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February 5th, 2009 
pang 
Malacca five foot way shophouses
Five foot way is the typical architecture style that is unique and native in South East Asia shophouses. The covered walk way is within shophouse property but is for public use, providing shade from sun and rain. This design is by law requirement for shophouses since British Malaya era. Thus the footway infront of shophouses must be at least five feet in the clear.
This photo was taken in Malacca. We stopped at the wrong place far away from our destination. Yet I believe this is the only row of shops that have their wooden window all opened at the same time. Lucky for me : )
Hereby I attached a copy of colour version too.. I cropped to square size as currently I’m studying on film medium format camera such as Rolleiflex. The most common aspect ratio are 6×6cm or 6×4.5cm using 120mm film. So the photos will be in square shape, giving a touch of vintage feel.
Malacca five foot way shophouses
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Pang, wouldn’t it be better to process it into an old photo (brown-yellowish) look?
That’s a good suggestion, but I’m a photoshop noob, so may take a long time to learn how to do that haha.
I like color one, can feel the traditional taste already, and u are so lucky the windows open like that for u
Hey, saw the link to here from See Chen’s facebook. You have great shots! Like all yer pics. Do update more frequently
I prefer the BW one better…the colour one, the colour is too new =P
Hello Nat & Seow Yin! Thanks a lot
Ur photo is awesome man!
my suggestion i think the color version is better.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It’s hard to please everybody.
How’s trip to Angkor Wat?
yo Bee Fong, Angkor Wat is magnificent! Makes you wanna go again… I’m trying to process d 14GB of photos… so it might take a while hehe..
Dear Pang,
Thanks for your colorful photo “five foot way”.
May you further explain about those green board, are they windows or doors? Are they covers for window shops?
Any further photo to show function of this “five foot way”
and green board?
Best Regards
M.L.Lum
Hong Kong
Hello Lum,
The green wooden panel are wooden window. Normally each shop have 2 pairs of window, each on left and right of the main door.
Five foot way is mainly for pedestrian use, shop owner are not allow to put their goods on five foot way or else they will be fined by authority.