B&R stands for Baggage & Rest, but this multiple-use retail lot was created to offer so much more. Primarily a transit lounge and luggage storage for travellers killing time off the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (just 6 km away), B&R is also a café, bar and meeting venue. Whether one agrees or not is a matter of perspective, but B&R may also be the place where you’ll find the fancies of an interior designer let loose.

Couches, beverage bars, bean bags and a pool table furnish spaces for total relaxation and self-reflection. The bean bags are set within “cages”; vertical poles arranged to enclose a space within a space. Personal work stations are offered to give patrons privacy and conducive work areas. Meeting rooms set in colourful animated artwork is used for groups of people in need of office, discussion or presentation rooms.

The profusion of art and color found in this place could only be because of a very personal and vested interest for this project. From the local Borneon mural paintings on the walls to the selection of bluish turquoise retro tiles in the bathroom and the polished gold finish of the bar shelves, everything calls for attention and appraisal. There is a whimsical nostalgia especially in the Colonial Room, furnished to resemble the interiors of the 1900s British North Borneo Railway’s steam engine trains. Even the shower stalls are interactive; pulley baskets stow away belongings instead of the typical wall rack and hooks.