Since Breakfast Thieves, Liang has been busy with a wide variety of projects, including Three Years Old in Jalan Sin Chew Kee and Fung Wong in Petaling Street, showcasing her clean aesthetic and meticulously detailed hand. She’s also started her own stackable wooden furniture and home accessories range.

This endeavour continues Liang’s interest in furniture design and predilection for custom designing furniture for her projects. While Studio CocoKacang is still in its early days, this one-person design dynamo has accomplished so much in this short time and looks poised to achieve much more.

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Elegant lights showcasing an understanding of materiality and the subtlety of illumination aptly sums up the work of Aureole Design. Aureole describes the circle of light surrounding a head, usually, a halo depicted in artwork, was established by Tan Wei Ming in 2013.

Trained in typography and having practised graphic design, Tan decided to explore her love for lighting and furniture design after being part of a design collective in 2007 producing custom furniture, lighting and interior pieces for projects. 

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Since then Tan’s small but considered range has seen her collaborating with traditional craftsmen or exploring heritage techniques and materials. Her Dǒugǒng collection, carried by Singapore’s The Artling, adapts interlocking wooden brackets found in traditional Chinese architecture to create a design motif repeated in lighting pieces, a bench, a side table and standing mirrors.

Geometry features delicate “origami folds” of Terrazzo and her Line series is a minimalist take on Mid-Autumn festival lanterns. The Column light series adapts the Art Deco geometric lines in simple repetitive steps forming a column that extends as a sculptural pedestal and elevates the light source.

Referencing Asian Floor Culture, the Ketupat ottoman series is a  social innovation venture between the Penan community of Sarawak, Tanoti and Aureole Design. Poetic yet rigorous, Tan's modern take on tradition has created compelling work celebrating craftsmanship with the refinement of fine art.

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Mesmerising installations which blur the boundaries between architecture, design and art are architectural designer Pamela Tan’s calling card. Founder of Poh Sin Studio, her Eden installation commissioned by a developer to reflect nature won the Bronze award in the Design for Asia Award 2020 under Environmental Design. However, instead of lush greenery, Tan created an intricate all-white garden of delight which invites visitors to re-discover how nature can be experienced by magnifying subtle details through its organic structures.

Just as complex but evoking a completely different response is Projection: Kite commissioned for the Good Vibes music festival 2019 which won the Merit award alongside Eden. A spatial installation of woven colourful strings, the playful piece allows visitors to experience a visual portal of lightness and transparency.

Tan, who obtained her Masters in Architecture from the University of Greenwich, chose to pursue work that mediates seamlessly between art, design and architecture. Her work ranges in scale from product design to public installation and has a cerebral slant; after all, her first year MArch studio project titled Mappa Mundi: A Map Maker’s Dream was selected to be exhibited in London’s The Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibition 2015.

The uplighting effect of Tan's work can be seen in Lend Me Your Wings, I Pray, an ethereal artwork commissioned for Thomson hospital and Sunny Side Up, a sunny yellow installation to brighten up daily commuters at the Pasar Seni MRT station. Memory Veil, a festive installation at Pavilion that recalls the nostalgia of beaded curtains, is equal parts sensorial and captivating.

While Tan's oeuvre is grounded in profound concepts, it is accessible as well as one cannot help but be drawn to their undeniable aesthetic appeal. It's heartening that the local design landscape has space for Tan whose work defies easy categorisation because what lies ahead for this young architectural designer looks as intriguing as her work.

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Studio Bikin was founded by Farah Azizan and Adela Askandar in 2012 and their decision of not using their names for their studio was a deliberate one. The Architecture Association-trained  Azizan and Cambridge alumni Askandar chose a colloquial word that means “do" or “make”. A statement of intent, it also reflects their context-driven work favouring simple, honest materials that age well in our climate instead of imported materials.

This philosophy has found an appreciative audience and the duo have busy with a wide range projects from commercial to hospitality across Malaysia including The Row Kuala Lumpur, Commons in Kuching and an eagerly anticipated refresh of The Stories of Taman Tunku.

The duo’s craft-driven approach is particularly effective in residential projects and have been highly sought-after in designing private residences. Their transformation of banal mid-terrace houses or meticulously detailed new builds is nothing short of joyous celebrations of materiality and spatial optimisation.

Their dramatic transformation of Else hotel in the Petaling Street area embodies this approach and showcases a design language that sensitively balances the new and the old, the raw and the refined.

Even amid the unrelenting pace of back-to-back projects, Azizan and Askandar have grown their furniture arm, Kedai Bikin, which features quirky local inspired pieces and carries the tagline, "Why fake it when you can make it". This can be applied to the trajectory of this unstoppable combo who have not only made it—but made it on their own terms. 

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For Penang-born Bee Eu Tan, who has worked in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur on new builds, her return to her hometown has been an auspicious one, not just for her career trajectory but for the state's neglected heritage buildings. Her first project,  Penang Institute's colonial Annex Bungalow, kickstarted a career in architectural conservation.

This was followed by The Penang Digital Library, formerly the Penang Free School’s headmaster’s quarters which Tan transformed into the first standalone, built-for-purpose library without books. The project was awarded the Alteration and Addition Category gold medal at the PAM 2019, making Tan’s company, BETA, the youngest practice to win a top prize. BETA would take home another PAM gold medal two years later, this time in the Adaptive Reuse Category, for the redesign of Harmony Centre, Penang’s first interfaith communal building.

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Tan's winning streak continued when Kedah Digital Library won a Gold in Adaptive Reuse Category at the PAM 2022. More heritage buildings have benefited from Tan’s sensitive treatment, including the elegant George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) office building and the art deco-style Penang Hill Gallery @Edgecliff.

Although Tan finds working on new buildings liberating and exciting, she says breathing second lives into heritage buildings is unexpectedly and profoundly rewarding, not to mention an example of how an architect can make a difference in the local community.

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Eleena Jamil contemporary works marry homegrown, organic building materials with modern ones to create enduring architecture with strong references to the Asian context and culture. The Penang-born architect completed her Masters of Philosophy and PhD at Cardiff University before returning to Malaysia and setting up her eponymous practice, Eleena Jamil Architect, in 2005.

Her concern about responsible and sustainable building led to her focus on climate-sensitive buildings and using plant-based materials like timber and bamboo in combination with other more modern materials in her works.

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Of her projects, the Bamboo Playhouse probably has the biggest impact. This public pavilion located in Perdana Botanical Gardens was the first formal structure in the country to use bamboo as its main building material, something rarely used in modern construction.

Eleena’s private residence projects range from terraces transformations to bespoke bungalows, all of which revolve around the architect's thoughtful and sustainable ethos. 

In conjunction with these, the firm works on research projects like About Making, which explores the processes of the building craft with an emphasis on the skills, worldview and approaches of craftsmen. She is also working on a self-initiated building project that explores sustainable materials like bamboo, timber and rammed earth in low-income housing.

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While interior designer Karen Mok does not have any social media or web presence, chances are you’ve enjoyed spending time in one of her projects. The solo interior designer of over 25 years is responsible for such chic F&B projects as Coley in Bangsar, Okaju Japanese Robatayaki restaurant in The Starhill (which won Best Interior Design for Tatler Dining Awards 2023) and design-led Serai Group's Lola.

Design has always been an integral part of Mok’s lifestyle, who always takes a design-driven approach to create unique and personalised styles. A few core beliefs define her meticulously detailed work; firstly, she doesn't stick to one style and constantly challenges herself to step beyond her comfort zone to avoid repeating what she's done before.

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Additionally, she is a strong believer in the importance of the human touch and is very curious about the materials, colours, shades, angles, and balance in design, resulting in spaces which explore unexpected combinations.

With her busy schedule, her furniture brand, Kerusi, is taking a back seat for now but she continues to work on more unique design-led F&B spaces.

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Founded by Eliz Wong and Yong Wei Lew, DualSpace Studio is creating thoughtfully designed and beautifully crafted spaces in the Klang Valley and beyond. 

While Wong was an architecture student and Lew was in interior design at Raffles College, the duo met while they were living together as housemates. Lew then went on to Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom while Wong started working in an interior design firm, even though they kept in touch

They started DSS.lab, an experimental product arm, in 2021 and kicked off DualSpace Studio in 2018 when Lew returned to Malaysia. Since then, they have completed an impressive variety of work, from private residences to commercial spaces, wellness studios, and F&B outlets.

Their interior design work can be distinguished by their design rigour and meticulous detail, and while they tend to favour the minimalist, the duo have proven themself equally adept in more vibrant and textural palettes. Some of their works have received international awards from iF Design Awards 2024 and Golden Pins 2023.

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Sarah Rahman’s career trajectory epitomises the fusion of creativity and academia in interior design. As a lecturer at Universiti Teknologi MARA, she imparts her insights to budding designers, drawing from her own journey, which began with a Master’s in Interior Design from the Royal College of Art in 2017. Sarah’s talent earned her recognition, including the prestigious Best Drawing Award and the Dean’s Prize nomination.

Upon her return to Malaysia, Sarah founded Studio Andragogy, a design-led studio practice where she cultivates an environment where design pragmatics and education intersect.

Specialising in retail and commercial ventures, the studio also delves into art and design installations, exemplified by the Niko Neko Matcha Paper Installation, meticulously assembled by hand, piece by torn piece. Noteworthy among her recent endeavours is the collaboration with Gamuda Gardens for the Rhythm Fiesta event, wherein Sarah's studio conceived a captivating hanging backdrop incorporating fabrics, lighting hues, and effects.

Currently, Sarah is spearheading a project for the Malaysian Timber Council, designing the NilamPuri timber furniture collection inspired by the architectural heritage of Masjid Kampung Tua in Kelantan. With sustainability as a driving force, the collection aims to reduce fast furniture waste while offering modular solutions for various living spaces and is set to debut this year.

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