A structural solution for vertical expansion of single story terrace row houses in Malaysian context

Abstract

Terrace Row houses are the typical townhouses in urban Malaysia with single or double storied housing units sharing common structural walls on property line with neighbours at both sides. Households always desire to expand their habitable spaces during habitation. But, these units do not provide much room for expansion, at least horizontally. However, they still have the potential to expand vertically up to a limited scale through structural retrofitting. Existing weak foundation is a potential drawback for such expansion, but modern technologies such as steel I section beam, H section column, precast slab and footings, could provide an efficient solution. This study searched for basic structural solution of vertical retrofit of the single story terrace houses in urban Malaysia. Firstly, it procured space requirements for vertical expansion through existing literature. Next, three case studies were selected to represent the major typologies of single story terrace row houses. After that, potential architectural solutions for additional upper floor were produced. Then valid structural solutions of retrofit were performed. The structural retrofit design used Euro Code for the calculations. With the intension of not disturbing the current structural system, the load calculations showed that proposed vertical expansion is structurally valid. This study can give a better option for an upgraded standard of living for the inhabitants of terrace row houses if they do not want to move from their current units.