Melaka Shop house Characteristics

• Terraced Buildings• Single, two or three storey• Narrow fronts and deep rears• Two or three blocks separated

with air wells and with or without rear court

• Shop at front block of ground floor. Family dining, kitchen, bath room & toilet at rear block

• Family accommodation at first floor and/or second floor

• Internal timber structure : up-stair’s floor board, ceiling & roof structure, doors & windows

• Load bearing brick & brick party walls

• Clay brick/terracotta roof profile• External five-footway below

upstairs room• Building print up to street line (no

set-back)• Lime plaster and lime-wash paint

Typical 2-storey shop houses with continuous 5-foot way

2-storey & 3-storey Shop houses (1930s) along Jalan Bunga Raya shopping district, Melaka

The 5-Foot Way or Kaki Lima ( public corridor in front of a shop normally 3-7 feet wide)

End-lot shop house with windows at party wall

Corner-Lot Shop House

Business Signboard, 1960s(Pre-war shop houses until 1960s combined jawi/Arabic scripts,

Chinese and Romanize script for signboards)

Shop house 5-Foot Way

Art Deco Style, 1930s. (some premises combine coffee shop at ground floor, hotel at first floor and

owner living quarter at third/top floor)

Corner lot shop house. Art-Deco Style, 1930s

Art Deco Style (1930s – 1940s). One large pediment shared by two lots/premises.