Abstract
Today, when one walks down the streets of downtown Yangon, the person will likely catch the glimpse of many moss-covered, weather-stained early-20th Century facades of the historic colonial buildings that are either abandoned or occupied with tenants that take little or no effort to maintain them. In fact, this is the condition of the majority of the colonial buildings in Yangon that used to be the testaments of the ‘golden’ period of colonial Burma.After decades of military rule, when Myanmar finally opened its doors to the world in 2011, these colonial buildings face the threat of being demolished and replaced to give way for urbanization.Thus, there is a need to preserve this colonial heritage to remind ourselves of our past glamour that our ancestors used to live in.When it comes to the conservation, we must ask ourselves, how do we ensure that we still continue to preserve the colonial heritage while promoting the modernization of Yangon in an architecturally sensitive way? How do we inject life into the dilapidating buildings so that they remain relevant and even contribute to Modern Yangon?The goal of this thesis is to explore flexible museum typology using kit-of parts as a more sustainable solution for revitalization of the heritage homes and buildings where the buildings are able to adapt to the occupants’ needs and wants. This new museum-structure-reuse-project proposal hopes to serve as a model to inspire future conservation works in other heritage buildings in order to save the crumbling Burmese Colonial Heritage.