And Studio’s Victoria Park Villas interior
“There’s a particular mood of arriving here,” says Samantha Ho of And Studio, describing the approach to Victoria Park Villas in Singapore’s ritzy District 10. “The moment you turn into the estate, the world seems to slow down a little, the city slips away, and the air feels a bit softer.” And it is in this soigné pocket of quiet, where 109 landed houses are cocooned in manicured landscaping, that Ho and her And Studio partner, Aitong Yu, have both renovated and crafted a home for clients whose work never truly stops. The owners – a couple who are content creators and business owners with two young children – live at a peculiar intersection of public and private. As content creators who are constantly “on,” Ho says their work follows them everywhere, the pace rarely slows, and home often becomes an extension of the studio. They came to And Studio seeking sanctuary, a place where they could simply be with their children, where the noise could be shut out. The design challenge, though, was more nuanced than creating a mere…
Tierra Design’s Villa Mayavee revisited: linked pavilions in the Thai tradition
The approach to Villa Mayavee winds through a canopy of trees along Phuket’s west coast, climbing toward the peninsula south of Kamala Beach. The road narrows past low-rise homes scattered among forested hills, ending, eventually, at a private promontory where cliffs drop toward the Andaman Sea. What emerges is a series of horizontal planes that…
Bamboo Home: Aman Sinaya by Carol Karthe
“Good design will define how you fill the space with memories,” says sustainability advocate Celina van Dierendonck. She and her husband Alec recently built a three-story home along the coast of Mati, a quiet town southeast of Davao City. Constructed from 5,000 bamboo poles, the house blends seamlessly with the towering coconut trees around it.…
A Formzero domicile of edible planting leaves its indelible mark in a Kuala Lumpur terraced suburb
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…
Design Collective Architects syncopates glass and concrete planes within a multigenerational Bukit Tunku home
Of the many residences that striate the slopes of this Kuala Lumpur enclave, Max House is ostensibly on the cutting edge of design. Manifesting the materially-restrained zeitgeist of modern regionalism, this 2,344 sq m four-storey residence doesn’t shy away from limelight. Surrounded by native trees, its pool, decks and floors are dramatically stacked, the defiance…
Victor Ting of The Carpenter’s Workshop has transformed the interior of a 1930s house in the Guillemard Road neighbourhood
By their own admission, architects can sometimes make the worst clients, plagued, as they are, by over-design and hamstrung by hyper self-criticism and second-guessing. Happily, none of these drawbacks are evident in the Barrack House which is owned and designed by Victor Ting, the principal of Singapore studio, The Carpenter’s Workshop. To hear Ting tell…
Right Angle Studio transforms a 15-year-old duplex apartment in Novena to have a clean aesthetic and calm vibe
Long and narrow floor plates are not the easiest to design. Therefore, when Right Angle Studio was confronted with a duplex apartment in Novena that had exactly this, it knew it had a challenging time ahead for itself. Fortunately, the project benefited from the expertise of the two brothers running the firm, who are highly…
YWA Studio contrasts the fortress-like façade of this semi-detached house in Telok Blangah with open interiors
So successful was YWA Studio in applying a monochromatic palette to parts of this semi-detached house in Telok Blangah that the photographer had to come back to do a reshoot. The reason? “All I saw was a big black mess,” laughs Tan Yue Wei, the Principal Architect and Founder of the design firm. Done in…
Metre Architects transforms this semi-detached house in Sin Ming with a nature-inspired material palette
When Metre Architect’s Woon Chung Yen first entered this semi-detached house in Sin Ming, he was floored. Yawning open from left to right was a 15.3m-long interior, leading him to think, “Oh my goodness, what am I going to do with this whole volume of space? How will I animate it?” Although in charge only…
Artistroom sensitively renovates an apartment in Pandan Valley
Pandan Valley ranks among one of the first and most iconic condominium developments in Singapore. Designed by pioneer generation architect Tan Cheng Siong and completed in 1979, it is part of the country’s precious stock of modernist buildings that seems to be fast disappearing, despite calls to conserve them. It is therefore heartening to learn…
Christian Liaigre drives the design of this semi-detached house in Bukit Timah by Joey Khu Interior Design
When it comes to creating a desirable environment, one of the biggest challenges is having a vision strong enough to pull together disparate elements to achieve a cohesive result. For this project by Joey Khu Interior Design, this obstacle was overcome in a beautifully simple fashion, because of the clients’ love for the work of…
Arche Design Co. introduces the Scandinavian farmhouse aesthetic to a HDB flat in northeast Singapore
The request for a neutral palette is a common one in residential design. For this five-room HDB apartment in northeast Singapore by Arche Design Co., it was especially pertinent since one of its owners is an influencer. This means her home has to be a stage for her to video and photograph the products she…
Studio iF redesigns four duplexes in a condo on Orchard Boulevard to create villas in the sky
As design challenges go, Gwen Tan of Studio iF knew she was being presented with an unusual one when a property developer approached her to relaunch part of their condominium project on Orchard Boulevard with a new design angle. The reason for the change? The marketability of the four duplexes on the highest two floors,…
The Monocot Studio reintroduces the courtyard into a heritage apartment in Tiong Bahru
Tiong Bahru has long been prized as much for its heritage-listed Art Deco vibe and low-slung silhouette, as for the interior proportions of its renovated apartments with their spacious rooms and high ceilings. Even so, entering this sleek ground floor apartment on Eng Hoon Street, designed by The Monocot Studio, is apt to provoke a…
Stacey Leong Interiors makes over a bungalow in MacRitchie with a calm, minimalist aesthetic
The green movement has made its mark on the architecture industry through sustainable design, energy-efficient buildings, renewable materials and the adaptive reuse of existing structures. Indeed, preserving a house is one of the most eco-conscious decisions any new homeowner can make. Another excellent reason for doing so: timeless, classic design. This was the case for…
A bungalow designed by Local Architecture Research + Design in the Dunearn estate is topped with a “sun hat”
Houses with starkly outlined pitched roofs in Singapore are common enough. What is less heard of is them being likened to “a sun hat worn by farmers”. This is exactly how Local Architecture Research + Design described a bungalow it designed in the Dunearn estate. Less visible is the sizable kitchen, which takes up almost…
2nd Edition centres the 3 Orchard By-The-Park show suite around a social deck
For interior designers, show flats can be tricky creatures to balance. By their nature, they need to be everything for everyone. Stylish, but not too stylish. Exclusive, but also inclusive. Attention seeking, but without being too out there. With literally no room for variation to cater to individual tastes, the design must conjure up a…
The Carpenter’s Workshop taps Japanese kirigami to design this terrace house in East Coast
With its tall, recessed window flanked by square cut-outs of various sizes, the pure white façade of this terrace house in Singapore’s East Coast is immediately eye-catching. Designed by interiors firm The Carpenter’s Workshop, it is inspired by kirigami, the Japanese art of three-dimensional origami that also involves cutting. The three-and-a-half storey house, sited on…
Resort-like elements meet Japanese minimalism in this apartment at Kent Ridge Hill Residences by AR-kee Design Studio
AR-kee Design Studio has designed a compact, fourth-floor apartment in Kent Ridge Hill Residences, turning it into a tranquil Zen retreat. The owners – a Singaporean banker and his Japanese air stewardess wife – wanted a home with a modern Japanese look and the atmosphere of a resort. Other than that, their only requests were…
L Architects experiments with bridging a landed house and apartment in this unit in UE Square Residences
In Singapore, ground floor units in residential developments are usually not as sought after as those on higher floors. L Architects, however, saw much potential in this 1,119sqft, level-one condominium unit in UE Square Residences. In doing so, it turned it into an apartment with interiors reminiscent of the inside of a house. The apartment’s…