Greening Up High
Interview Dr. Kenneth Yeang, T.R. Hamzah & Yeang, Malaysia
By Christen Jamar

Rarely is Dr. Kenneth Yeang referred to simply as an architect--he is the green architect, the ecoarchitect, the designer of sustainable skyscrapers.

An active explorer of green design techniques long before sustainability was firmly on the architectural community’s agenda, he has made his mark by tirelessly examining how to integrate a building into the environment.

Dr. Yeang’s key contribution to international design has been the study and development of the bioclimatic skyscraper. Acknowledging that the super-tall building is an inevitable part of the built environment, particularly in increasingly urbanised Asia, he has made a career of evaluating how to best construct a building that maximises environmental integration and minimises human isolation.

Buildings such as Aga Khan Award winner Menara Mesiniaga (the IBM satellite located outside Kuala Lumpur) and Singapore’s new National Library exemplify his more-than-30-year investigation into the incorporation of the high-rise into the natural and urban environment. Instead of taking the conventional approach to building design (which is, at best, indifferent to the environment, and at worst, confrontational), he approaches each project as an ecosystem.

With Kuala Lumpur-based firm T.R. Hamzah & Yeang, Dr. Yeang has designed and seen to completion over 200 projects, more than a dozen of which are skyscrapers. His reach, already global with affiliate offices in Beijing, Shenzhen, Sydney and London, extended further when he recently joined forces with U.K. commercial giant Llewelyn Davies to create Llewelyn Davies Yeang.

FuturArc managed to catch Dr. Yeang in Kuala Lumpur on a brief stopover between transcontinental flights, when he patiently took us through the fundamentals of his approach to green design.