The Wildlife Research Centre of Kyto University now has a new purpose built home for study of wild orang-utans at Borneo Rainforest Lodge. Arkitrek is proud to have designed the research station and hopes that the researchers and research assistants will be comfortable there for the duration of their field work.

The Tiger Orchid, Grammatophyllum speciosum is the undisputed king of the orchid world but where is the largest specimen to be found?

This structure of the strangler figs is clearly legible – in architectural jargon it could be called celebrated. It occurs out of a sequence of growth. In a dynamic and dramatic display over time the host tree is finally broken in several places, crushed, twisted and sometimes left hanging in a cathedral like arrangement of root columns. At the end of the fig tree’s story is a strong, tall structure of an ex epiphyte. But what is also left standing is the imprint of a tree, a hollow space that echoes of the past.

Renovation of the main building at Borneo Rainforest Lodge is the biggest thing in Arkitrek’s short history. With the client spending two million ringgit on construction alone (not including fit out) the pressure has been and still is considerable. walking around the site this evening I felt a little surge of ‘wow, we might actually pull this off’. There are three more weeks before the lodge reopens and a lot of hard work to be done before then.

A new coffee table book is out on the subject of ‘Architecture in Sabah, Resorts and Hotels’. Arkitrek is very chuffed to have our work at Borneo Rainforest Lodge featured in a multiple page spread. Thanks to Author Richard Nelson Sokial for the namecheck and complimentary words and pictures. All that assiduous buttering up obviously [...]