Formwerkz Architects

Formwerkz Architects was established in Singapore in 2004 by Alan Tay, Seetoh Kum Loon, Gwen Tan and Berlin Lee. The practice is largely defined and shaped by their common interest in the recovery of mutual human relationships, and the restoration of primordial relationships between man and nature. Projects become vehicles to design happenings or more precisely, the conditions that can espouse more active engagement between man and man with his environment.

In 2010, the three design partners (Alan Tay, Gwen Tan and Seetoh KL) were selected to be featured in Architecture & Urban Design Excellence’s (AUDE) “20 Under 45: The Next Generation” exhibition, aimed to promote a greater awareness and appreciation of design excellence in Singapore. The Apartment House was listed in Monocle’s Singapore Survey as one of the “Best of the Modern”, alongside the likes of Paul Rudolph’s The Colonnade and IM Pei’s OCBC Bank buildings.

Through the years, Formwerkz has received several awards: The Building of the Year and Design Awards from the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA); The International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and the European Urban Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies; International Design Awards (IDA); DFA Design For Asia Award by the Hong Kong Design Centre; and Cityscape Dubai Design Award.

portfolio

This monolithic concrete box along Adam Road by Formwerkz Architects is a GCB with an unexpectedly green heart

If you have been to Adam Food Centre recently, you might have noticed an austere, box-like structure directly opposite the entrance to the carpark. At street level, it appears to be entirely formed by concrete and marked by what looks like inscriptions that echo Egyptian hieroglyphs. “People have asked if it is a police station, embassy or even a temple. The last thing it looks like is a house,” admits Alan Tay, one of the founding partners of Formwerkz Architects and the mastermind behind the design of what is in fact a Good Class Bungalow (GCB). Invisible to the passerby are interiors that are dramatically different from the monolithic outside. A sizeable internal garden takes up about a quarter of the building footprint on the 1,440sqm plot. Additionally, pockets of landscaping are inserted into the basement and first storey, with voids stacked above that open to the sky. Naturally, there is an incredible sense of openness, with both the public and private living areas overlooking all that gorgeous greenery. Tay has also devised a circulation that enables a constant connection…

Live well at TMW Maxwell by Formwerkz Architects with its stacked sky terraces

In Singapore, rooftop gardens are becoming increasingly commonplace, as are sky gardens inserted into the upper floors of a tall building. So when Formwerkz Architects saw how the brief for TMW Maxwell requested “many sky terraces”, it knew it had to do something noteworthy. Leading the charge was Alan Tay, one of the founding partners of Formwerkz. His solution? To have one of TMW Maxwell’s four sides entirely covered with vertically stacked sky terraces arranged in a staggered formation. He did not just stop there – each of the 11 spaces is conceptualised for a different function. Therefore, when the building is completed in 2028 and one drives down Maxwell Road towards Marina South, the view of it is of a park-like aesthetic with verdant landscaping that rises from the fourth to the top floor. Parallels will probably inevitably be drawn with the Bosco Verticale in Milan. “The biophilic approach is something that we are interested in our projects,” says Tay. “But we want to bring it further beyond greening or creating opportunities for planting. We want to make it…

Formwerkz Architects

portfolio

more architects