Arkitrek has recently completed concept design for 6 new VIP rooms at Danum Valley Field Centre (DVFC). These rooms are part of the upgrading and refurbishment work at the aging field centre which is necessitated by 20 years of operation in a harsh environment and recent expansion of rainforest research activities. Together with the new laboratory (see previous post) this accommodation will be jointly developed by Yayasan Sabah and The Royal Society SE Asia Rainforest Research Program. Primary funding will come from the Sekhar...

Work has just started on site for the second phase chalet refurbishment. I'll bring you an update on this in due course. Meanwhile here are some professional photos of the first phase chalets which were completed last year. Visitor feedback so far is excellent, especially on the private outdoor bathtubs. There is also anecdotal evidence that the room design has been able to achieve a comfortable reduction in ambient temperature without resorting to air-conditioning, although I regret that I did not have the foresight to test...

I was asked recently by a friend of a friend to comment on the practicality of building a carbon neutral office tower. Without knowing any better, I bravely suggested that a carbon neutral office tower was not yet possible. The root problem I surmised is that we can’t control the source of energy delivered by the grid. Thus any would-be carbon neutral building needs to generate all of its power on site using renewables to be certain that its energy use is not causing carbon emissions. Assuming that power generation of any kind...