'Success Doesn't Happen By Accident.'

Principal director of NWKA architects NG Wai Keong believes that the best way to achieve your goals is with purpose, intent and a pursuit of the passive environment

- Ashton Kobler

A passion for the three-dimensional came to Ng Wai Keong when he was little. He jokes about being the black sheep of the family, with parents who both worked in the medical field. “My parents were always in medicine, so it was the complete opposite to me,” he recalls. “Many people look at things in two-dimensional ways, but my appreciation for 3D, from a young age, developed into forms and buildings.”

Wai Keong graduated from the Welsh School of Architecture and started his career designing healthcare buildings in London in the 1980s. In 1987, he moved back to Malaysia and, after establishing a place in the market for years through a progressive architectural group, he formed NWKA Architects in 2006.

“The past 30 years have been spent managing people,” he says. “My previous practice had about 100 people. I transitioned from managing the architecture to managing people and managing the business. During that process, I felt that I was moving too far from what I like to do.”