Drove up to Malacca over the long weekend for the first time in around a decade. Despite the Hari Raya holiday weekend, the trip was surprisingly reasonable coming from Singapore, taking only around 5 hours each way to get through customs and drive up the peninsula.
Malacca (also known as Melaka) is a historic colonial port town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is filled with historic structures, many of them the charming shophouse typology which is prolific throughout Southeast Asia. So when I found a whole beautiful conserved quirky shophouse in the centre of the city on Airbnb, I just had to book it!
The shophouse appeared to be largely original condition, filled with charming art and photographs of the past owner, who appears to have been a furniture maker (the house was filled with stunning handmade furniture). It is likely that at some point the ground floor of the house was used as a furniture shop and workshop, with the second floor reserved for residential use, as is typical of this typology.
Also typical to the shophouse typology, the kitchen and toilet area in the back of the house is located alongside an open-air courtyard, traditionally used for wet cooking and drying clothes. Above the kitchen is a small semi-outdoor terrace, which functions as an open-air bedroom, a pleasant sleeping experience in the balmy tropics.
Waking up to the morning sun streaming in through porcelain vent blocks with the sound of birds and prayer calls ringing over the historic city, this shophouse was one of my most memorable travel accommodation experiences as a journey back into time. I’ve worked in a shophouse for years (and as a designer, that’s even longer) but to stay in such an old and untouched one gave me a new perspective on the ubiquitous building type.
