The Ruma is a five star global branded hotel and luxury serviced residence located in Kuala Lumpur City Centre area, Malaysia. A project by renowned developer Ireka, The Ruma comprises a 42-storey tower block, housing a 300-room boutique hotel and 200 units of serviced residences.
The development covers an almost one-acre site and is designed to comply with Malaysia’s Green Building Index (GBI) Gold standards, reducing the building’s overall impact on the environment and its surroundings. Occupants of the The Ruma will also benefit from the project’s location which is a walking distance to several key retail, commerce and tourist sites in the city.
AECOM was engaged to provide mechanical and electrical engineering, sustainability consultancy and GBI facilitator services. The hotel will be managed by Urban Resort Concepts, which also operates the international The PuLi hotel in Shanghai.
Located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur in leafy Jalan Bellamy, the Orchard Park site was once well known among the local community.
Set on a ridge, the steeply sloping site features distant views of Kuala Lumpur city to the south-west. The land was home to a number of colonial buildings that were slowly deteriorating under the tall remnants of a rainforest canopy. The park consisted of a creek that was polluted and flowed with a marginal to poor quality stream of water. The land was also used as a garbage tip and over time, the park became an open, derelict piece of land.
AECOM was engaged to provide landscape architecture services to inject life back into this park. Among others, the project aims to promote locally grown productive orchards; provide education on the different fruit tree species that made their way to Malaysia during early days of trade; promote urban gardening; showcase sustainable landscape design; and demonstrate the execution of the effective and well detailed design elements.
The Klang River winds through Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur and flows through the most densely populated area of the Southeast Asian country.
Over the years and in the wake of rapid development in the city, the river became increasingly polluted and experienced intensified flooding during storm seasons. It became the backdoor of development and a dumping ground that is disconnected from people’s daily lives.
To reconnect the city, the river and her people, Kuala Lumpur City Hall launched the River of Life project in 2012 and AECOM was chosen as a delivery partner through an international design competition. River of Life is one of Malaysia government’s Economic Transformation Programs, an initiative which combines high-impact projects and programs to elevate the country to developed nation status.
Divided into three main components – river cleaning, river master-planning and beautification – the USD1.3-billion River of Life project covers the confluences of three city rivers, with a total area of 781 hectares and 63 hectares of water bodies. The project is set to bring the community ‘back’ to the river through a 100 per cent transformation into a vibrant waterfront with high economic and commercial value, rejuvenating the city’s river and re-connecting it to the surrounding urban fabric.
AECOM is delivering the river master planning and beautification component of the project, and has also provided a strategic framework for urban and landscape design guidelines. The guidelines ensure designs are constructed on a common baseline while promoting cohesive developments in the Klang Valley region.
River of Life will deliver affordable housing for more than 35,000 new residents, one million square meters of commercial space, more than 27,000 new employment opportunities, raise the public transportation usage within the master plan area from 15 per cent to 60 per cent and reduce traffic demand by 15 per cent by 2020.