Small by intention, exacting by habit
Apppro was founded on an unfashionable idea: that a design firm should stay small enough for its principal to know every project by heart — and be accountable for every millimetre it builds.
Eleven years, one discipline
The studio began in 2015 as a two-person practice above a joinery workshop in Kuala Lumpur. Our founder and principal designer, Mei Lin Chong, had spent a decade watching beautiful drawings die on construction sites — value-engineered, misread, or quietly substituted. The fix was structural: put the designers and the builders inside one company, under one contract, answerable to one client.
That decision still shapes everything. We employ our own site managers and work with a fixed circle of master joiners, stone masons and M&E specialists who have been with us for years. Nothing is thrown over a fence to the lowest bidder — because there is no fence.
Today the studio is sixteen people and deliberately no larger. We accept fourteen commissions a year, and when the year is full, we say so.
Five movements, one conductor
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Listening
A long first conversation at your property or our studio. We map how you actually live — routines, rituals, frustrations — before we discuss a single finish. You receive a written spatial brief to approve.
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Composition
Layouts, sections and lighting studies. We present two directions, not twelve — each fully resolved, each honest about cost. Revisions happen here, on paper, where they are cheap.
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The material book
Every stone slab, veneer, fabric and fitting is specified, sampled and priced. When you sign the book, the contract price is fixed. This document follows the project to the last day.
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The build
Our own site team executes the drawings with weekly photographic reports and a standing site meeting you are always welcome to join. Changes are possible — but always priced and signed before they happen.
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The reveal
We hand over styled, cleaned and complete — art hung, beds dressed, lighting scenes programmed. Then we come back at three and twelve months to check that everything still closes with that soft, expensive click.
Four standards that do not flex
One accountable name
Your creative lead attends every site meeting from demolition to handover. You will never be handed sideways to a junior you have not met.
Drawings that get built
Because our builders sit ten feet from our designers, details are engineered before they are promised. What you approve is what gets installed.
Money without mystery
Fixed contract value, milestone billing, and a material book that shows what things cost. No provisional sums that balloon after demolition.
The twelve-month return
Every commission includes scheduled after-care visits. Timber moves, silicone cures, houses settle — and we come back to tune them.
Bring us a difficult brief
The projects we remember are the ones that arrived looking impossible. Tell us about yours — the first conversation costs nothing but an hour.
Begin a Brief