The Customs & Immigration and Quarantine Complex is located in a broad dip that spans an undulating landscape. The approach from Singapore and the second crossing is through a grassed corridor of no-man’s land that passes through a plantation from the Johor Straits as it opens out to the site; flat and gradually rising on either side of a gentle cradle. The mass of the facility is a silver undulating shell, lifted off the ground for ventilating winds and the movement of traffic.

Cavernous by day, a long deep shadow spans the lip of the lifted shell while sunlight is brought in through bands of skylights at the ridges of the shell. Delicate at night, light filters out from beneath the shell, lightening and lifting it up from the ground. The volume of the shell is directional, low at the entry and exit areas and highest in the middle, opening out to the land on its sides. Functionally, the facility focuses on the 2 aspects critical to the success of its use – the movement patterns of traffic and of cross winds.