Garden Village

Density in the form of a village

Garden Village is a fundamental rethink of how high-density mixed development projects are configured and assembled. The form factor taken is informed by smaller towns in Malaysia and South East Asia – tightly packed, eclectic mid-rise blocks that overlap, each with a distinctive character. Density is achieved not simply by building taller, homogeneous tower blocks but by human-scaled structures that foster a sense of connectedness, with a stronger relationship with the ground plane.

The Tyranny of Carparks

The other challenge of high-density projects in Malaysia is the onerous provision of carparks. Typically to a ratio of 2 bays per apartment, carparks aggregate into imposing, monolithic podium structures often up to 10 storeys tall, crowding out the ground plane and disconnecting the living floors from the street.

Garden Village overcomes this by ‘burying’ more than 2,000 carparks below a terracing ground plane that climbs three storeys from the level of the street to its peak. Liberated from elevated parking structures, the tower blocks directly nestle into this heavily landscaped plane, reinstating the connection with ‘ground’.  One arrives at the lobby of each block immersed in a collection of lush tropical gardens, communal plazas,  fields of native wild grass, and a meandering river.