This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 14, 2022 - November 20, 2022

Winner | REXKL | Rex KL Sdn Bhd

The stand-alone building with vibrant and flashy doodles protrudes from other shoplots in Jalan Sultan, Kuala Lumpur. Bearing the name of its predecessor, REXKL retains a significant portion of the iconic Rex Cinema’s structure for both its exterior and interior. For the most part, the building’s rustic ash-grey walls and mosaic-tiled staircase are maintained to preserve its history.

Built in 1947, the REXKL building was one of the first cinemas in the country. After a fire in 1972, the building was rebuilt as Rex Cinema in 1976, a single-screen theatre with a seating capacity of more than 1,000. It was operated by the Shaw Brothers Studio. Later, Golden Screen Cinemas took control, but had to halt operations in 2002 when another fire broke out. A few years later, the building was used as a hostel for travellers and backpackers before it caught fire again in 2007.

In 2017, the landlord approached architects and now co-founders of REXKL, Shin Chang and Shin Tseng, to take over the building operations. Tseng says the first thing the team did was connect with the space and its environment before trying to identify the right meaning of the building.

It took a team of seven partners to successfully execute the transformation. Besides Chang and Tseng, the team comprises two other architects (Kamil Merican from GDP Architects and Ng Sek San from Seksan Design) as well as tour company Marco Polo Holidays Sdn Bhd, a friend from a branding agency and a lawyer. BEP Akitek Sdn Bhd was tasked with curating the space and reinstating the original architecture as core ideas. Following the transformation, the 60,000 sq ft building in the heart of one of KL’s busiest areas is now an arts and cultural centre that promotes events, exhibitions, performances and screenings, and features BookXcess bookstore , retail outlets and F&B stalls.

REXKL is the recipient of the Excellence in Conservation and Adaptive Reuse award at The Edge Malaysia Property Excellence Awards 2022. The award recognises the best conservation and adaptive reuse projects that preserve our heritage and history, and reintroduce them to a new generation.

Tseng says there is more to adaptive reuse than just occupying a space. “It’s more about respecting the culture, its historical value, the intangibles, surrounding community and context. The larger misperception of adaptive reuse is to just move into a building and use it without understanding its surroundings. In such a scenario, the adaptive element will not be present, so that’s not adapting to the overall context and environment.”

Renovation works for the building commenced in early 2019 and were carried out in stages. “The whole team was adamant about respecting the building’s original structure, so we didn’t really renovate much. It was more a series of small renovations — room-to-room and floor-to-floor sort of thing, not big-scale construction. There was much attentiveness from our architects and contractors to ensure the areas we wanted to retain were left undamaged. As a result of the fire, we had to redo the wiring, plumbing and all the other internal bits.

“When we first got the building, there were [many] rooms and makeshift partitions inside, so it was in pretty bad shape. We spent a lot of time removing all the unnecessary partitions and restoring the open layout the cinema used to have,” Chang explains.

Tseng adds that it took nine months to take possession of the building because it was still being used by the previous tenants. “Before we moved in, the building was used as a travellers’ hostel. We had to wait for them to move out and relocate somewhere else prior to commencing renovation.

“Cleaning up the place and removing scraps were the difficult parts, it was definitely a very long process. The building had a lot of illegal extensions that piled up in the span of 10 years due to the hostel’s operation. [They] were quite hazardous, so we had to get rid of them.

“There were a lot of abandoned spaces that needed to be cleared as well. The previous tenant had blocked all the entrances [except the main one] and stairwells. Over the years, the build-up of cobwebs in the rooms was almost like a vacuum in the space, which made it very difficult for anyone to enter, and we discovered a lot of spaces like these,” Tseng adds.

The ground floor, previously an open car park, was cleared first. Chang says they retained the structure to allow natural ventilation into the building. While they were still in the midst of renovating the upper floors, Tseng says the newly cleared and renovated ground floor was used as a flower market.

“We had to pause the renovation works for some time due to Chinese New Year [hence] we used the gap to bring in small-scale flower vendors for the market. The ground floor car park was cleared first, so the market was placed there. [Then], we carried on with the refurbishment of the other floors and rooms,” explains Tseng.

That car park has now been transformed into a food hall that offers a variety of cuisine. Tseng says: “As we cleared more spaces, we started having events from the end of September 2019. Then in March 2020, we had the national lockdown. During that time, we couldn’t do much, so we pivoted to F&B (food and beverage) and rebranded the food hall into what we call ‘The Back Ground’.”

REXKL has a total of four floors and two mezzanines on the ground and second floors. F&B stalls at The Back Ground include Stellar Coffee, The Bao Guys, The REX Bar, Phil’s Pizza, Pasta Lah, Grun, Stellar Cake Room, Hijau, Ticklish Ribs and ‘Wiches, Chu by Fifty Tales and Alta Burger.

The trendy BilaBila Mart is situated at the entrance of REXKL, right by the lobby staircase. The ground mezzanine has a wine bar called Cheong Somm, ice cream stall Licky Chan and tattoo parlour The Poke Guy.

The flooring for the first level, where the main hall is located, was upgraded and is now used as an event space for concerts, gigs, music performances and exhibitions, among others. This floor also has small retail businesses and vending machines by ATLAS Vending that feature artworks from local artists.

Anchor tenant BookXcess occupies the second, mezzanine and third floors. Adapting to the building’s existing structure, BookXcess joined hands with REXKL’s team to design and create its unique multi-tiered bookshelves.

Also on the third floor is ShhhBuuuLeee, a rooftop dining experience that overlooks downtown Kuala Lumpur.

Tseng also gives an update on the building’s latest addition that was completed a few months ago, an alley activation project. His team received a grant and approval from ThinkCity and Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL). REXKL now has a laneway with shaded conjoined tables and chairs that serve as an outdoor space for the building’s visitors.

In terms of income, Chang says REXKL has a few income streams. “We don’t lease the space but rather have created a partnership-like contract with our tenants. Most of them are quite young, so they don’t have the capital for their business. Therefore, we work with them by providing the space, building the brand and even creating some of the menus.

“We also charge very low maintenance and management fees. Although we help them set up the business, we don’t interfere with the operations,” says Chang, adding that the rental rates vary, depending on the type of space a tenant occupies.

Other than that, they also have a profit-sharing agreement with the F&B vendors and rent out REX Hall to clients at different rates according to the type of event, among other terms and conditions.

“It was always a dream of mine to work on a project like [REXKL]. Both Tseng and I have always wanted to revitalise buildings and try to fit in different content within them,” says Chang. “The idea of REXKL is primarily related to space experimentation and our way of doing it is by incorporating new ideas along the way. The progress is definitely constant and even today, we’re still progressing. We have a community-centric arts and cultural hub that works as a platform for young entrepreneurs and artists.”

Chang shares that the content or business they offer is known as the “software” aspect of REXKL. The big idea was to have different tenants fit each space accordingly.

“It’s more about curating several spaces. We wanted to see which tenant was suitable for each space as well as how they complement the overall ecosystem of REXKL.”

Right before sharing the challenges faced during the transformation of the building, both Tseng and Chang let out a long sigh.

“There were so many challenges, and they kept appearing as more work was done,” Chang recalls. “Oftentimes, there were a lot of things we wanted to try, but that process might hinder our original goal so it was important to stick to the team’s path.

“Aside from renovation and designing, the other challenge was communicating with people from the neighbourhood and surrounding community because they have different perceptions on reusing the building. I think some of them don’t see a future or perhaps they haven’t recognised it, so it’s always about managing different expectations.

“There were comments about how we cleared the car park space to add food stalls, and some complained that it was not convenient anymore because there were too many people coming into the area, which created traffic congestion,” adds Chang.

Nonetheless, every cloud has a silver lining. A particular occurrence, he recalls, silenced the naysayers.

“When we first started, there were a lot of hawkers in the area and most had never attended music events or performances. One of them, I remember vividly, would often come and participate as a viewer during shows at REX Hall. This is something we wanted to see the most, to offer the area and its community different and fresh perspectives.”

Tseng says when they initially started, some vendors in the vicinity expressed their happiness in hopes of receiving more footfall into the area. “It’s like a symbiosis and synergy that co-exist in the sense where the traditional traits from older stores would complement REXKL whereas this building would bring new energy, content and people to the area. In a way, we’re bringing in more of the younger people, which this part of the city had lost.

“I think I recently had an understanding of the events, I’m not sure if it’s the building that’s affecting or influencing us. This used to be a cinema, a house of entertainment where people would queue up for exclusive shows. After that chapter was closed, I think REXKL has become a new form of entertainment for the city through culture, arts, entrepreneurship and creativity. I’ve come to a realisation that we are carrying the REX spirit,” says Tseng with a thoughtful smile.

“We’re planning to expand REXKL as a brand in the future with urban areas as our focus, but we are also looking at other locations, so nothing is definite yet. The brand will focus on content building and creating the right software. We think architects can not only create designs for buildings, but also the software inside them,” shares Chang.

The ultimate goal, he says, is to fit into different used and old buildings and generate new forms of managing those vacant spaces.

Tseng concurs, adding that the most suitable term for their vision is “activation”. “To put it simply, we’re looking at not just the built environment, but also what’s inside and outside of it. We’re focusing on the relationship between the city and the space as well as the surrounding community and whether they have a platform to showcase talents, plus export the idea to influence the area or city.”

For the duo, the bigger dream is the creation of creative capital that is quite intangible in built environments like these, which blurs the boundaries of physical space and creativity — something Tseng thinks is the missing element in many built environments and architectures around.

“I think we are on to something that is not commercial and we do need a lot of government support. Effective policies and grants will probably make it easier for those who want to get into adaptive reuse architecture in the future.

“This is not a cookie-cutter development process; it’s very bespoke, site-specific and localised. So, it isn’t ‘one size fits all’. Everyone needs to come together and come up with solutions for more adaptive reuse projects across the country, starting from cities,” Tseng concludes.

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