Boasting an aquarium, cinemas, and even a dinosaur fossil, the Dubai Mall is nothing if not larger-than-life. Fittingly, for the mall’s newest extension Kokaistudios amplified key visual identifiers of Far East Asian culture – including fans, lanterns, and lattice – for an alternative take on traditional Chinatowns.

In the fast-paced world of real estate development, where global designs often take precedence, finding a balance between modernity and tradition can be a challenging endeavor

The Javandi House concept is simplifying Javanese architectural designs into a modern form with strong traditional impression.

Located on Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek, Shanghai Suhe MixC World blurs boundaries between the city’s past, present and future. The project’s starting point was rethinking commercial spaces to better integrate with their surroundings. The resulting ‘urban valley’ presents a brand-new public space in the city and sets a new benchmark for Shanghai.

Located at the harbour front of the West Kowloon Cultural District, the Hong Kong Palace Museum is designed as a distinctive treasure house for Chinese art, culture and history, exhibiting selected art pieces from the Palace Museum and other fine objects from across the globe. The seven-storey building features an exhibition space of 7,800m² across nine galleries. It also houses the Auditorium, Activity Rooms and other ancillary facilities, offering spaces for a rich variety of public programmes to foster visitors’ interest in arts and culture. In collaboration with Rocco Design Architects Associates Ltd, Arup provided total engineering consultancy services, including geotechnical, structural, building services, façade, fire, sustainability, security, acoustics, lighting, audio-visual, landscape design and transport consulting. Arup also acted as the building information modelling (BIM) manager for this project – BIM was fully implemented in the design process, with all design coordination being carried out in the 3D environment.

In 2013, the Fuzhou Government hosted an international invited competition for the Strait Culture and Art Centre with the goal of strengthening the cultural image of the city and the Mawei New Town development area. PES-Architects’ winning proposal aims to offer an extraordinary experience for ordinary users by creating a new type of “cultural shopping mall”.

The popular Korean culture inspired EVONIL Architecture to design KAIBAIBO Bakery Shop.

As one of the prominent brands of local coffee in Indonesia, Titik Temu has opened its most recent branch in Ubud. Being the second branch on the island, the shop is designed with a similar approach yet resulted in a distinctive character compared to the original branch in Seminyak.