Based in the heart of the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX), this building serves as the Kuala Lumpur headquarters of Prudential, one of the world’s largest insurance companies.

This much-awaited, 27-storey commercial tower offers 51,018 square metres of Grade-A office space, and was the culmination of close collaboration between Broadway Malyan, Prudential, IJM Corporation Bhd, Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd, and TRX City Sdn Bhd – the district’s masterplanners.

From the outset our aspiration was to create a building that was rooted in the surrounding area’s cultural context. To achieve this, we thought about how the tower interacts at the ground level, integrating with an open, inviting public space to welcome workers and visitors into the site and provide a feeling of quality throughout the arrival spaces.

It was in these spaces that we sought to honour and reflect the local culture in a meaningful way, thinking carefully about our use of materials, greenery, and the layout of the streetscape, in order to give the development a cohesive sense of Malaysian style.

To suit the Malaysian climate, we planted trees with fine, feathery textured leaves with a subtle note of visual transparency, serving to provide shade, while more structural shrubs with characteristic ‘grass-blade’ leaves accented the landscape.

It was important for the Menara Prudential tower to be at the forefront of smart and sustainable development. Low-energy glass was used for the façade to provide a crisp aesthetic while reducing indoor building heat and increasing indoor environmental quality, a building management system serves to optimise lighting and temperature performance, while resource-saving measures allow for highly effective harvesting and recycling of rainwater – collectively, features like these have helped the building achieve a LEED Gold certification.

Materials such as travertine flooring, champagne aluminium wall cladding and etched laminated glass were also used in the interior design to add to the exclusiveness of the office.

The landscape design looked at creating world-class streets using a range of innovative design solutions, emphasising pedestrian-friendly areas that allow for easy access to all, as well as ample considerations to shade, sustainability and cycle pathways.

This focus on the human scale and user experience chimes with the TRX vision for a large-scale public realm with permeability between public and private spaces.

Our meticulously developed material palette for the project featured a range of hard and soft materials, from paving, planting, water features, lighting and public art to wayfinding and environmental graphics.

We elected to move the lobby to the TRX park level to enhance this walkability, while supporting Kuala Lumpur’s urban fabric and helping to create a more sustainable and liveable city.