Sitting on the northwest part of Borneo facing the South China Sea, Kota Kinabalu, colloquially referred to as KK, is the state capital of Sabah – the second largest state in Malaysia with a population made up of non-indigenous group, non-Malaysian citizens, and 42 ethnic groups with over 200 sub-ethnic groups with separate own languages, cultures and belief systems.

Part of the reserve land for the new KK City Complex development along Tugu Road on the west and KK Bypass Road on the east, the site is located in between the existing Kota Kinabalu City Hall and former Kota Kinabalu Court House. The site is surrounded by old British colonial commercial retails, city park, hotel buildings, as well as the popular Gaya Street which is the centre of business within Kota Kinabalu central business district, that is frequently visited by both local and foreign visitors.

Due to no funding allocation yet from the Federal Government over the years, the implementation of public transportation system such as MRT, LRT, or BRT cannot be fulfilled to resolve the perennial traffic flow problems faced in the city. Thus, the traffic congestion problem of the site has been becoming worse from time to time, especially during food markets among other festive activities being spilled into the public realm.

With the initiative plan by Kota Kinabalu City Hall to expand and relocate its headquarters by using the former court premises in recent years, our design team sees the need to propose a parking complex for the civil servants and local citizens. Our design concept is to propose a parking complex that is related to the surrounding area built next to it. We want to design the parking complex to mark the entrance to the Kota Kinabalu central business district and to be interpreted as a gateway to its neighbourhood.

The conceptual building consists of two stories of car parking accommodating triple of the existing number of provision sat above one level of commercial retails. The commercial floor is provided intentionally to relate to the nearby context of Gaya Street, and in order to interlink the existing centre of business. At roof level, an urban garden is being inserted with the provisions of amenities such as natural pond, walk path, sitting benches, mini amphitheater, timber deck, and exercise area, to improve people’s mental health by producing a more relaxing environment reducing anxiety and aggression.

By shaping the conceptual building within the civic and business area, a lively urban oriented façade design is being applied to the skin of the conceptual building, in order to create a sense of colloquial landmark quality for the city of Kota Kinabalu. As the word ‘Kinabalu’ is derived from the indigenous language, the individual façade panel is carved with representative indigenous art patterns to not only pay tribute and respect to the native community who firstly inhabited the state from the earliest times, but also to function as natural light and shadow art projections for the interior space of car parking.