Core Design Workshop was founded on a belief that design is not an aesthetic exercise, but a form of thinking, a way to uncover the truths people often overlook. Each project is approached as a narrative, shaped through space, material, and light.
In a time where information is abundant and certainty is instant, we choose to work differently
to slow down, observe quietly, and listen to what is rarely voiced – memory, emotion, daily rituals, cultural nuance, the lived experience of a place.
Our work is defined not by style, but by intent. A courtyard that becomes a moment of pause. A wall that carries the weight of history. A roofline that directs light rather than attention. A space that reveals itself rather than performs.
This work often exists in-between, between what is already there and what is introduced, between what is remembered and what is yet to be understood.
Rather than resolving these conditions, we allow them to remain in proximity, where differences are not removed, but placed close enough to affect one another.
We engage with clients through dialogue, questioning assumptions and uncovering what truly matters beneath surface wants. Every project, whether a home, an interior, or a small building, becomes an exploration of how people live, why they gather, and what they remember.
CDW collaborates with a network of registered professionals, consultants, and builders to bring these ideas into reality, ensuring that each work maintains the integrity of its concept while meeting technical requirements.
We create spaces that are not simply lived in, but felt, remembered, and understood.
A multi-disciplinary design practice based in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, Core Design Workshop was founded by architectural designer Chun Hooi TAN in year 2009.
Chun Hooi Tan holds a MSc in Computer Aided Building Design and BSc in Architecture from University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and Queen’s University of Belfast, UK with field of expertise in architectural and spatial design, a field which focuses on the relationship between architecture, design and mankind, with creativity as a point of departure.
As a specialist in spatial design, he has explored deeply into spatial organisation and all its human implications. He holds strongly that the more rapidly organisations, patterns of living and local traditions are disrupted, the more awareness is needed. Chun Hooi investigated the mutual relations between physical and social spaces, including Spatial Organisation, Interior Design and Microarchitecture. His design works are always on a human scale that relate to subjects of relevance to society and its social, cultural and environmental issues.
