On timeless design, coated steel, and the architects shaping what endures.
There is a question that sits beneath every architectural decision, rarely spoken aloud but always present: will this still matter when I am gone? It is not a question about materials or structural ratios. It is a question about purpose, about whether a building carries enough truth in its bones to survive the fashions that will rise and fall around it.
For the architects who have shaped the Steel Architectural Awards, that question is not abstract. It is the work.
The Steel Architectural Awards ASEAN 2026, presented by BlueScope, arrives this year under a theme that distills decades of architectural conviction into five words: Timeless Design with Coated Steel. It is an invitation that asks something more demanding than technical excellence. It asks architects to consider what they are leaving behind, and for whom.
What Our Forefathers Knew
Ar.Irwan Iswandi Bin Mohammed, Arkiskape won recognition for the CIDB Convention Centre Sarawak, frames the challenge with a clarity that is both historical and deeply personal.
"Our forefathers built with the best material available to them during their time, which is timber. So, during our generation, we build with the best material available to us, which is steel. The challenge is not the material itself, but whether the architecture created with it can stand the test of time gracefully."
— Ar.Irwan Iswandi Bin Mohammed, Arkiskape Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia
CIDB Convention Centre Sarawak, Arkiskape Sdn. Bhd.
It is a thought that reframes the entire conversation. Timeless design has never been about choosing the right aesthetic. It has always been about meeting your moment honestly, with the materials your era affords and trusting that integrity will outlast novelty.
Ar. Melvyn J. Kanny, a 2024 winner whose practice is rooted in Malaysia's cultural landscape, holds the same conviction from a different angle. For him, timelessness begins not in the drawing but in the listening.
"Timeless design is about being truthful to the design concept from the onset, based on the site, the location, respecting the traditional and cultural values of the site. It's not about trends or fashion, which will never last."
— Ar. Melvyn J. Kanny, MJ Kanny Architect, Malaysia
A building that serves its place, its climate, and its people will remain legible long after the trends surrounding its construction have been forgotten. That is the premise. That is the test.
VanaVasa Resort, MJ Kanny Architect
The Building That Belongs
When Ar.Razin Mahmood of Razin Architects Sdn. Bhd. speaks about his Masjid Daing Abdul Rahman and the Bukit Raja Convention Hall in Klang, he is not describing two projects. He is describing two acts of community.
"A building that's made to last should also answer the needs of the community. There is hope to be a sense of pride for the users and there's also hope to create some sense of belonging for the community."
— Ar. Razin Mahmood, Razin Architects Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia
Masjid Daing Abdul Rahman, Razin Architects Sdn. Bhd.
It is a reminder that timeless design carries a social obligation. A building does not endure simply because its materials are durable, though that matters too, and Razin is deliberate about specifying coated steel backed by strong technical support for precisely this reason. It endures because it meant something to the people who used it, and continues to mean something to those who come after.
In Thailand, the founders of Studio Sifah shared the same conclusion through a different architectural vocabulary. Ar. Sifah Sornchaiyeun describes her practice as beginning with deep research into people, place, culture, and context before a single line is drawn.
"Timeless design is not about what is trending today, but about what continues to matter tomorrow."
— Ar. Sifah Sornchaiyeun, Studio Sifah, Thailand
Her co-founder, Ar. Worrarat Rattanatrai is equally precise. A building that is truly timeless does not feel old and is not temporary. It functions as time changes, held together not by a trend but by its own rightness. Their project LAAB is More embodies this in every choice: honest local materials selected for how they age, structural clarity that speaks a universal architectural language, a simplicity that goes beyond time without needing to announce it.
"We try to give value in terms of architectural language that is simple and direct, with function before aesthetics, and materials that reflect beauty through time. It is also a building that reflects the context of people through the architecture."
— Ar. Worrarat Rattanatrai, Studio Sifah, Thailand
Their project LAAB is More is expressed physically through honest local materials chosen for how they age, a structural clarity that communicates through simplicity, a universal architectural language that, as Ar. Worrarat Rattanatrai puts it, allows a building to go beyond time without relying on fast-changing trends.
The Test That Waits
Standing before a building that draws from Sarawak's vernacular traditions and re-expresses them through contemporary steel construction, Ar. Irwan Iswandi Bin Mohammed offers an aspiration that functions as both a design brief and a legacy statement.
"If people visit 20 years from now, they will wonder whether the building came before the landscape, or the landscape came before the building. We will consider this a success."
Ar.Irwan Iswandi Bin Mohammed, Arkiskape Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia
It is the oldest test in architecture, and the most unforgiving. The Sultan Abdul Samad Building, the Kuala Lumpur Mosque, the Petronas Twin Towers as Ar. Melvyn J. Kanny observes, each embodies a timeless design because it was rooted in something deeper than its era
Modern coated steel, including COLORBOND® steel, extends this possibility further. When properly detailed and thoughtfully applied, it allows buildings to:
maintain visual clarity despite weathering
reduce maintenance disruption over decades
retain intended colour relationships within design
This is how material contributes to timeless design, not by defining it, but by preserving it.
2026: The Invitation
The Steel Architectural Awards ASEAN 2026 asks architects across the region to answer one question with a building: what will you leave behind for the people not yet born?
For architects in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and beyond, the awards process is itself an act of articulation of finding the words for what a project has always meant, and placing that meaning before a panel of respected regional and international peers. The recognition that follows is not merely a trophy. It is the beginning of a longer conversation about what architecture owes its place and its future.
Here, coated steel is not a specification. It is a commitment to longevity, to grace under time, to the architectural integrity that does not need the world to stay the same in order to remain relevant.
To see how architects across ASEAN share their ideas on building timeless architecture
Our generation's material, coated steel, is ready. The question is what we build with it.
Submissions for the Steel Architectural Awards ASEAN 2026 are now open.
Submit your project through countries now.
Theme: Shaping Resilient Futures: Timeless Designs with Coated Steel
Categories: Residential | Commercial | Industrial | Institutional/Public/Other
