GEORGE TOWN, March 23 — The Padang Kota Lama Sea Wall – Esplanade in Penang has won two prestigious accolades at the 2025 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation: the New Design in Heritage Contexts award and the Special Recognition for Sustainable Development.
The project was recognised for setting a national benchmark in integrating conservation with contemporary design in revitalising a historic civic space, blending traditional granite construction with modern engineering solutions to address coastal degradation and climate change while improving public access to the waterfront.
According to the jury citation, the redesigned seawall replicates its 19th-century typology and features a wide promenade, concealed structural reinforcements and a lower terrace that submerges during spring tides, revealing the original seawall near the Cenotaph War Memorial.
The project enhances the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage site “Melaka and George Town, Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca,” and is now regarded as a model across Malaysia for its dual-structure design, use of local materials and inclusive stakeholder governance.
