Within its placid setting of ‘80s terrace housing, Planter Box House stands as a piece of revisionist architecture that since 2018 has gained widespread attention. Blanketed in vegetation, it is rooted in agriculture – in motive and as leitmotif –  which informs its everyday use. ADDRESS revisits the house in full bloom, now in its seventh year, to explore life and living among all things reclaimed and homegrown. 

A Passion for Planting

Jade Chow and Seamus Hyland’s house search began in 2014 after their return to Malaysia. By late 2015, having scoured the local housing market, the couple eventually decided on a rebuild of Jade’s family home in Bangsar. 

Seamus, a geologist and former furniture designer, speaks about his inspirations for their house. “I’m really interested in Brutalism and the architects of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, throughout Southeast Asia,” he says. “I photographed quite a few lovely details in these modern houses that weren’t just there for décor. Each had a purpose, like keeping rain off windows. An internal courtyard, like the old shophouses in Penang, was something we wanted. The design had to be of the tropics, appropriate for this climate.” 

Woven into the house’s brief was their love for planting, a passion cultivated during their years in the UK. Elaborates Jade, “We had been growing vegetables in our London garden back then. The major turning point was this two-week residential permaculture course we attended in Kuantan. Even though we had some basic knowledge, we really learnt a lot. It was very inspiring. You can say the house came from that.” 

Conscionable Nonconformity

Sustainability was for Jade and Seamus as big a pillar to their brief as planting and tropical architecture. Their intention to use bubble-deck concrete – with its lower embodied carbon – coincidentally led them to Formzero who, in a matter of weeks, furnished drawings that would capture the essence of their future home.   

“The whole idea of Planter Box House actually started with this very old jasmine tree, the first thing we noticed (on site) before we began anything,” revealed Lee Cherng Yih of Formzero in a 2020 interview. “It is very significant, I would say not only to the house, but also to the streetscape. It serves as the first planter that would spread all the way up to the top of the house, forming a whole new (element of) streetscape.” 

The firm pushed this idea to its absolute limit. Off-form concrete planters jut outwards to the street, proffering a stark three-storey frontage that for a time was a point of neighbourly contention. Flourishing and fruiting planting gradually softened attitudes; scores of edible varieties striate the house, their interplay with the planters enhanced by an external finish derived from split bamboo formwork.

A Breathing House

Beyond the dense, lively façade, the 340-sq-m house arranges lofty spaces for living as well as  higher functionality. Spoke Cherng Yih on the latter, “One of the crucial requirements for the owner is that they don’t want to rely too much on energy consumption (from air conditioning). A key factor was having good cross ventilation which we achieved through the rear kitchen and dining space.” 

The 6m-high space replaces the internal courtyard – impractical due to the house’s shorter length – and in tandem with openable 6m-high glass doors gives the house its ability to breathe. A thermal chimney of glazed louvres and skylight additionally assists to vent warm air from the inside via a strategic suspended metal staircase void. 

Way of Life

Where home interiors tend to favour the splash of new materials, Jade and Seamus have used theirs as a canvas for the reclaimed. Timber furniture from around the region has been sourced and repurposed. Laboratory countertops, brought all the way from Burma, exist today as their kitchen counter complete with electric hob. “We don’t have any purpose-built furniture,” says Jade, referring to their eclectic collection. “The tropical furniture we find is durable, not to mention practical for our daily use. Seamus himself restores a lot of stuff. We try to recycle as much as possible.”

Each nook and cranny of Planter Box House expresses the retired couple’s dynamic, self-sustaining way of life where growth is an outcome, and what is left unwasted. Vegetation is constantly pruned, irrigation tinkered with and adjusted. The planters evolve with the seasons, older plants making way for newer ones, their remnants turned into compost. Fruits and vegetables are harvested and consumed, and shared.

And though wear and tear in a farm-like environment is expected, they are for the most part acceptable. For in service of its users, the architecture here continues to fulfil its purpose. “There won’t be any radical changes to this house,” concludes Jade. “Because for us, it has been designed such that it doesn’t need to.”