasingly triple glazing/pane) is double or triple glass window panes separated by

a vacuum or other gas filled space to reduce heat transfer across a part of the building

envelope. High-efficiency, insulated glass windows reduce energy use. This feature

reduces heat to go inside the envelop of the building so that saving on electricity on

cooling the area.

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Figure 9: Insulated Glazing (Source: Western Class Company website)

4. Non-toxic Paints

Non-toxic paints will be used on the interior walls. These types of paint are water based

rather than petroleum-based solvents. Therefore it does not emit smog-producing pollutants

which will pollute the environment.

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5. Solar Panels

Solar

panel refers

to a panel

designed to absorb the sun's rays as a source of energy for generating electricity or heating.

This reduces electricity to water heaters and some night lighting. Large saving on electricity

consumption can be achieve with these solar panels.

Figure 10 – Solar Panel (Source:

6. Sustainable Concrete

A building emits 95% of carbon dioxide due to energy consumed and one of the

materials that contribute to the CO2 emission is concrete. Concrete emits 7-10% of carbon

dioxide. To reduce this emission of CO2, the alternative to concrete is the sustainable

concrete which uses mix recycled materials to produce such as, crushed glass, wood chips

or slag instead of disposing it.

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Figure 11: Sustainable Concrete. (Source: thisbigcity website)

7. Paper Insulation

The used of insulation helps conserve energy. Instead of using wool, fibre glass or

other materials as insulation, the use of recycled materials like newspapers, cardboard,

paper-based materials as insulation helps in energy efficiency. The paper insulation is both

fire and insect resistant that uses borax, boric acid and calcium carbonate which are natural

materials and does not bring any harm to the human health. Paper insulation are blown into

the wall cavity, filling up all the cracks.

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Figure 12: Paper Insulation (Source: thebigcity website)

8. Skylight

Since skylight can provide a building with daylighting and ventilation, it is applied in

this proposed housing in Setia Alam. It can help minimize the energy usage in cooling and

lighting costs provided the right choice of skylight type and correct installation. During the

day, Natural lighting is achieve to certain places of the building to save electricity.

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Figure 13 – Skylight (Source: J.M. Grove Construction & Supply website)

9. Glass Tiles

These tiles are produced from recycled wine bottles and beer bottles that are shipped to the

recycle plant. It does not produce mold in humid environments. Glass tiles are able to reflect

the light creating more movement of natural light in the interior. It will not stain and it is easy

to maintain.

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Figure 14: Glass Tiles. (Source: Freshome website)

References

Englishecoenergy.com, (2015). rain water harvesting blackpool. [online] Available at:

http://www.englishecoenergy.com/rainwater_harvesting_blackpool.html [Accessed 19

Nov. 2015].

Freshome.com, (2012). 10 Most Popular Eco-Friendly Flooring Solutions - Freshome.com.

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[online] Available at: http://freshome.com/2012/10/15/10-most-popular-eco-friendly-

floor-solutions/ [Accessed 4 Nov. 2015].

Solar Power Authority, (2015). Solar Power Authority. [online] Available at:

http://solarpowerauthority.com [Accessed 8 Nov. 2015].

Jmgroveconstruction.com, (2015). skylight, skylights, skylight repair, roof window,

replacement skylights. [online] Available at: http://jmgroveconstruction.com/skylights-

home.php [Accessed 11 Nov. 2015].

Westernglasscompany.com, (2015). Insulated Glass | Western Glass Company. [online]

Available at: http://westernglasscompany.com/services/insulated-glass/ [Accessed

10 Nov. 2015].

This Big City, (2010). Five Sustainable Building Materials that Could Transform Construction.

[online] Available at: http://thisbigcity.net/five-sustainable-building-materials-that-

could-transform-construction/ [Accessed 7 Nov. 2015].

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