Lateral Architects

Lateral is a Kuala Lumpur-based architecture and urban planning practice founded in 2014 by Nicholas Ling, Jonathan Lee and Chuah Wei Keat. The office is drawn to contemporary challenges and accelerated change confronting South East Asian cities today- extreme densification, affordability, climate change and evolving identities. The work of the office is a persistent reimagining of how communities can thrive amidst these challenges. Transcending typology, scale, and domain, each project shares this common pursuit – How can we live together, better? Our work spans typologies, scales, and domains. We draw inspiration from a multitude of fields, reaching across disciplines to extend our collective learnings through all our projects. Our experience in a variety of markets and cultures also means that we’re able to take the best of cutting edge know-how and couple that with time-tested, local techniques to create an effective hightech-lowtech synthesis. The office is currently working on range of urban renewal projects, including a cultural neighbourhood on the former Ajinamoto factory site in Kuala Lumpur as well as the redevelopment of the old city port in the heart of Kota Kinabalu. Construction is underway on the Vietnamese Museum of Australia, led by our Melbourne studio and Bayu, a sustainable housing project in Sabah. Recently completed works include the Commune in Phnom Penh, Hemmon House in Kuala Lumpur, Air Apartments, and the Adina Hotel in Melbourne.