Caelum: Reimagining Urban Regeneration Through Air Rights and Vertical Development | Masters Design Thesis

Site Context

There is an old, hidden apartment complex in Sea Park, Petaling Jaya. It is nestled at the bottom of a dip, enclosed from view by surrounding bungalows and terrace houses, so that only the roofs of its highest floors peek out. Many PJ residents are surprised to hear it exists.

But these apartments are “enclosed” in more ways than one: The original developer of the apartments sold the apartments’ car park and common areas—which surround the apartment blocks—to an individual, leaving residents in the unusual position of having their homes completely encircled by someone else’s private land. To go home, residents first need to trespass.

Summary of the Seapark apartment dispute: The land where Sea Park Apartment is located was subdivided into 10 lots, where six lots were for the six apartment blocks, while the other four lots comprised the common areas surrounding the six blocks. Six applications for a strata title were made for each of the apartment blocks. In 2008, the developer sold the land to a business associate for the price of RM 400,000. The consequences were immediate and severe. Residents had to trespass just to reach their homes. 

Sea Park Apartment stands as one of Petaling Jaya’s earliest high-rise housing developments, built during a time before clear housing laws and strata regulations were fully established. Today, it stands as a critical signifier of the flaw of Malaysia’s current land and housing laws, revealing how outdated legal frameworks struggle to address aging buildings, collective ownership, and the complexities of vertical development in contemporary urban contexts.

Through this approach, the project demonstrates how new laws and legal instruments are urgently needed to address vertical ownership and layered development. Spatium Title is not about building higher for profit alone. It is about enabling regeneration without displacement, allowing new development to coexist with the old, and transforming rooftops and airspace into opportunities for collective benefit. It demands new architectural strategies.

For more detailed documentaries, please refer to: https://thefourth.media/apartments/

Design Process

A series of architectural and regulatory guidelines regarding spatium development have been developed to support layered and inclusive urban growth. This thesis focuses on testing and applying the proposed guidelines, with Sea Park Apartment selected as the case study site. The established guidelines are adapted and contextualized to address the specific local conditions and challenges of the research area. Rather than being adopted directly, the guidelines are refined and implemented within the legal, construction, and spatial frameworks of the case study, ensuring their relevance and applicability to the Malaysian context.

Final Outcome

Spatium Title is not about building higher for profit alone. It is about enabling regeneration without displacement, allowing new development to coexist with the old, and transforming rooftops and airspace into opportunities for collective benefit.

Although such an approach seems to be challenging the law, which we are told not to do since the first day of our thesis briefing. But from the case of Sea Park Apartment, we have seen a fundamental limitation in Malaysia’s current land and building law, where the legal framework is unable to resolve such conflicts. In this context, spatium development emerges not as a provocation, but as a necessary alternative.

Conclusion: Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates how Spatium Title can offer an alternative model for urban regeneration by unlocking airspace as a shared resource. Through the Sea Park Apartment case, it proposes a framework that enables renewal without displacement while addressing limitations within existing land and ownership systems.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]