about
Being proponents of contextual designing, we fell in love with the site right from the start a 100sqm conserved historical shophouse perched on a green hill in downtown Singapore; narrow and windowless, but with a skylight in its heart. We pulled in the terrain and greenery of the site context, and created a garden hill indoors, with the terrain doubling up as seating bench, table, and underfloor storage.
This is really our own office, with a brief of an open flexible office with a meeting corner, a large common table, a pantry and some storage.
Being proponents of contextual designing, we fell in love with the site right from the start a 100sqm conserved historical shophouse perched on a green hill in downtown Singapore; narrow and windowless, but with a skylight in its heart. We pulled in the terrain and greenery of the site context, and created a garden hill indoors, with the terrain doubling up as seating bench, table, and underfloor storage.
Lush tropical plants fill our hilltop and reach for the skylight, giving us visual respite and and a relaxing focal point. Brass is used to clad the hilltop to catch the rare overhead sun through the skylight. We also chose brass as a marker of time, hoping that the growing patina would mature together with our young practice.
The garden hill looks like a full conical object, but is actually just a quarter cone butting a corner of a structural and party wall. We used mirrors on both walls to reflect the quarter cone and to complete the hill.
The two-tone approach (one side pink, the other side black and brass) was to give ourselves additional flexibility and better ergonomics. The hilly black-and-brass side would be organic and relaxed, with seats on cushions on the raised floor, like the Japanese Horigotatsu seating. The pink side demarcated by the straight table edge would be more functional, with conventional office chairs and furniture for those who are not used to Horigotatsu seating.
January 2018
