Industry Experts

Lim Cheng Kooi

Founder of AR43 Architects

After graduating from architectural school in 1988, Lim worked for renowned Singapore pioneer architect William Lim who was exploring modernist ideas in commercial and residential projects at William Lim associates. His skills were honed under the guidance of William Lim, completing various award-winning projects including the extension of the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur.

Prior to starting his own practice in 2006, Lim was the Co-Founder & Director of another established architectural firm in Singapore for about 12 years.  This was partnership that lasted for 12 years with the firm, where he acquired a wealth of experiences and the vastness of architectural pragmatics. The partnership saw a variety of projects receiving numerous awards and recognitions through the publication of top architectural journals. It provided a strategic platform for Lim’s design ideas and philosophy to be discussed. These were the formative years for Lim and since then his firm AR43 has benefitted a lot from the values and lesson he had gathered in the field of design and architecture.

Lim believes in being a designer who is responsible towards the built environment and like his mentors, was involved in socio-communal driven projects. The Karuna Home for the Disabled located in Bylakuppe in the district of Mysore, Karnataka State in South India is one such pro bono project that he has undertaken. The project embodied the subtleties of design that is very conscious of its users, and being sensitive to the site context and program. This language in design is prevalent in the various projects he has undertaken which includes commercial, residential, hospitality and in interior spaces.

Apart from architecture and design, Lim immerses himself in the fields of the arts. He paints passionately and sees the fertile relationship between the arts and architecture as something that defines himself as an individual. Lim’s paintings were selected for exhibition in the Shell Discovery Exhibitions in the 90s, subsequently featured as one of the Young Contemporary Artists in Singapore, a book written by veteran Singapore artist, Mr Thomas Yeo.  In 2008, he held his solo art exhibition and raised fund for The Karuna Home in India and a neighborhood school’s bursary program in Singapore. The exhibition was an example of how the arts and architecture can serve the community in spirit and within the socio-economic issues at hand. Lim continues to push himself through both in his architectural practice and through is passion for the arts; sculpting the environment we live in into aesthetically beautiful and functional spaces.