Thiniking Outside The Box (Integrated Property Development)

I know, I know...the title is long winded. I'm after all trying to support our great PM's call for the people to think outside the box. So, after this there will be a series of Thinking Outside the Box (TOB) writings that I'll be doing on and off.

To get things started here is an idea I had after driving 6 hours continuously from Kuantan to Putrajaya to KL (after having faced with a long journey, I have to face long congestions) . I was with a friend of mine that I have not meet for nearly 9 years. So as usual after hours of talking we the topics range from all sort of things until finally it arrived at this topic: "Integrated Property Development". Of course this idea came from facing such a long, boring and dreary congestion in KL!!

While in the traffic, I was discussing with my friend how to reduce time in traffic. The answer is fairly easy, that is not to drive into traffic. In order to achieve that, I have to stay at an area where everything is provided for. Ranging from workplace, health clinics, shops, schools etc. At first, the solution to get this done is by putting all this in a central position surrounded by houses (I call this group of development as IDC (Integrated Development Clusters) . All of this should be within walking distance (20-30 minutes) from one point another. But after thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that such a model is not feasible due to the fact that my employers might not be willing to move office for the sake of my well being!

But I'm thinking that the idea is sound, since we already have buildings concept such as SoHo, Planned township etc. But unfortunately, in my honest opinion, this concepts are not holistic, including my idea. So I need to tweaked a bit this idea of mine to make it at least plausible to do.

First, we need to have a working environment where work can be done beyond office. This is already possible by having mobile technologies, and already people are using it for home office and such. But not all employees can work properly in the comfort of their own house. So what we need is a place where employees can go to one place where they are not in the office, nearby his house and still be able to do work. If you have 300 to 400 employees from different organization doing this at a central area, then you'll have the Universal Productivity Area (UPA), a truly open office concept where people from different organization can work together at the same place. UPA will have the necessary hardware and software capabilities to enable people to work. (I.e. working area, unassigned desks, coffee corner, LAN, WiFi etc)

Around the UPA should be provided facilities for health clinics, schools, banking institutions, public services counters/machines, security points (police beat or station), retails units (such as shopping mall). All of this will be the Core of IDC.

Surrounding this Core will be residential units of around 300 - 400 houses. All should be walking distances (10 - 20 minutes) from the Core. People working in the UPA is encourage through various incentives to stay in this residential areas.

The next step would be to create more IDCs that is connected to one another to form an IDC Township.