House tour: A cave-like home in Singapore designed for the simple life
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House tour: A cavern-similar abode in Singapore designed for the elementary life
This firm for a couple is modest in scale – there is only one bedchamber – but it offers rich encounters, thanks to its windows, air wells and skylights, amidst other architectural devices.
The simple life – this house reflects the retired owners' want for a quiet, secluded retreat. (Photo: Khoo Guo Jie)
thirty Aug 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 10 Jul 2022 05:13PM)
When the owners of this firm, a retired couple, were looking for a new residence, they had very specific requirements. It had to be elevated and detached, located on a corner plot and offering the unproblematic, serenity life they craved for in this phase of their lives.
The search for the perfect site took a yr-and-a-one-half, and they institute it in a mature residential estate in northeastern Singapore.
When it came to the builder, they wanted someone brazen. "Quirky, even," quipped the married woman during our house tour. They had seen the works of Yip Yuen Hong, the founder of ipli Architects and winner of several President's Design Awards, and establish his poetic, inventive tropical business firm designs intriguing.
But they did non appoint him immediately. "We got to know him first through a few meetings, having tea together, for him to understand u.s. and for us to know how he thinks. After 3 months, we decided he was the guy," said the married man. The couple gave Yip full artistic license, requesting simply for a unproblematic firm for two people.
Gray, blockish, chiselled in some aspects simply voluminous in others, the house is a minimal sculpture writ large. "The homeowners live a spartan lifestyle and the compages reflects that," said Yip. They wish to peacefully indulge in their artistic hobbies. The married woman enjoys Chinese painting and calligraphy, and the husband, watercolour painting.
The raised topography places the basement garage at road level. Elevated, the first storey is shielded from passersby. Yip shifted the erstwhile entrance from the chief road to the quieter perpendicular lane for additional safety and privacy.
In the basement, a courtyard heralds the house's encompass of nature. Stepped planters draw the centre upward to a wall of trees at the first storey whose foliage sends down dappled calorie-free. A staircase leads to the first storey, where ample apertures extend vistas outward to gardens.
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The house is not large but the open plan lends a spacious feel. Tall slide-fold timber doors segregate the living, dining and staircase antechamber should the need ascend, although the couple leaves them open nearly of the time.
This strategy is echoed on the 2d storey, where the business firm's sole bedchamber can either segue into, or split up from, the painting studio and report. Yip initially conceived of this compartmentalisation to reduce noise travelling to the edifice'south innermost parts. Additionally, it contains air conditioning to certain parts of the firm.
A i-chamber firm is an anomaly in Singapore, where homeowners are wont to maximise square footage and brimming up rooms for future proofing. The land area is 4,200 sq ft (390 sq grand) simply the house's footprint makes upward less than half of that.
In line with their ethos of simple living, the couple simply wanted the essentials, even doing abroad with a guest room. Not having an cranium enables soaring ceilings in the 2nd storey.
"The homeowners alive a spartan lifestyle and the compages reflects that." – Yip Yuen Hong
In plan, the house reads as three principal zones linked past a central air well. Service spaces such as the wet kitchen on the beginning storey and wardrobe upstairs placed nearer the route buffers noise. "Where we formerly lived at Pasir Panjang Hill, it was very placidity. So we told Yuen Hong we were sensitive about dissonance, peculiarly when we sleep," shared the appreciative husband.
This purposeful arroyo as well informs the architecture'south unusual window sizes and positions. "For case in the bedroom, a large window placed low gives a sense of intimacy and closeness to i sitting at the bed'due south edge or a depression lounge chair," said Yip.
This lowness further enables the copse upfront to act like a screen, thereby resolving privacy issues without defunction and blinds. On the contrary, similarly large windows in the studio are positioned college for proper illumination when the wife is painting.
In the living expanse, a massive timber door leads to the patio. When opened at an angle, air current deflects inward. Even with no fans, the interiors feel comfortable due to well-designed passive cooling. Yip likens the house to a cavern, where the couple not simply retreats into symbolically from the cacophony of mod society, but also physically from the elements.
"Despite the cave-like appearance and temper, the blueprint works in the same mode as a typical tropical house with deep roof eaves for strategic shading and rain protection, openings located at opposite ends for cross-ventilation and stack effect ventilation through the vertical light well," Yip highlighted.
Skylights illuminate the house'south heart, minimally sized to reduce direct overhead heat and glare. Ane looks into the air well, where minor windows feed lite and wind sideways into the 2d storey. "We do non need to switch on any lights during the day," said the hubby on the effective illumination.
In the master bathroom, the ceiling peels open above the shower to innovate sunlight, and a mirror in another corner reflects light effectually. "This is suggestive of light spilling in through gaps, breaks and crevasses seen in natural geological formations. We hope they form an illusion of intimacy with nature during the cleansing activity," said the husband.
These corner features add together to the business firm's quirks. Information technology likewise manifests in small-scale, 45-degree windows throughout the house, whose indirect angle allows views farther out instead of beyond at neighbours.
A charcoal palette and unpolished textures accentuate the cave imagery. Rough granite tiles carpeting the beginning storey, extending into the sheltered terrace to amplify indoor-outdoor connections. The master bathroom, clad homogeneously in rock tiles, meld furniture and structure; depressions in the counter and shower area become washbasin and bathtub, respectively, while a portion of the floor rises equally a bench.
The staircase and second storey'southward unvarnished timber floor offers tactility underfoot, with potential stains calculation to the amuse and begetting witness to the couple'southward lives. Paradoxically, accepting that the unprotected surface is decumbent to little tarnishes past daily activity gives the owner peace of mind from worrying most maintenance, said Yip.
He designed the business firm for nominal upkeep in line with hassle-free living. Rough-textured plaster walls on external and internal walls negate the demand for habitual repainting. Aforementioned besides for the exposed concrete ceiling, featuring subtle gunnysack imprints that add depth and soften reflected light.
The couple rejected all the technological bells and whistles of modern homes such as electronic calorie-free switches and remote air-con systems, having witnessed friends spend excessive time and money on repairing faulty mechanical parts.
To fit all her dress into the humble wardrobe, the wife went on a cathartic de-cluttering spree. "My husband commented that the more space nosotros have, the more things we buy," she laughed. In the studio, painting paraphernalia is predominantly tucked away in cupboards.
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"Despite the cave-like advent and atmosphere, the design works in the same way equally a typical tropical house." – Yip Yuen Hong
The only aspect of the house requiring extensive care is the garden, which has over 40 copse. This niggling Eden frames the couple's everyday living; they are often found on the sheltered terrace surrounded by the bucolic scenery, and lemons from a lemon tree is picked daily to season their water.
During the "circuit breaker", the husband replaced most of the ground-covering plants with gravel every bit the gardener could not come and they were wary of harbouring dengue-causing mosquitoes. The spatial emptiness accentuates the copse' slender trunks and leafy crowns, exuding the wistful feel of a Japanese garden.
The couple is happy with their retreat, whose intended seclusion meant their lives were for the most part unaffected during the circuit breaker. Life here is simple but non ho-hum. "It is these interesting corners that brand up the house. Fifty-fifty subsequently living here for two years, we are notwithstanding discovering new things," said the husband.
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