Urban Village

We always in the dilemma how to create a successful Urban Village in new township planning process. Place making and city comforts always the key factors that make urban life pleasant; places where people can meet, methods to tame cars and to make buildings good neighbours, art that infuses personality into locations and makes them into places.

An urban village demand an unique characteristics that can promote, not only a sense of community, but also diversity and environmental sustainability.

KLAF2018 - Catalouge _ Urban Symphony

 

Kuala Lumpur Architecture Festival KLAF2018 was an amazing event, We are honoured to be part of the event. Being one of the speakers line up, we glad to see how success of the event, and to managed to bring the event to be more relevant to the architecture and building industry. Highly appreciate the effort of the organizer has managed to elevate the standard of the event to another high for this annual event.

Also, we are glad to share our place-making project in Official KLAF2018 catalogue, with the article that managed to record our approach in promoting awareness of quality public space, in conjunction with WUF9.

Urban Symphony

Who doesn’t remember makeshift telephones made of wire and cans? Urban Symphony interactive sculpture is inspired by this childhood toys, but a bit more complex and a lot cooler looking!

In conjunction with WUF9 Kuala Lumpur, we had been invited to collaborate with UNHabitat to set up a pop-up art installation intended to promote awareness of quality public spaces in Kuala Lumpur city. 2 days on-site installation works conducted by the team, as we remarked that erecting the arts work on the street allowed passers-by to engage with their artistic process, ask question about the work, the process and goals.

UPVC pipes given the designer great flexibility in forming the angle and shape with its off-the-shelves angle joint. This interactive art formed by the combination of 36 vertical modules of various heights. As people speak into these modules, their voices are amplified and carried out into the air. The breeze carries these words and ideas into the atmosphere to create a collective voice. Trumpet-shaped listening devices are installed at the end of the each module, where painted Symphony Horns standing high – some angles toward the sky, some is pointed to the human level. Children can explore the playful qualities of sound by talking into one end of the sculpture to produce sound for the listener on the other end.

The installation work intended to bring the community together; it is the place that people meet with friends, stop for lunch, enjoy the time with family; The material used for seats and benches are 100% recyclable, these seating has been landscaped with 55 recycled pallets placed in between the Symphony Horn intended to break down the conventions of standardized seating patterns, utilizing height and space, as well as offering a large amount of external seating in this familiar urban space.

Tape arts be part of this installation work to entice, delight and direct the pedestrian flow and experience this public space. The colourful lines arts borrows from the language of KL-city metro map vector as it is a vibrant and memorable wayfinding indication of this growing urban legible city. 

Urban Symphony, a fundamentally demonstrated versatile space that hold any kind of public activity. The installation allowed all kinds of interactions, and allowed visitors to participate in the exhibition and programs organized by UNHabitat for WUF9. It has also successfully offered pedestrians a new experience with its symphony and optical sensation, inverting and magnifying the urban landscape.

Project info:

Architect: Garis Architects Sdn Bhd & GAde Design Workshop

Collaborator: UNHabitat (represented by David A. Sagita & Mitiku Woldesenbet)

Lead Designer: Ar Steven Ngu Ngie Woon

Design Team: Albert Chua, Daniel Tiong, Loh Kwan Seng, Ng Zhia Zhing, Jonathan Lim, Tan Chew Yee

Photographs: Steven Ngu, Ng Zhia Zhing

Comic & Architecture

 

Sometimes we encourage the designers / architects in our design studio to express a complex message in a readily understandable diagrams  or images to supplement their conventional architectural visual representations. Although traditional architectural drawings are well suited for identifying problems, or great visualizing for design idea. Somehow, they are often difficult for laypeople to understand.

Recently, we get an intern to use the comic strip mediums , a very first try in our design studio to express our design idea. The combination of comic strip and diagrammatic drawing makes it possible to express our idea in a very distinctive and succinct manner, in a unique visual style that is accessible to wider audience.

Design team: Garis Architects

Comic Artist: Jonathan Lim

(Ar Ngu Ngie Woon, Albert Chua, Daniel, Kwan Seng) 

Research Campus & Retirement Home Village

Located within the lush tropical landscape at Malaysia, the site is characterized by lakes and water channels. The design of this research based campus is responds to the physical landscape of the site and to the weather patterns particular to this tropical environment.

To allow students to move around the campus freely, while shaded from the sun or protected from downpours, spaceship-shaped canopies shelter the pedestrian paths that wind around the eastern of the site. These canopies intersect to encircle a landscaped park. Arranged around the edge of the canopies are buildings of teaching and research, contained in institution blocks that tuck beneath the edges of the canopies.

Besides, retirement home village has been designated at the western side of the development. Community and the existing landscape natural world became the inspiration for this elderly village, which provides residents with easy access to the outdoors and plenty of the space to gather. The aims of the design is to provide "a sense of belonging in an era of uncertainty" for this group of residents.

Design Architects: Garis Architects S/B (Ar Ngu Ngie Woon)

Farming on the Skysraper

Green urban architecture has been around for a while, it has been widely development from bioclimatic architecture by Dr Ken Yeang back in 80's. Dr Ken Yeang started applying his sustainable design methodology in his skyscrapers design, theoretical writing and researches. Many of the ecologically sustainable buildings being developed today, owe their design principles to the methodology of Dr Ken Yeang.

Today, urban farming and farming on the high rise has been widely discussed and integrated. New self-sustaining urban farming idea is being planned to breath life back into the city.

An idea of eco-farming has been assimilated in one of our highrise tower design that nested at industrial land use land. Re-development proposal of this land into urban farming center that integrates technology for resource cycling (rainwater harvesting & cycling, garden fertilization to create a mixed-use building and vertical farming as new typology of community living skyscraper.

A community market place has been designated at the podium of the development. The vision of these green market is vibrant key node for civic and community uses. The market place is intended to reconfigure the public nodes and its connectivity to adjacent BRT, station. Also, the adjacent future developments enhanced. Its provide a comfortable green gathering space, setting up of events.

The towers would be covered with lush farming terrace on the west façade. The planted terraces for each floor will help to absorb sound, provide shade and cleanse the air by absorbing carbon dioxide. In addition to providing the same benefits as vertical farming terrace, it also create a living environment for birds and wildlife.

Design Architects: Garis Architects S/B; GAde Design Workshop

(Ar Ngu Ngie Woon)

The Arc - Winner of Place Making & Public Space Award (MIPPEA)

The winners of the Malaysia Institute Planners (MIP) Planning Excellence Awards were revealed at a ceremony at Kuala Lumpur on 25th November 2016. Fifteen projects from across the state were acknowledged from a total entry pool of 68.

Congratulation to Garis Architects Sdn Bhd and the whole design team. We are honoured to be awarded as Winner in Place Making & Public Space Award - MIP Planning Excellence Awards (MIPPEA 2016).  

 
project info:
project name: the arc at bandar rimbayu
location: bandar rimbayu, selangor, malaysia
architect: garis architects sdn bhd
design team: ar tang hsiao seak, ar steven ngu ngie woon
client: bandar rimbayu sdb bhd, IJM land berhad