This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 20, 2021 - December 26, 2021

From afar, the striking Suasana PJH along the main boulevard in Precinct 2, Putrajaya, stands out due to its fritted glass façade, which looks like a diamond.

“The building has a double-skin façade — a clear glass as the building’s internal façade and an outer layer of 50% opaque fritted glass, adopting the traditional Malay songket pattern to provide solar-shading to its interior spaces. The cladding is aesthetic yet functional and helps reduce the overall thermal transmission value between 40% and 50%, ultimately saving energy,” says Putrajaya Holdings Sdn Bhd director and CEO Datuk Hashimah Hashim.

Sitting on a 3.86-acre site, Suasana PJH is located along two axes — one heading towards the prime minister’s residence in Precinct 1 facing the Ministry of Finance and the second, from Wawasan Square down to the Millennium Monument by the waterfront.

Both blocks comprise offices from the first to the 13th floors and are supported by retail shops on the ground floor and a few on the first floor. Tower A has 14 shops on the ground floor and three on the first floor, while Tower B has 21 shops on the ground floor and four on the first floor.

Completed in 2017, Suasana PJH received a GreenRE (Green Real Estate) silver rating. It was designed by local ecological architecture firm T R Hamzah & Yeang Sdn Bhd. Its principal and executive director Datuk Ken Yeang explains that the design concept of the building is to bring communal life and buzz to the boulevard to invigorate the encompassing urban fabric and public realm.

Suasana PJH receives an honorary mention at The Edge Malaysia-PAM Green Excellence Award 2021.

The office building has a total gross floor area of 813,316 sq ft and a net floor area of 594,275 sq ft. At 11% occupancy, the tenants include a government department and a government entity, as well as retail businesses such as food and beverage outlets, a jewellery shop, an optical shop, a bank and a telecoms infrastructure service provider. The maximum building capacity is about 5,500 people.

“Waste management and sustainable timber were used during the building’s construction and more than 40% of the site was allocated for landscaping, which exceeds the norm of 30% regularly practised in Putrajaya. This is where well-managed landscapes are beneficial to people and the environment, and subsequently helps conserve the existing natural area and restore the damage caused by development,” says Hashimah, adding that low volatile organic compound (VOC) paints were used to improve indoor air quality.

LED and T5 light fittings were incorporated throughout the entire office, common areas and façade lighting. There is also a seven-storey atrium in the lobby that features a back wall design with a glass skylight canopy and is integrated with a building maintenance unit (BMU) system to maximise daylight penetration.

Hashimah says water-efficient fittings were included in the public toilets and pantries, which contributed to the effectiveness of the use of treated water by 40%. “There is also rainwater harvesting to irrigate the landscape, and condensate recovery, which is a process to reuse the water and sensible heat contained in the discharged condensate. This can lead to significant savings of energy, chemical treatment and make-up water.”

Considering that the building is located along the boulevard, the car park cannot be elevated and has to be underground. “For conventional underground car parks, ventilation fans are included but what we did for Suasana PJH was incorporate a spiralling device called ‘eco-cell’ along the car park ramp that allows for continuous vegetation, natural light and ventilation to extend into the car park levels below,” says Hashimah.

“The continuous vegetation connects the green area from Level one’s retail garden down to Level two of the basement, and channels surface rainwater into bioswales at selected sections and locations that seep the water back to the ground to replenish the groundwater.”

In between the two symmetrical tower blocks is a 34,584 sq ft landscaped central promenade which, according to Hashimah and Yeang, is an active public realm consisting of wide green open spaces, seating pavilions, semi-covered seating areas and linear planting areas as temporal event spaces that face the retail shops. The verandah-ways (semi-covered walkways) on the ground floor are designed to provide protection from the weather.

“We intend to facilitate placemaking by bringing the crowd [to the promenade] for them to enjoy, relax and interact with each other. These spaces for social interaction are located not only on the ground floor but also the first floor and at various protruding planted balconies. The tower blocks also provide shade over the promenade for most parts of the day,” says Hashimah.

Meanwhile, Yeang notes that the building has several zones for vegetation that were created as habitats to attract native fauna to the locality — whether it is for feeding, breeding, refuge or water. For instance, a number of habitats are created in the skycourts (balconies) and they are matched with selected native flora to attract the fauna.

“We want to bring biodiversity back to the locality, guided by a biodiversity matrix prepared as the basis for the design of the building’s landscaped areas. This will create a balance between the built environment and preservation/creation of habitats of flora and fauna,” says Yeang.

He adds that instead of using conventional louvres, the cavity space between the external and internal façades is naturally ventilated and opens up to the sky, creating a chimney stack effect to further reduce the heat transfer into the building.

Hashimah highlights that one of the main challenges during the building’s planning process was complying with the local authority’s stringent requirements in the building’s design and quality. The site had been earmarked as a landmark due to its location across the road from the Ministry of Finance. Thus, full basement car parks and high specifications for façade lighting and green building requirements were implemented, which increased the project’s construction and compliance costs.

“To solve this issue, we engaged Putrajaya Corp (PJC) in the building’s design process and tried to find alternative ways of compliance to achieve a more meaningful outcome. A lot of value engineering was required to eliminate unnecessary costs while maintaining or improving performance and quality requirements of the building,” she says.

Since the building would be located in an urban area, it required careful logistics planning and integration with the surrounding infrastructure and amenities. “To ensure a smooth building process, we used the Building Information Modelling (BIM) system, a process supported by various tools and technologies to increase construction project efficiency and effectiveness, subsequently avoiding problems on site,” says Hashimah.

The maintenance of green and sustainability features was planned as an integral part of the building design. “We understand that there is capital cost to the features but the life-cycle cost is the one that matters and a long-term study was conducted during the design and construction of the building — to balance the building cost with operational savings and efficiency that can lower heat gain, reduce about 55% of potable water consumption, as well as reduce electricity use and utilities cost.”

The investment in green features and operational cost savings/efficiency are crucial to safeguard the overall value of the asset in the long term, she adds.

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