Maple Avenue

This house was designed to suit the lifestyle of a family with 4 daughters. It expresses the tension between privacy and openness through the alternating areas of glass and screening, and between the sensual and the rational through the use of curves and rectilinear forms.

The house is “split” by the void for circulation and staircase into front and back, and then brought together by the enfolding roof. The architectural devices used function on emotional, formal and climactic levels, such as the operable louvre screens allowing privacy, air and views to be controlled to a high degree of flexibility. Materials are treated as stretched surfaces of metal, glass and plaster that alternately enclose and reveal as they fold and overlap.

The interiors and landscape were designed together with the architecture. The interiors continue the stretched, weightless, folding and opening language of the architecture. The elliptical swimming pool raised from the rectilinear carpet of grass creates a shimmering focus to the garden, while accentuating the diagonal of the small site to create a feeling of space. Detailing throughout serves to blur the interior and exterior, such as pebbles and stepping stones used in the interior circulation and timber decks extending the interior timber floor outside to the lawn.

Client
-
Location
Maple Avenue, Singapore
Status
Built
Design Inception
March 1999
Completion
December 2001
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
570m²
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Cairnhill Road

Designed in 2006 and completed in 2008, 128D Cairnhill Road is a pre-war 2-storey transitional terrace house, originally built as a row of 9 units in a streetblock. Built in the early 1900s, the streetblock has a strong urban presence. The terrace houses are designed with simple but elegant plaster mouldings with a balcony and forecourt fronting the main road.

The client’s brief called for a naturally-ventilated house with light filling the interiors via skylights fenestrations and courtyards. The design addresses the client’s needs by enhancing the qualities of the traditional shophouse- the courtyard was celebrated as the focal point of the house that forms a contiguous space with the living and dining areas. The spatial quality of the shophouse is maintained by minimizing the amount of internal partitions, especially at the conserved main building. The main staircase linking first and second floors of the conserved building was placed along the party wall and detailed to be visually transparent to create a generous contemporary living area which accentuates the linearity of the shophouse.

The central courtyard with its water feature, green wall and sculptural planting provides a focus for the first and second storeys, while a new rooftop swimming pool and terrace at the third level allows full enjoyment of the roof and views over the surrounding area. The main balcony is used as part of the master bathroom. The linear staircase, bridge and spiral staircase create an internal world filled with spatial incident and surprise.

Client
-
Location
128D Cairnhill Road, Singapore 229712
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Status
Built
Design Inception
August 2006
Completion
July 2008
Type
Conservation, Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
338.17m²
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Rochalie Drive

This house is located in a quiet central area in Singapore. The concept was a “house as verandah” – a linear plan, one room thick, cross-ventilated, which opened up to the garden.

The house occupies an edge of the site. Towards the street, a series of walls, screens and environmental filters creates privacy. Towards the garden, the house opens up as indoor-outdoor spaces. A huge verandah roof seems to hang weightless over the terrace, and creates a tropical outdoor space to host guests, and a place for daily outdoor living.

The house is environmentally-sensitive, taking simple materials and traditional and vernacular strategies – overhangs, louvres, cross ventilation – into a contemporary vocabulary and new directions.

Client
-
Location
19 Rochalie Drive, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
January 2003
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
944m²
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Victoria Park Road

These three bungalows at Victoria Park Road represent a new level of contemporary tropical living. The houses provide a combination of practicality, comfort and luxury. They project a clean and elegant statement in design, which compliments their pleasant garden setting.

The houses are well appointed, each with 4 bedrooms and separate living, dining, family and kitchen areas, which are placed like glass pavilions amongst the greenery. Internal glass roofed courtyards make every room a bright and airy delight, yet screens and louvres allow the light to be filtered to maintain a comfortable ambience. These full height courtyards make the basement level as well lit and ventilated as the other parts of the house.

Glass is used extensively in the living and dining areas with the swimming pool built into the house as a cool and calming heart. The careful integration of the internal and external areas permit the occupant to live in the garden and dine by the pool even without going outside. Materials and design details have been developed to maximise the spatial flow, space utilisation and comfort of the occupants, yet are simple to maintain.

Each house has a unique and individual layout yet the same simplicity, practicality and beauty of the design.

Client
-
Location
6, 6A & 6B Victoria Park Road, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
January 2001
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
1070m²
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Linden Drive

Three young owners teamed up to buy an older single bungalow in Singapore and develop it into 4 semi-detached residences. The uneven site boundaries guided the creation of two pairs of similar but different units.

The brief required 3 bedrooms with attached bathrooms, guest room/study, living, dining, and small swimming pool.

To make the most of the small site, the houses were conceived of as “apartments on the ground”, with service areas moved away from the ground floor to free up precious land for recreation and garden views. This allowed the entire ground floor behind the front wall to be opened up to the garden as glass pavilions. Spatially, the ground floor extends to the boundary walls, becoming a composition of water, stone, timber and grass.

Above the ground floor, where privacy becomes an issue, the houses become increasingly more solid.

A central void created private internal views and makes a calm and peaceful heart to the house. The staircase winds up around a service core housing guest bath and utility spaces. The staircase, cantilevered above the pool, is conceived as an “Escher-esque” construction of folded planes of teak and steel, creating a sculptural focus. Electrically controlled canvas blinds can be lowered across the courtyard opening in bad weather, and when privacy is required.

Client
-
Location
Linden Drive, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
May 1998
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
1408m²
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Goodwood Residence

The 210-unit Goodwood Residence adjoins Goodwood Hill, a 20-hectare tree conservation area dotted with colonial “Black and White” bungalows. Organised as two 12-storey L-shaped blocks, the 2.5-hectare development frames the view to the forested hill through an operable facade.

All blocks are one apartment thick, configured as “garden walls” that define and enclose a series of courtyards culminating in a 100m wide lawn and pool court, the heart of the development.

The ground floor units have private gardens and pools with sliding panels that allow either a walled courtyard or framed views over the borrowed landscape. Overlooking the central courtyard on the 2nd and 3rd storeys, are 15 units designed with “treehouse cabanas” perched amidst the treetop canopies. Rising above this tree line are the mid-levels (4th-11th storeys), which have overlapping double volume balconies.

The units are screened with an operable screen made from aluminium tubes which resemble a woven textile. The screen has operable sections that pivot up for open views or can be left down for privacy. The screen allows free flow of air into the naturally ventilated apartments.

The project has been awarded the prestigious GreenMark Platinum Award by the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore.

Client
GuocoLand Group
Location
261 Bukit Timah Rd., Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
June 2013
Type
Residential Mid-Rise
Gross Floor Area
43,697m²
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Telok Ayer Street

WOHA’s former office is located in a 100 year old shophouse in the historic conservation district in the heart of the CBDin Singapore. The project was completed in only eight months, and was designed in 2001 and completed in 2002.

The old shophouse space was cut up spatially by a winding timber staircase. A new spiral staircase within a steel-clad drum allowed the floors to be developed as open plan spaces on each level. Planted roof terraces, glazed floors, timber decks, and a hanging mezzanine transformed the old utilitarian spaces at the rear into a contemporary studio space.

Client
WOHA
Location
175 Telok Ayer Street, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
April 2002
Type
Conservation, Offices
Gross Floor Area
398m²
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Watten Estate

The project involved developing a Singapore property with a single 1960’s bungalow into a group of 12 semi-detached houses. The challenge for the design of the project was to maximise use of the land, and create a product that would offer a fresh alternative to standard housing developments inSingapore, which are typified by tinted windows, grandiose imagery and encrusted ornamentation.

The architecture is expressed in a clear and controlled formal language, with an aim to create a light and airy living environment that allowed maximum enjoyment of the small plots. The project also aimed to allow energy-efficient performance through properly designing for the urban tropical environment and using low technology, practical domestic solutions. The design sought to allow the house to be easily opened up and naturally ventilated when required, but sealed up and efficiently air-conditioned when the weather gets too hot.

The project sets out to create clear forms, flowing space and clean lines. Transparency, openness and layering were pursued so that the feeling of space was pushed to the maximum. The spatial form of each house was developed around a central bay with two side aisles of space that interconnect in different ways and through varying filters and openings. A combination of fixed screens, adjustable louvres, frosted glass and blinds allow the inhabitants to adjust the environment to their comfort. Internal views through the use of voids, galleries and open stairs extend space vertically within the private domain to compensate for the lack of external space

Client
-
Location
140 to 140E, 142 to 142E Watten Estate Road, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
February 1998
Type
Residential Low-Rise
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MeyerHouse

Along Meyer Road, in Singapore’s eastern residential enclaves, sits a condominium development housing 56 dwelling units adjacent to a 1 hectare forested park. The 5-storey with attic development is arrayed in a contiguous ‘C’ configuration with residences looking out onto a 50m by 75m internal forested garden that spills out onto the adjacent park.

Living spaces extend onto large outdoor rooms nestled amongst tall forest trees set amidst a formal English garden. Terracing gardens and water bodies cascade down onto a lower ground arrival level, opening up the subterranean arrival lobbies and facilities to natural daylight, ventilation and greenery.

From street level, the building is scaled to the proportions of a traditional French Chateau with a stately façade of customized louvers and panelling that envelops the entire form. The louvered façade is inclined to secure privacy for units from street level. The façade finishes extend onto the roof, creating an envelope that is sculptural and abstract.

Internally, the forested garden is cocooned by timber blinds that screen the residences imbuing the tranquil garden spaces with warmth and character. Within the garden, a long pool set centrally along the main axial views of the forested park reflect the tall trees and warm facades of the development. The pool is overlooked by guest and entertainment facilities that house a generous dining room, a cosy lounge and outdoor activity decks.

Client
Secure Venture Development (No.1) Pte Ltd
Location
128 Meyer Road, Singapore 437938
Status
Built
Completion
March 2022
Type
Interiors, Residential Mid-Rise
Gross Floor Area
15,684.74m²
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Awards

2023

Green Good Design Sustainability Awards - Winner

Awarded by Chicago Atheneum in the Green Architecture category.

Pan Pacific Orchard

The design of Pan Pacific Orchard envisions a new prototype for high-rise tropical hospitality. This 23-storey 350-room building is a distinctive garden hotel, adding to the green and spectacle along Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping belt.

To overcome the limited site area and to break down the scale, the design stacks 4 distinct strata with 3 Sky Terraces inserted as elevated grounds with amenities surrounded by gardens. The guest rooms are split into 3 stacks configured in L-shaped stacks overlooking either the Sky Terraces or city.

The 1st stratum is designed as a Forest Terrace set between Claymore Road and Claymore Drive with a water plaza and cascades and edged by forest trees, creating a dramatic entrance and a memorable urban connection.

The 2nd stratum is conceived as a Beach Terrace, offering guests a tropical oasis, with meandering sandy beachfront and palm groves around an emerald lagoon, set against Orchard Road.

The 3rd stratum is set up as a Garden Terrace orientated towards the quiet residential estate of Claymore Hill. Flanked by the Bar and Lounge, the Terrace showcases a manicured garden, complete with verandah, lawn, fountains and garden.

The 4th stratum is envisaged as a Cloud Terrace comprising of a 400 seat ballroom and event lawn, surrounded by thin mirror pools and filigree planting, washed by natural light filtering through the PV roof canopy.

The interiors are designed to reinforce the experience of each strata, offering a unique boutique-scale hotel experience. Huge living green columns with creepers visually connects the 4 strata, juxtaposing against the stacked massing and lend the urban hotel with a touch of resort.

Client
UOL Group Limited
Location
10 Claymore Road, Singapore 229540
See on Google Maps
Status
Built
Design Inception
December 2015
Completion
June 2023
Type
Hospitality, Interiors, Resort
System
Ecological, Social
Gross Floor Area
19,693m²
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State: Built