This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 19, 2022 - December 25, 2022

Penang-based architecture firm BEu Tan Architect (BETA) is known for its local conservation and adaptive reuse projects. The firm, spearheaded by its principal architect Tan Bee Eu and managing partner Teh Young Loong, offers architectural and concept design, and interior, landscape, urban renewal and branding services.

Among its prominent projects are the Penang Hill @ Edgecliff, Penang Harmony Centre, Kedah Digital Library and the Penang Digital Library 2. Penang Harmony Centre is the 2021 winner of The Edge Malaysia-PAM Green Excellence Award.

BETA emphasises being true to its projects by taking into account not only the site or building but also its surroundings and local communities.

The firm’s aspirational keywords are “humble, honesty and respect”, says Tan. “We believe in humble architecture that follows function over form. We are not driven by complex designs because we believe every building should respond to its surrounding context and user needs. We also strive to pursue honesty in our architecture, which celebrates the sense of place. Our team practises being honest with who we are, our roots, identity and lastly, respect for the nature that surrounds us.”

Tan founded BETA in 2015, after working in consultancy and property development firms for 13 years. “At that point in my career, I had amassed strong design experience in a diverse typology of international proposals such as skyscrapers in Dubai, a shopping mall in Jakarta, an island resort in the Maldives and other large mixed-use developments. I had just completed eight high-rise projects that ranged from 36 to 60 storeys, including serviced suites in KLCC.

“Yet, I felt [like] something [was] missing at the end of every project. My projects were commercially successful, yet I did not feel I had done enough in impacting the communities around me. Hence, [I took] a leap of faith and started my own practice to pursue my aspirations of creating architecture that impacts the community and environment,” she says.

Being an architect was not Tan’s initial dream. “My earliest ambition was to be a florist. It morphed into being an artist in fine arts, then a fashion designer. During my teenage years, I had set my mind on being a doctor because I wanted to make a difference in the world. In the end, my university application landed me in an architecture course in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). It may not have been my first choice, but it felt like the path chose me. I honestly have no regrets. Through architecture, I have discovered the power of creation, just like what florists, artists and fashion designers do. Architecture, if done right, brings joy and delight to us. Quality spaces rejuvenate the livelihood of the community, regardless of age, race and income group. To me, great architecture heals and saves lives too.”

Tan says the two most significant things her team is passionate about are nature and conservation. The firm’s two most notable projects, Penang Harmony Centre and Kedah Digital Library, celebrate nature by respecting all existing trees on-site. Tan says this is another principle the firm will stick to for its existing and upcoming projects.

The idea for Penang Harmony Centre was first proposed in 2017 by the then Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng as a facility for Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Taoist members to hold gatherings. It was completed in November 2019.

The main building was originally a 4,300 sq ft colonial-era Malay-style state government bungalow with a verandah featuring lattices in a ketupat-weave motif. Its annex building is a 2,800 sq ft community hall that was built when BETA took charge to repurpose the site.

Today, Penang Harmony Centre has four major functions — learning, administration, events and meetings — and spaces such as an administrative office, meeting room, discussion areas, a multipurpose community hall and a children’s play area.

Given that it is an adaptive reuse project, Tan says 95% of the main building’s original structure has been retained with simple refurbishments done for its interior. “We respected the roofline of the original Malay-style house and [adopted] that for the new community hall.”

In terms of its design, she explains that the team at BETA was inspired by the notion of “going back to the basics”. “From the outside, the bungalow has a simple and calming exterior because of its light colours. For the interior, we employed rudimentary ventilation and daylighting strategies throughout the spaces. With an aim of being energy efficient, the repurposed timber bungalow was redesigned to have natural cross-ventilation along the longitudinal spine from the front to the back of the house. Daylight can enter from all sides of the building to brighten up the previously dark interior spaces, further magnified by a new central skylight.

“The community hall has ‘accordion walls’ and narrow slits in its roof, providing natural light, which gives the space balanced and soothing illumination. Surrounded by vast open spaces and tropical gardens, the centre has the capacity to hold more than 300 public users at the same time,” says Tan.

For the building’s renovation, Tan’s team used bituminous lightweight roofing sheets, steel structures, acoustic mineral fibreboard ceilings and linear slits of acrylic skylight roofing.

The Kedah Digital Library is also an adaptive reuse project involving a 2-storey colonial bungalow, which was formerly the Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj building. The 1,750 sq m bungalow sits on a 2.13-acre parcel in Alor Setar.

Completed in February, the library has spaces such as an administrative office, meeting rooms, discussion areas, reading spaces, brainstorming rooms, study pods, the Putra Memorial gallery and an open amphitheatre.

Tan shares that the old bungalow, now known as the Mansion Library, was designed to have mostly reading spaces that act as the core of the library. The newly built annex building, which has larger spaces, consists of two rectangular blocks that feature timber-textured aluminium louvres in various sizes. These help block direct sunlight while offering views of the outdoors. The annex building can fit up to 380 occupants at a time.

The primary concept of the Kedah Digital Library project, Tan says, was to retain the architecture of the colonial bungalow and maintain a connection with nature, that is, the adjacent public park.

“The former Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman building was an iconic landmark within the immediate milieu, rich with heritage value and charm. The original site, nestled in a lush green lung adjacent to Alor Setar’s largest urban park, has now been rejuvenated as a digital library with a park-garden ambience. The digital library celebrates the future-forward concept of ‘Library Without Books’ and redefines the role of state-owned public libraries as learning hubs and community nodes,” says Tan.

Staying true to the principles of adaptive reuse, Tan says her team comprehensively pursued humility in the architectural form, honesty in materiality and full respect for its natural context, which is the lush greenery surrounding the building.

For its exterior, the Kedah Digital Library has a modern and minimalist design concept. Her team added metal roofing sheets, mineral fibreboard ceilings, glass skylight roofing, vinyl floorboards and eco-wood timber decking for the building’s interiors.

To convert the rooms into more conducive, naturally lit reading spaces, Tan’s team removed all the panel coverings over the building’s existing windows. Dark-tinted glass windows were replaced with clear glass. Some of the roof pieces were also replaced with clear roof tiles that act as mini skylights. 

“We went all out to create a holistic conducive environment that encourages interaction and collaboration, all paperless to pursue a sustainable approach. This project brief eliminates the necessity of all physical forms of data or information such as books, displays and hard copies by moving them to a virtual cloud storage. By making the windows bigger, it allowed us to bring natural light into the interior spaces for warm and inspiring spaces to read and study,” says Tan.

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