Can a facade become a meaningful space for activity?

09 February 2021 by Konzepte Asia

TOKIO MARINE HEADQUARTERS KL

Tokio Marine’s Kuala Lumpur headquarters sits along Jalan Ampang, straddling the bustling city center and Ampang’s low-rise, lower-density residential edge. Paying homage to the duality of the site, the building pivots seamlessly between the two conditions, its facade pleated and faceted to simultaneously address both the density of the CBD as well as the quieter neighbourhood and parklands adjacent.

Communal and gathering spaces are inverted and placed on the ‘outside’- gone are the traditional corner offices! These interstitial spaces terrace down the exterior, cloaking the building in a veil of activity. The façade goes beyond the role of an enclosure or aesthetics, instead it becomes habitable and usable or as we like to call it – ‘thick’.

Form in this case is internally informed and motivated, bridging the activities within the building with the activity and dynamism of the hustle and bustle of Jalan Ampang.

Can a facade become a meaningful space for activity?

Konzepte Asia

Architect

DESIGN OFFICEKonzepte brings together a team of architects, designers and thinkers from across three cities: Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Phnom Penh. Our carefully assembled, inter-disciplinary team of experts combines an extensive body of technical knowledge with an intrinsic intercultural intelligence. Thus, we create outcomes which respond to very specific needs of the environments we operate in and the communities whom we serve.Our work spans typologies, scales, and domains, and we draw inspiration from a multitude of fields, reaching across disciplines to extend our collective learnings through all our projects. Our experience in a variety of markets and cultures also means that we’re able to take the best of cutting edge know-how and couple that with time-tested, local techniques to create an effective hightech-lowtech synthesis.