Homes, shophouses and small commercial spaces across Penang island and Seberang Perai — starting with how the air moves and where the sun lands, then working outward.
Air Well House — A 1928 shophouse that cools itself
An air well that had been roofed over. A west elevation that made a living room unusable after four o'clock. A partition wall too thin for a household working opposite shifts. The constraint is the brief — the finishes come later.
A 1990s semi-detached house reworked for grandparents, parents and two teenagers, without turning the ground floor into a corridor of bedrooms.
Most clients come to us for a full interior design service. But a two-hour consultation before you buy a property, or a set of joinery drawings you hand to your own carpenter, is often the more useful thing — and we will say so.
Concept to handover for a whole home.
Space planning, material selection, lighting design, custom joinery drawings and site supervision through to handover. Most clients come to us at this level when they have bought a property and want one team accountable for the whole result.
Working inside George Town’s UNESCO guidelines.
Restoration and adaptive reuse of pre-war shophouses inside the George Town World Heritage Site. We prepare the drawings that George Town World Heritage Incorporated and MBPP need, and we keep the air well, timber louvres and lime plaster doing the work they were designed to do.
Design plus a contractor we manage on your behalf.
Design-and-build under one contract. You approve one budget and one programme, and we hold the contractor to both. Useful if you are overseas, working full time, or have been burned by a previous renovation.
Cabinetry drawn for your ceiling height, not a catalogue.
Wet and dry kitchens, wardrobes, TV feature walls, study nooks and altar cabinets, drawn to the millimetre and made by carpenters we have worked with for years. Specified for Penang humidity: marine ply carcasses, not chipboard.
Two hours on site, then a written direction.
For homeowners who will manage their own renovation but want a professional eye first. We walk the property with you, then send a written summary with layout options, a realistic budget band and a materials direction you can hand to a contractor.
Cafés, clinics, offices and boutique stays.
Interiors that have to earn money. We design around covers per hour, patient flow or desk density first, then make it beautiful. Includes the fire and accessibility compliance drawings your submission will need.
It is the opposite order to most studios, and it is the single reason our projects tend to finish near the number we started with.
More about the studioA free 30-minute call or studio visit. You tell us the property, the budget band and the date you want to move in. We tell you honestly whether that combination is possible.
We measure the property ourselves rather than trusting the developer plan, photograph every wall, and record where the sun lands at 9am and 4pm. The brief we write from that visit is the document everything else is checked against.
Two layout directions, a materials board you can hold, and a line-by-line cost plan. You see the number before you see the pretty renders, which is the opposite of how most studios do it, and the reason our projects stay on budget.
Chosen direction developed into 3D visuals, lighting and switching layouts, and joinery drawings at 1:20. Nothing goes to site until you have signed the drawing set.
Site meetings every fortnight, photographs every week, and payment released against completed milestones rather than a calendar. You always know what you have paid for.
A joint defect walk, a rectification list with dates, and a maintenance sheet telling you how to look after every finish. We come back at six months to check the joinery has behaved in Penang humidity.
“We were in Singapore for the entire renovation and saw the shophouse twice. The weekly photographs meant we never once felt out of control, and the air well now cools the whole ground floor without air conditioning.”Adeline & Marcus T.Lebuh Armenian shophouse, George Town
“The cost plan came before the renders. That one decision is why we finished eleven thousand ringgit under budget instead of forty over.”Dr. Suresh N.Semi-detached home, Tanjung Bungah
“Our kitchen was drawn around how my mother actually cooks — the wok station vents properly and the dry kitchen finally gets used. Nobody else asked those questions.”Yee Ling C.Condominium, Gurney Drive
Cost, timelines, and how to tell a good studio from a convincing one — written for Penang specifically, and free of the usual vagueness about money.
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Longer answers live in the full FAQ and the journal. Anything not covered, put it on the appointment form.
Design fees run 8–15% of construction cost, or a flat RM 8–20 per square foot of designed area. Construction itself is roughly RM 90–200 per square foot for apartments and landed homes, and RM 200–400+ for heritage shophouse restoration inside the George Town World Heritage Site.
Yes. We work across Penang island and Seberang Perai — Tanjung Bungah, Batu Ferringhi, Pulau Tikus, Bayan Lepas, Balik Pulau and Butterworth included. The studio is on Lebuh Armenian, and site visits anywhere in the state are part of the standard service.
A condominium fit-out is typically 10–16 weeks on site, a landed home 16–28 weeks, and a heritage shophouse 8–12 months. Add six to ten weeks beforehand for survey, design and approvals — and considerably longer where a heritage submission is required.
Yes. We prepare condition surveys and submission drawings for properties inside the George Town World Heritage Site, and we work to conservation standards — breathable lime plaster, retained air wells, and new work that is reversible without damaging original fabric.
We visit the property for about two hours, measure and photograph it, and talk through how you actually live in the space and what you can spend. Within five working days you receive a written budget band, a realistic programme, and a materials direction. The fee is credited if you appoint us.
Yes. A single kitchen, a compact apartment, or a paid consultation where you manage your own contractor are all normal for us. Small spaces have the least tolerance for a layout error, which is often where design earns its fee most clearly.
A site visit, an honest conversation about budget, and a written estimate band with the assumptions listed. No obligation, and no renders until the numbers work.
Book an appointment →+60 4 226 8800 · Mon–Fri 9.30am–6.30pm · Sat 10am–3pm