Original text retrieved from MVRDV website. Penang Island, located in the north-west of Malaysia, is home to George Town, the country’s third-largest city. But George Town’s strength has created a conundrum: urban expansion is needed to continue the city’s economic growth, but the only options are to expand into the forested hills in the centre of the island, or into the sea. MVRDV appreciated this need, but also understood the potential ecological harm of the government’s plan to create new reclaimed land. In response, MVRDV’s masterplan pushed the boundaries of the client’s brief to apply the maximum possible number of ecological design principles.

 

MVRDV’s first move was to question the outline set out by the government, which called for three islands off Penang’s south shore, with narrow channels between them. These channels would be too few and too narrow for effective water movement, making a poor habitat for marine wildlife and requiring constant dredging. Instead, MVRDV proposed many smaller islands, carefully shaping and positioning them to allow better water circulation, diverse marine habitats, and better conditions for the existing fishing economy in south Penang. While these smaller islands create less land for development than the government’s outline, the islands are developed at a higher density to provide the required floor area. This has the added benefit of generating higher property prices, as more buildings would be in a waterside location.