Traditional cultural heritage artefacts in the sultanate palace of Melaka: the benefits of sus-taining cultural values through the furniture design and development process in related fields in Malaysia / Siti Nurmasturah Harun...[et al.]

This paper reports on the first part of an extensive
theoretical and empirical investigation of heritage elements in
the context of world culture. The main objective of this research is
to contribute towards sustaining cultural heritage values, in
Malaysia, though furniture design and development process.
This research focuses on a study of Melaka’s traditional cultural
elements in the Sultanate Palace, while being mindful of the
growth of modernization in Malaysia. Notably, Malaysia is
proud to have a few places listed as World Heritage Sites by
UNESCO. An understanding of the importance of sustaining/
maintaining cultural heritage through furniture design is
assumed to be broadly related to the thinking and problem-solving
methods of designer-makers as reflected overtly in their stepby-
step solutions to furniture design problems which
incorporate cultural values. A basic research has been carried
out to study how an appreciation of historical heritage and
traditional cultural furniture elements began in a society. The
research methodology applied in this research is based on
qualitative methods involving interviews and observations
with a relevant group of designer-makers. As description of
historical artifacts of the Melaka Sultanate are rarely found in
literature, the historical relics of the Melaka Sultanate Palace
have been rebuilt from the viewpoint of the literature “Sulalatus Salatin”, in order to reminisce on the greatness of Melaka and the uniqueness of the Malay traditional culture in the 15th century. This paper will show that it is possible to
incorporate and adapt unique cultural elements into
contemporary furniture design; moreover, this outcome will
facilitate the building up of reference materials relevant to
design education as well as for heritage organization purposes.