Ken Yeang - At One with Nature

Ecological design as the seamless and

benign biointegration of technology

and built environment with nature

All of our endeavours that impact adversely on the planet’s

systems, and most especially our endeavours in designing,

making, using, and recovering, need to be fully guided and

informed by the science of ecology to meet our

needs while allowing nature simultaneously to recover and

thrive. Ecology must play an undeniable central role in every

instance while carrying out these tasks.

Ecology is the study of the interactions between the biotic

constituents in all of its lifeforms and organisms, and their

abiotic physical environments, acting together as whole

systems.

Ecological design is defined as design that is informed by

ecology so as to conserve, protect, and benefit ecosystems

and habitats in the presence of human activities, the human-

made world, and the built environment. It is an approach

that puts nature at the centre of all design thinking. This

approach is referred to here as ‘ecocentricity’, a central

principle in ecological design.

In the built

environment

Constructed habitats

This edition first published 2021

© 2021 T. R. Hamzah & Yeang Sdn. Bhd.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for:

9781119528036

Cover image(s): Courtesy of Ken Yeang

Cover design: Wiley

Contents

Foreword by Dr. Nirmal Kishnanix–xi

Introductionxii–xxi

1: Commercial Developments1–99

2: Residential Developments100–147

3: Canopy Projects148–157

4: Masterplan Projects158–211

5: Green Technology Concepts212–225

6: On Green Design226–236

Index237–238

C O N T E N T S

v i i

viii SKETCHIDEA: AN ECOMASTERPLAN

Ecomasterplanning strategy

Habitats

Habitats

Hybrid constructed

ecosystems

Bioswale oases

Waste recycling

plants

Water recycling

plants

Green sky-court

Greenwall

Green corridor

Green fingers

Eco-undercroft

Net zero energy

design buildings

Elevated

pedestrian deck

Green roof

Ecobridge

Habitats

SKETCH IDEA: AN ECOMASTERPLAN ix

Green sky-courts

Towers with large

vegetated sky-courts

Interconnected buildings

Buildings on pilotis

to let vegetation and

air go through

Public plaza with

louvred canopies

Entertainment and play plazas

Smart cities sytem

Photovoltaic roof over

covered walkway

Ecological fingers

Hybrid constructed

ecosystems

© Ken Yeang

Foreword

Form, in the world of design, is discussed as style, shape, geometry, or reduced to a question

of functionality. But form, really, is a structure of relationships. This structure, made manifest, is the

configuration of pathways and nodes, thresholds, and edge conditions that regulate flow and exchange.

Every designed entity 'building or neighbourhood' is a spatial structure that dictates where people move,

where they pause, and what they do. There might be a parallel structure for how non-human species

do the same. Overlaid onto this are pathways for abiotic flows of energy, water, materials in the built

environment. Flows inside connect to flows outside, beyond boundaries of shell and site.

Ken Yeang, arguably, is one of few architects to link climate and now ecology explicitly to the

morphology of form and its underlying systemic structure. Yeang's bioclimatic model of the 1980s and

more recently his ecological model have re-imagined the arrangement of parts: ‘space, skin, tectonics,

environmental systems, and geographical siting’, and re-articulated the whole in service of multiple

ecological outcomes.

His early work on bioclimatic design was in part feature-based (sunshades, sky-courts, greenery)