KLCC once had the tallest building in the world; our ambition was to build the greenest. Commissioned for the Exxon site adjacent to Kuala Lumpur's iconic Petronas Towers, this fully designed and documented mega-project represents Austin Maynard Architects' capacity to operate at the absolute limits of scale and sustainability. Rather than defaulting to a traditional, hard, dominant skyscraper, we conceptualised an organic structure that changes and evolves via low-maintenance, self-sufficient hanging gardens. By splitting and dividing the tower forms like a cell, the architecture responds directly to the extreme tropical climate, creating a breathable vertical community.
The towers were designed to act as a high-performance environmental engine. We engineered the curved facades to capture monsoon rainwater through vertical channels, articulating it directly into the hanging gardens. To combat the intense Malaysian sun, the buildings feature a striking white appearance achieved through heat-reflective and UV-resistant solar film. This film is intricately patterned with super-graphic trees that vary in density, providing targeted shading and mimicking the dappled light of a forest floor within the interior office spaces. Furthermore, we utilised the concentrated air-flow between the structures to our advantage, integrating wind turbines between the towers to generate substantial on-site renewable energy and reduce the development's carbon footprint.
At the ground level, the project redefines the relationship between the city and the public realm. Traditional podium architecture often dislocates a building from its surroundings. Instead, we designed a "reverse podium"—inspired by the Louvre in Paris—that pushes the commercial and logistical functions below a trafficable ground plane. This radical move effectively dissolves the barrier between the city and the adjacent KLCC park, allowing the lush greenery to flow continuously underneath the towers and out to the street. Designed to achieve a LEED Platinum rating, this project mapped a blueprint for reducing energy use by 70% and mains water consumption by 90%, proving that hyper-density and uncompromised sustainability can co-exist.