The Karwa Mosque has been serving the nearby Muslim community living in an old ocean side town called Tanjong Tokong on the island of Penang, Malaysia since 1897. This range utilized to be a calm angling town until the 1970s when urbanization and densification begun to require over.

The planning of a new mosque started in late 2014 aiming to replace the old structure that had been extended haphazardly over the years. The original building and its extensions were removed completely to make way for a new building. The brief was to replace the old timber and concrete structure that had been added haphazardly over the years. The original structure and its extensions had to be removed completely to make way for a new building. That being said, the reconstruction was not only to modernise the facility, but also to reconnect with community and evoke a sense of familiarity by bridging the gap between the urban and rural areas. For this, the architect has employed vernacular architecture techniques, forms and aesthetics.

This replacement for a timber-and-concrete 1897 mosque welcomes visitors through a series of nuanced thresholds – commencing at the road’s edge with a serenely curved wall. Avoiding both traditional domes and arabesques and the excessive height of recent surrounding buildings, this one-and-a-half-storey structure capitalises on its small site with a large, landscaped courtyard terrace accommodating 1,200 worshippers. Beyond the courtyard – with its oval-shaped oculus (reminiscent of verandas in local vernacular architecture) – the large prayer hall is a double-height, square space. Its mihrab wall is, unusually, split into three full-height recessed sections rendered green with religious-text appliqués. The walls between these recesses form carved, perforated panels, punctuated by a minbar opening for the imam. Above a suspended concrete slab (raised due to alluvial soil conditions), the reinforced-concrete beam-and-column structure has brick infill walls. The column-free prayer hall is achieved using a post-tensioned concrete slab for its mezzanine and a steel space-frame roof.