Inspiration
The Woven Basket
The woven basket, or "anyaman" in our local language, is a favourite craft traditionally used to produce a variety of handy items. Leaves are inter-crossed and wound to make a holder or container of some sort. We've found it to have a wonderful personality, with the use of metal or aluminium "leaves", for use as a surface on custom-made furniture. The possibilities are endless.
Light & Air
The power of natural light and air isn't something that we can avoid. It pervades all our ideas, designs and projects. We need enough of it to conserve energy, but we also don't need too much of it. We drive it up the wall through passive design such as in the Tree Cube building, we push it through the wall in the Maya @ Likas project, and of course, we even try to keep it out of the wall when it becomes too insistent by using diffusion. It's a love-hate relationship.
Serious Fun
We love fun. It toys with us, cracks us up when we're being too serious. We love crazy fun ideas. We seriously love fun. And this doesn't really help when someone is trying to be serious about a design. And it shows. Holes in lounge spaces for the kids to run through. Swings smack in the middle of a walk-way. Pieces of equipment hiding and surprising amongst bushes. The oddball character on walls in a teacher-parent room. How serious are we?
Water & Lines
Water isn't just something we drink, clean with or swim in. Water is a tool; it bends light and shadows, it cools and can produce energy. Painted shapes or lines in a swimming pool gives the Pool Area more texture and character, especially when seen from above, as in found in the Maya @ Likas residences.
A lovely gift from a beloved Father of the Bride. The first man she ever loved is her father. One day, he knows he has to let go.
The challenge to ascertain
A forest’s true beauty is contained
In the complicated synergy
That works in all so tranquilly
To dare to dream
Living within is a whim
Unless design achieves
Harmony intentional that gives
The forest it’s peace
So it’s striving can cease
And it will it’s beauty reveal
And become as it was to heal
Danum Valley Conservation Area is a 438 square kilometres tract of relatively undisturbed lowland dipterocarp forest in Sabah, Malaysia. It has an extensive diversity of tropical flora and fauna.
Team KTDA is bewildered by the intricate complexity of this wild location
