Paris-based Agence Jouin Manku took on its first large-scale integrated architectural and interior design commission in 2003, when YTL Design Group from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, invited it to design the residence of a Malaysian power family.
Completed in the latter part of 2008, the residence is the ultimate expression of the taste, influence and industrial-scale capabilities of the prominent family whose entrepreneurial activities have shaped Kuala Lumpur’s skyline.
Because of the landscaping, the house blends into its natural setting in spite of occupying a vast proportion of the site, which is about 1 acre in size. As the visitor ascends from the automobile entrance at street to the living and family dining area a floor above, he or she has the impression of being simultaneously outside and inside the house. The integration with the outdoors recalls the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, yet at the same time its openness and its elevation off the ground relates it to certain traditional Malaysian architecture. It is an original attempt to define a new residential architecture for a tropical climate, if at a scale few may find feasible to emulate.
