Arrive in KL for the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture, a triennial event, after 20-hour flight via Stockholm. Bleary-eyed, check into the business-chic Traveler’s Hotel, so new the furnishings still have scraps of wrapping tacked on. Run into old publishing and architectural friends on elevators, in the restaurant, at every turn—French publisher of l’Architecture d’Aujourdhui, Jean-Michel Place, Architectural Review editor Paul Finch, Netherlands Architecture Institute Director Ole Boumon, among others.

Hit the ground running with tour of city, which is ultra-clean, but missing texture. Reminds you of Honolulu without the beach--a mixture of new towers in semi-suburban settings, parks, rain trees in a humid broth you can smell and almost drink. Around a corner, a little house with a tin roof sheltered from the tropical sun and raised off the ground sings its own local song to days as a tin-mining town in the jungle. Wood doesn’t last long in this climate, unless it’s ironwood.