The Sungai Buloh Leprosy Center was the second largest leprosarium opened in 1930 to house the quarantined victims of leprosy. Leprosy patients do not anticipate their diagnosis as they will be forcibly pulled from their family and loved ones to sustain and grow up in a foreign environment. As more patients culminated in the center from all over the British colony, a micro-community was set which allowed for jobs, education, fostered friendships and even marriage. However, each one of them still longed for the day they would be cured and return to society.

Now, leprosy was cured and most of the original settlers left the valley, but the history of the site crumbles along with it, the original walls have since grown with age with “spots” and “scars” and the site is devoured by the lush greenery around it. When walking through the decrepit neighbourhoods, the mind begins to wander and think about how the frames of the now abandoned homes once saw a knit community that shared together in their tribulation yet still found a hope to look forward to.

The architecture of the Visitor Interpretive Center intends to capture the emotive journey of a new settler within the leprosarium while paying homage to the deeply feared lepers, empathizing with them and celebrating their history of healing. As such, the typology of repeated frames were selected to play with scale and the way lights and shadows interact with it to create an atmosphere of oppression and release which terminates in a perch that overlooks the entire settlement, allowing for the recollection of memories and deep empathy.