When Astaka Kota Selera was named Building of the Year at the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) Awards 2026, the headlines focused on the food court’s striking design and its location beside Fort Cornwallis. 

But the more significant story was not about a single building. It was about a shift that has been building for years.  Penang’s architects are not just winning awards. They are redefining what Malaysian architecture can be.

A Modest Project With Maximum Impact

Astaka Kota Selera cost RM3.35 million. It is a 26-stall food pavilion that seats 224 people. By the standards of national infrastructure, it is small. But its selection as Building of the Year — from 145 submissions across 12 categories, with only 44 projects shortlisted — suggests that the PAM jury was looking at something beyond scale.

The reinstatement of Fort Cornwallis’s western moat, a defensive landmark that had been buried for decades. The original food court sat directly atop the moat’s alignment. Rather than simply demolish and rebuild elsewhere, the design team at EA Architects — led by Liou Hung Woei and Lui Sy Ying — chose to relocate the facility in a way that preserved sightlines to the heritage site, protected mature trees, and improved natural ventilation.

The result is a low-rise structure that uses red brick elements to maintain visual continuity with the surrounding UNESCO World Heritage Site. It incorporates a green roof under the Penang Nature-Based Climate Adaptation Programme, an initiative aimed at reducing the urban heat island effect. It houses a surah, public toilets, and barrier-free access.

PAM’s citation described it as a “sensitive architectural intervention that reconciles the preservation of Malaysia’s colonial heritage with the vibrant, lived reality of its contemporary street food culture.” That is a polite way of saying: this is how you build in a heritage city without destroying what makes it worth protecting.

The Wider Renaissance

Astaka Kota Selera was the biggest winner, but it was not the only Penang project honoured. The state took home three Gold Awards in total, a haul that demonstrates the depth of local talent.

Heritage Piccadilly Bazaar, designed by CKHO Architect, won the Adaptive Reuse Gold Award. The project reimagines a burned heritage building in George Town by retaining charred timber, weathered bricks, and fragments of the original structure, transforming them into functional elements of a new commercial and cultural space. The approach is not about perfect restoration. It is about accepting the building’s scars and incorporating them into a renewed narrative — a philosophy that PAM described as “heritage, like furniture, adapts effortlessly, able to belong anywhere without losing its essence.”

Then there is the TNB Monopole Transmission Towers, which received the Special Category Gold Award. This is the project that best illustrates how far Penang’s architectural thinking has travelled. The towers were inspired by the pokok pinang — the areca nut palm from which Penang derives its name — abstracting its form into a sleek, contemporary silhouette. PAM described the concept as a “biomimetic interpretation” that transforms a purely functional structure into an architectural landmark.

The Foundation for a Movement

This renaissance did not happen by accident. It is the product of deliberate, long-term investment in public projects that demand high design standards.

The North Seafront Programme, which began in 2017 under the George Town Strategic Master Plan, has been the primary vehicle. It identified 22 key projects to revitalise the historic waterfront, linking heritage conservation with climate resilience and public space. Fort Cornwallis reopened in July 2026 after a decade of conservation and regeneration. The Esplanade, public gardens, promenades, and Astaka Kota Selera were all renewed under the same programme. All 26 hawker businesses were retained.

Other projects have followed. The Guar Kepah Archaeological Gallery, designed by BETA Architects, opened in January 2026. It houses the “Penang Woman,” the first complete Neolithic skeleton discovered in Malaysia, and was gazetted as a heritage site under the National Heritage Act 2005. 

The 1926 Heritage Hotel, a century-old property originally built as residences for British colonial officials, reopened in July 2026 after an RM20 million restoration, transformed into a 78-room boutique hotel spanning 24 interconnected heritage link houses. 

The historic Malayan Railway building — known as Penang’s “Big Ben” — is set to become a boutique hotel. Eight fire-damaged heritage shophouses on Lebuh Aceh have been leased to the George Town World Heritage Incorporated for 30 years to enable restoration and adaptive reuse.

This is not a random collection of projects. It is a portfolio. And portfolios attract talent.

Why Penang?

There is a reason this is happening in Penang and not elsewhere.

The state has a UNESCO World Heritage Site that demands sensitive intervention. It has a strong tradition of public-private partnership, with entities like Think City, the George Town Conservation and Development Corporation, and the Chief Minister Incorporated playing active roles. It has a cultural identity that is deeply rooted in its built environment — from the shophouses of George Town to the food courts of the Esplanade. And it has a political leadership that has consistently prioritised heritage and design quality, even when simpler, cheaper options were available.

That combination creates a demand for architects who understand context. It creates a market for firms like EA Architects and CKHO Architect, who have built their practices around heritage-sensitive, environmentally responsible design. And it creates a feedback loop: good projects attract good architects, good architects attract more good projects.

Penang’s Architectural Renaissance

Penang’s architectural renaissance is not just about aesthetics. It is about what happens when a city decides that its built environment matters — that public projects should serve the public well, that heritage should be conserved rather than erased, and that sustainability should be a design principle rather than an afterthought.

Astaka Kota Selera is a food court. It is not a landmark. It is not a monument. It is a place where people eat. But it is also a statement: that a modest public project, guided by a clear vision, can set a standard for the entire nation.

The architects behind it — and the many others working across Penang — are proving that Malaysian architecture does not have to choose between heritage and modernity, between tradition and innovation, between conservation and development. It can have all of them. It just takes care, skill, and the willingness to demand better.

Penang has shown the way. The rest of Malaysia should be watching.