Ken Yeang studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London, where he began questioning architecture's role in sustainability. In 1971, he became one of the first architects to pursue a PhD in ecological design at Cambridge University. Yeang's dissertation and later published work "Designing With Nature" established him as an early pioneer in green architecture. He is known for his research on applying bioclimatic and passive design principles to skyscrapers and other building types. Notable built works include his experimental "Roof-Roof" house and the award-winning Mesiniaga Tower, considered a model of bioclimatic skyscraper design.

1. Ken yeang background
Ken Yeang studied architecture at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, an
institution with a tradition of radical thinking. It was here that he first began to question
architectures role within the context of a growing concern for the environment, energy
and sustainability.
In 1971 Ken Yeang became one of the first architects to undertake a PhD on the subject
of ecological design. He enrolled in the doctoral programme in the Department of
Architecture at Cambridge University. His dissertation submitted in 1974 was entitled ‘A
Theoretical Framework for the Incorporation of Ecological Considerations in the Design
and Planning of the Built Environment'. After suffering some delays he was awarded his
PhD in 1981 and his dissertation was later published in 1995 under the title ‘Designing
With Nature: The Ecological Basis for Architectural Design'.

2. Ken Yeang's Human Research InstituteThe Aesthetics of Green BuildingsGreen
architect Ken Yeang may be to skyscrapers what Buckminster Fuller was to houses.
The Malaysian architect's visionary approach to green building bucks the mainstream,
embracing the tall building as an urban fact, a problem to be solved afresh with each
new design. He seeks what he calls ecomimesis in buildings, a way to copy and paste
nature into our high-rise designs. But just as importantly, he tells Wallpaper*, the
building must look damn good too -- and definitely different.The discussion about the
look of green buildings has been getting louder recently, Lloyd notes. A piece in the
American Prospect wonders if architects are building green "as if design itself were an
obnoxious carbon-emitter."
Quite the opposite -- or at least it should be. Lloyd quotes Brad Plumer at the New
Republic, who makes an impassioned case that green doesn't necessarily equal ugly:
"Yes, there are some bad buildings out there. And yes, some of them are built to the
highest sustainable standards. But there's no causal link between the two.
Putting aside the conflation of "bad" with "ugly," I have to agree with Lloyd that there
often is a causal link between a building's look and its sustainable credentials, if for no
other reason than green architecture demands a certain set of materials, economy and
form. Now, this form-function relationship need not mean ugly, but let's face it:
sometimes it really does.
It's worth remembering that a lot of architecture in general is ugly. And for that matter, a
lot of green architecture isn't always very green. Sometimes, a very green building on
paper can be undone by how ugly -- or let's say, how aesthetically uncomfortable, it is.
Ken Yeang
When I spoke to Yeang a couple of years ago I raised the question of aesthetics in
green building, jumping off of something Li Hu, the Beijing architect in charge of Steven
Holl's Linked Hybrid building, had told me:
Good architecture is green architecture, but green architecture isn't necessarily good
architecture.

3. In other words, a good building should be sustainable already; environmental concerns
should be baked in. Responded Yeang:
The reason why solar architecture in the 1970’s failed was because they looked like
built plumbing and are ugly. If we want ecostructures to be acceptable to the public they
have to be aesthetically beautiful.
Back to Yeang, who wrote the book on ecological design, in Wallpaper*:
Finally, what role do the aesthetics play in the whole process? Our aesthetic is the
green aesthetic. What should a green building look like? I don’t think it should look like a
modernist building; it should be something new. I don’t think it should be pristine; it
should be a bit fuzzy. The green aesthetic is something we are constantly exploring.
While it's not exactly clear here, I think by "a bit fuzzy" Yeang raises two equally salient
aesthetic points. First of all, when I think "fuzzy" I think of a hillside, a tree or a rock,
overflowing like a natural form, asymmetric and distinctly not man-made. An ecomimetic
building will follow nature in appearance as it does in function because in nature, well,
there's little difference. And a building that acknowledges nature in form might help
sharpen awareness about the role that architecture plays in our often un-green urban
spaces. One of our favorite examples is the California Academy of Sciences building in
San Francisco.
But along those lines, "fuzzy" can suggest something else too: a messiness and
ambiguity in form that needn't be natural-looking, but surprising, provocative and fun.
Consider Steven Holl's work for instance, like his Sliced Porocity Block in Chengdu.
Yeang, ContinuedHere's a bit more from my conversation with Yeang:
What's the trouble with architecture now?The trouble with buildings today is that they
are not ecologically designed. 80% of all the environmental impacts of buildings are
designed into the buildings before they have been built. Can you describe your ideal
green building?The ideal green building is one which is ecomimetic and which
integrates seamlessly and benignly with the natural environment at 3 levels: physically,
systemically and temporally.

4. Which recent green designs -- both the completed and the planned -— make you most
optimistic? And does anything disappoint you?All and any ecodesign projects make me
feel optimistic because it means that more and more designers whether they are doing
it right or not are not ignoring the need to design with nature.What disappoints is the
arrogance of those who feel that they have all the final solutions to ecodesign. None of
us have yet, and it will be sometime before any of us designs the truly ecomimetic built
system.
Do you think "green" and "eco" design are terms that get thrown around too much?A lot
of ecodesign is essentially pretentious green wash.
Ken Yeang is the principal of UK practice Llewellyn Davies Yeang and its sister
company in Malaysia, Hamzah & Yeang. See some of his work at Jetson Green and
belowMore on Ken YeangThe EDITT TowerEcoDesign: A Manual for Ecological
DesignecoStyle MalaysiaMore on Green Building AestheticsWhy is Green Architecture
So Ugly?The Dumbest Green Buildings on TreeHugger10 Most Beautiful Green
Buildings

5. Bioclimatic skyscraper
His early ecodesign work applies bioclimatic (climate-responsive) principles to building
design to create low-energy passive-mode buildings. He adopts this approach as the
starting basis for ecodesign and by being climate-responsive it also engenders critical
regionalist features where the climatic responses of the design links it to its locality. This
bioclimatic work subsequently became the underlying armature for his ecological design
agenda.
The 'Roof-Roof' House (1985), his own house in Ampang near Kuala Lumpur, is his
early experimental bioclimatic built work. The dwelling with over ambitiously too many
experiments within a single built form, has an identifiable dramatic curved louvered
upper umbrella-structure as an 'environmental filter' that serves as a solar-filtering and
shading device and as a second roof (hence its name 'Roof-Roof') over the building's
lower roof terrace. The large louvers are angled to let in the morning sun but keep out
the hot mid-day and western sun. It has side 'wind wing-walls' at the south side. On the
east is a swimming-pool that functions as an evaporative-cooling device that cools the
predominantly easterly breeze before entering the adjoining internal living spaces. This
small building is an instructive prototype for bioclimatic climate-responsive architecture.
The influences of its built form and ideas can be found in Yeang's later work.
Yeang turned his attention to applying bioclimatic and passive-mode principles to high-
rise tower design, a built form he considers requires revisioning. He contends that this
intensive builtform will not go away overnight because of the economic basis for its
existence arising from high urban land values, the need to accommodate rapid urban
growth, etc. He sought to find ecologically benign ways to make this built form green.
He built several experimental climate-responsive and ecodesigned towers from the mid-
1970s to present day (the Plaza Atrium with the giant wind-scoop, Menara Boustead
with planted sky-terraces, Plaza IBM with the continuous stepped-planter system,
Central Plaza with its solar oriented facade), Solaris with its continuous spiraling ramp.

6. The Mesiniaga Tower is regarded as his most didactic climate-responsive tower, where
his earlier experimental ideas are bought together, such as the positioning of the
elevator core as a solar buffer at the tower's hot side, the placement of toilets and
stairwells to receive natural ventilation opportunities, the various solar-path guided sun-
shade design, the use of evaporative-cooling at the uppermost roof level, the overhead
louvered canopy as framework for future PV cells, the vegetated and stepped facade-
recessed sky-terraces as interstitial semi-enclosed spaces for office users. The building
with its simple and functional construction details received several awards including the
Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1993) and a citation from the American Institute of
Architects (AIA).
Yeang continued to extend these early bioclimatic passive-mode design ideas to other
low and medium-rise building types, and at other climatic zones.
Largely the result of these high-rise experiments and his book, The Skyscraper,
Bioclimatically Considered (1997) Yeang is credited as the inventor of the 'bioclimatic
skyscraper' as a genre of the tall building type. University of Washington's Professor
Udo Kulterman states, “..Professor Ken Yeang is internationally renowned as the 'father'
of the sustainable bioclimatic building.."

7. Mesiniaga building
The singularappearance of thismoderatelytall toweristhe resultof architectKenneth Yeang'sten-year
researchintobio-climaticprinciplesforthe designof medium-to-tallbuildings.Itstri-partite structure
consistsof a raisedgreen"base,tencircularfloorsof office space withterracedgardenbalconiesand
external louversforshade,andiscrownedbya spectacularsun-roof,archingacrossthe top-floorpool.
The distinctive columnsthatprojectabove the pool floorwill eventuallysupportthe installationof solar
panels, further reducing the energy consumption of a building cooled by natural ventilation, sun screens,
and air conditioning.Yeang'secologicallyandenvironmentallysounddesignstrategiesreduce long-term
maintenance costsbyloweringenergyuse.Importantly,designingwiththe climate inmindbringsan
aestheticdimensiontohisworkthat isnot to be foundintypical glass-enclosedair-conditioned
medium-to-highrise buildings.The towerhasbecome alandmark,andincreasedthe value of the land
aroundit. The juryfoundit to be a successful andpromisingapproachto the designof many-storied
structuresina tropical climate.