By David Koh and Joe Choo | Oct 27, 2009

Bangsar & KL Sentral

The residential suburb of Bangsar must surely be ranked high on the list of upmarket areas in Kuala Lumpur. Thanks to its close proximity to the city and pleasing undulating terrain, it rose to become one of the more prestigious and sought after housing areas. (For Google map reference, please log on to http://maps.google.co.uk/ and search for “Kuala Lumpur”.)

Bangsar has an undulating terrain with uneven hills and mountains.

Bangsar has a humble beginning and its history dates back to 1906 when the London-based Kuala Lumpur Rubber Co. Ltd (KLR) set out to plant rubber trees around Kuala Lumpur to take advantage of the rubber price boom. Air-filled rubber tyres were in great demand when the motorcar started replacing horse-drawn carriages in the US.

Among the KLR’s founding board members were Edouard Bunge and Alfred Grisar. The Bunge-Grisar (or Bungsar) estate was derived from their names. The Bungsar Estate was owned by its plantation firm, Socfin Plantations, which has left Malaysia since 2004 in favour of its plantations in Africa.

The Bangsar Hospital was among the earliest government buildings here, built in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, many corporations housed their staff and families in Bangsar due to its convenience. It was about four kilometres from town and also close to the railway station and depot in neighbouring Brickfields.

The eight-storey Public Health College was built in 1965 at Bukit Bangsar. The Health Inspectors Training School and Nurses Training School were transferred here the following year. In 1967, the Institute for Public Health was inaugurated and exists to this day along the aptly named Jalan Rumah Sakit Bangsar. “Rumah Sakit” is the archaic – and correct – term for hospital in Malay, but it has fallen into disuse and “hospital” is now a “Malay” word.

BANGSAR PARK
Bangsar Park was the first area to be developed for housing in 1969. Thereafter, Socfin sold its land to private developers and it began to grow. Eng Lian Enterprise Sdn Bhd developed the Bangsar Baru neighbourhood, for example.

Tenaga Nasional (then the National Electricity Board) had its headquarters here in Bukit Pantai and its staff quarters are here to this day. Lever Brothers (now Unilever) was based here as was Walls Ice Cream. It provided employment and stimulated the area’s growth.

During the May 13, 1969 riots many Chinese-owned shops in Bangsar were burnt. Jalan Bangsar itself was littered with burnt-out cars and motorcycles – the unsuspecting motorists making their way to Petaling Jaya were ambushed here. Jalan Bangsar was one of the main roads that connected Kuala Lumpur to Petaling Jaya.

Bangsar recovered in the 1970s, catering to the baby boomers and out-of-towners who moved to the city. It was also seen as the next-best thing to the more exclusive Kenny Hills (Bukit Tunku) further north.

Things have changed significantly today and yet some remained the same. Jalan Bangsar is still very busy and congested during peak hours, even though a significant load has been taken off by the many highways that criss-cross the city, such as Federal Highway, the Sprint, the New Pantai Expressway (NPE) and a bypass through the Mid Valley Megamall.

JALAN BANGSAR
Jalan Bangsar runs along the southern boundary of the township, not into it. It starts from the Jalan Travers intersection and ends at Jalan Pantai Baru.

Jalan Travers actually starts from the National Museum and then bends south to join Jalan Tun Sambanthan. Formerly a part of Damansara Road, it was named in honour of Dr Ernest Aston Otho Travers, who was the Selangor State Surgeon from 1891 to 1897.

On the northern side of Jalan Travers is Federal Hill. This is a lush secondary forest which is sparsely populated. The Prime Minister’s Residence was located here prior to the government’s move to Putrajaya. There are also several resting palaces (Istana Hinggap) belonging to the heads of several states.

On the southern side, there is Kuala Lumpur Sentral, more popularly known as KL Sentral. It was opened in 2001 to become the main rail and transit hub for Kuala Lumpur, replacing the old Railway Station down the road.

KL Sentral, or to be precise, Stesen Sentral, is an intermodal transport hub: the LRT line runs through the station, as do KTM services to the north of the peninsula and to Singapore. The Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang is also accessible from this station via express bus services and the KLIA Express high-speed trains.

The KL Monorail is another story. It seems to be added as an afterthought: commuters must exit the complex follow a walkway to Jalan Brickfields to board the monorail services! However, this may change in the future when later phases of development are completed.

RAILWAY YARD
KL Sentral is built on the former KTM marshalling yard in Brickfields, which is a sizeable piece of so-called prime real estate. The entire complex is not yet completed: it is divided into 14 parcels which are in different stages of development. To date, Stesen Sentral, the Hilton KL and Le Meridien hotels, the Suasana apartments, Plaza Sentral office blocks, Sooka Sentral and 1 Sentral Tower have been completed.

Despite its billing as “prime real estate”, we do not share the land valuers’ enthusiasm. The railway yard may have looked like a messy backyard but could it be so because of environology factors? Would its removal and subsequent replacement by a multi-billion ringgit project change the energy forces at work here?

From an environology perspective, the location has a mixture of good and bad factors. First, the positives: it is embraced by Jalan Travers. There are also internal one-way roads that circle the area to enhance this “embrace effect”.

The negatives: railway lines run through it; it faces north (uphill) and has its back to the Klang River; and some parts of this river actually forms an outer elbow or convex to the area.

An embracing road or river is considered good because this shape helps to trap and concentrate earth energy, much like a parabolic dish. The collected energy is slow-moving, gentle and homogenous. The bulk of its strength is dampened by the rebound off the embrace.

A convex on the other hand deflects and disperses energy. Thus, properties located at a convex usually do not fare well.

ENERGY DISPERSAL
Trains are considered unconducive in environology because they cause too much air movement, which disperses earth energy. Properties located near railway tracks, be they for LRT or locomotives, tend to be drained over time and suffer for it.

Even when they are underground, the impact can still be felt. There are many places in the world where train stations are integrated complexes, with shopping malls or entertainment outlets operating within the premises. This would seem like the ideal marriage. Such places need heavy traffic and what better location than a transport hub?

After all, commuters simply have to step off the bus or train and there they are. No traffic jams, no parking problems. Yet in our experience and to our knowledge, there is not a single such station in the world that has prospered. Perhaps the building’s owners may enjoy continuous rentals, but it is likely that the occupants or tenants within will suffer. Turnover would be quite high.

Even in affluent Singapore, one can find a high churn rate of tenants in such integrated hubs. Although the owners may make money, they also have the stress of constantly replacing tenants.

KL Sentral, we believe, would be no different. Despite its central location and links to transportation, many businesses do not seem to be doing well and many of the office spaces here are vacant. There are exceptions. These could be offices or shoplots that happen to have a good orientation, or perhaps the operator or tenant has a very good Life Profile, which mitigates the negative effects.

LIFE’S CYCLES
In the case of the latter, one must be careful because there are cycles in a person’s life. While the highs may be strong enough to overcome an unconducive environment, there will also be a time when the person’s fortunes will take a dip. What happens then?

Perhaps the current situation has nothing to do with environology. It could be the economic downturn where business got so bad that the tenants are forced to leave. Perhaps the rentals are too high due to its “strategic” location.

But what if we are right and environology does play a part, however small or big it may be? Food for thought.

In our tour of the Klang Valley thus far, we have seen that the principles of environology introduced thousands of years ago – the Chinese call it “feng shui” – are very much applicable today.

In landform feng shui, the key element to consider for any home, office or factory is the landform. Earth generates energy, from the highest peak down to sea level. In the global context, the highest point is Mount Everest. Energy flows from the peak and spreads along the mountain ranges.

Where the energy is strong, the earth is moved and shaped by the energy. Imagine a mighty river from a mountain rushing downstream, carving up the landscape by sheer force. Earth energy is somewhat similar. The Main Range or Titiwangsa is linked to the Himalayas and the energy transfer continues down the peninsula up to Singapore.

ENERGY VORTICES
Earth energy does not travel in a straight line. It moves in a vortex, spinning in a circular motion like a screw. When it hits a particularly hard or dense spot, it has a tendency to either change its direction or shift the land accordingly.

The Klang Valley was formed when a section of the Main Range branched off into a “claw” with two small “pincers”, essentially smaller mountain ranges. These pincers run toward the Strait of Malacca and create an embracing valley.

The claws are still imbued with energy and this can be seen in the form of small hills and mounds that dot the valley. Bangsar is an example of such hills.

From a bird’s eye view, one can see that the hills come from the northern claw, from Ulu Klang down through Segambut, Sri Hartamas and Bukit Tunku. It continues southward through Universiti Hospital and then Gasing Hill.

Thus, Bangsar has an undulating terrain with uneven hills and mountains. Generally, the north is higher and the land slopes southward to Brickfields and beyond it, the Klang River. The early town planners must have had a difficult time designing the layout for the roads. The main roads tend to follow the contour of the larger hills, but the smaller undulations or mounds in between are often too small for either a contour or radial layout. Thus, the road simply follows the undulations like a dragon or a gentle rollercoaster.

*This series on feng shui and real estate properties appear courtesy of the Malaysia Institute of Geomancy Sciences (MINGS). David Koh is the founder of MINGS and has been a feng shui master and teacher for the past 35 years.