Petronas Leadership Centre

Design Vision

Designed to nestle among the heavily landscaped estate to create an oasis for PETRONAS, the new Petronas Leadership Centre is a sprawling campus in Bangi. The campus is designed to encourage interaction, collaboration and enhance future learning experiences through innovative learning spaces.

The design objective is to distil the essence of experiential journey into a sanctuary as respite for the participants and maximum collaborative encounters across all employees, transporting the relaxed learning environment that retains the integrity of the corporate culture. This translates to a focus on creating a legacy that transcends imitation or pastiche. At the same time, there was an impetus to break away from traditional campus planning, to innovate to adapt the design to the locality whilst celebrating the root of the organization.

Design Concept

Knowledge is fluid, flowing and growing. Like water ripples, where a small action may reverberate into a bigger impact, the design form is derived from these inspirations which also subtly resonates with the PETRONAS’s oil and energy core business.

Technology

In anticipating future learning experience and to achieve spatial flexibility and adaptability, various technology was incorporated in the design.

1. Rotating LED immersive screen. This is technology was developed together with the LED supplier to achieve intended immersive experience.

2. Transparent OLED screen is one of the earliest introduced in Malaysia to allow display whilst maintaining transparency of the glass wall surface.

3. Sensors which include light control motion sensor for efficient use of electricity, leak detection sensor to minimize water wastage due to leakage and CO2 sensor for optimum indoor air quality for user comfort.

4. Automated Operable Walls to achieve flexibility in teaching room configuration to meet learning programmes and usage.

Innovation

The innovative solutions incorporated in the design includes:

1. Circular multi-purpose hall with surrounding LED walls that create immersive experience to the participants. This will provide a more impactful knowledge transfer. The LED on the wall also can be rotated to face outside of the hall and can be viewed from outside if needed.

2. Innovative layout where learning blocks and residential blocks are combined to encourage connection thus encouraging sharing

3. Incorporating deep wells that draw low temperature underground water that cools the area surrounding the building.

Sustainability

Some of the sustainable Design solutions adopted which include:

1. Site planning. Approaching it from microclimatic strategy, the campus master plan use lake and landscape elements to lower the surrounding ambient temperature.

2. Building orientation where the long facades face north and south directions.

3. Natural Ventilation optimisation. Only 60% of the total area in the building is naturally ventilated which significantly reduced energy usage in the building. Curved forms encourage a wind tunnel effect that naturally cools the buildings. The building skin is designed to induce and promote natural ventilation without compromising on the rain penetration.

4. Natural Light optimisation. While building envelopes also shade the facades from extreme sunlight while allowing natural light into the space.

5. Rainwater is harvested and grey water is recycled for water conservation. Excellent indoor environmental quality is achieved through extensive visual and physical connections with nature.

6. Recycling initiatives, including aerobic digester composting from garden and organic Fertilizer is produced and reuse for landscaping upkeeping.

The building has achieved GBI platinum rating and targeting US LEED platinum certification soon.

Community & Humanity

The building is set away from the road so that users can experience sense of arrival and prestige as they approach. Internally, there is no barrier to movement. The spine circulation space serves as a unifying element that bonds the users.