TIMBER, AN INTERNATIONAL WINNER

MTC wins at Archidex

Two booths showed the best of Malaysian timber sustainability.

The Malaysian Timber Council (MTC) celebrated their nation’s timber at last week’s 24th International Architecture, Interior Design & Building Exhibition (ARCHIDEX 2025), held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

MTC’s two booths were significant crowd favourites and also struck a chord with the Archidex design judges: the sculptural booth “Timber Flow: the Folded Crest” won the Gold Award for the PAM–ARCHIDEX Curated Booth. This booth was envisioned as a spatial narrative – drawing inspiration from the Tanjak, a traditional Malay headgear that represents honour, resilience, and heritage. The design reinterprets this cultural symbol into an expressive timber form that folds and flows with architectural precision.

Crafted from locally sourced Kembang Semangkok and Chengal, the pavilion was designed by Esmonde Yap and constructed by Lumber Mart Sdn Bhd.

Additionally, MTC’s 60m2 arched booth attracted a great many visitors, some there to discuss what timbers would be best for their projects, some just to feel the texture of the wooden weaving.

“As a timber trade organisation that looks after the promotion and development of the timber industry, one of our core functions is to encourage the use of timber in the built environment,” said Noraihan Abdul Rahman, CEO of MTC at the event. “We are here at Archidex because we feel that this is the right exhibition for us to showcase to the building and construction industry players the beauty and versatility of timber.

“We have collaborated with architect and interior designer Esmonde Yap a young and talented architect who has designed this showcase for MTC inspired by the local, traditional weaving baskets.”

Yap, from Spatial Factors Architects, said, “The weaving started with a very simple idea, which was to celebrate Malaysia’s timber heritage. Specifically in this project we looked at the Malaysian basket, where you see different elements intertwined with each other, so translating that into timber was another exercise.”

The team worked through multiple iterations of each idea, both digital designs and tangible timber samples, before choosing the final forms. In each, the materials made final choices: the failure rates of various species dictated which forms would be bent into the curved modules of Timber Flow and, for the booth, the central parts of the arches were narrowed to reduce weight while maintaining structural integrity.

Importantly, both as a symbol and as an example, the booths demonstrate circular design principles, local craftsmanship, and the versatility of Malaysian timber in modern architecture. Both can be taken apart and reassembled again and again with minimal wastage (even down to timber fixings): the careful lowering of the overall weight also adding to the arches’ transportability. At the end of life, each element can be adapated/resused in other structural or decorative purposes – a true showcase of MTC’s sustainable innovation.

The exhibition was officiated by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Dato’ Sri Haji Fadillah bin Haji Yusof, who, in his keynote address, emphasised the importance of developing culturally rich, modern, and environmentally sustainable infrastructure. He highlighted the growing need for green construction practices and technological advancement in shaping Malaysia’s future cities.

MAIN PIC: Each module was attached with timber dowels, for easy 
disassembly and reassembly in any other configuration with minimal wastage.  
All images courtesy MTC