The residential projects of wall flower architects – touch of Eden House, forgotten by Zeithaus, Infidgartenhaus, Pocket Garden House – create pictures of green and idyllic refugees. The latest project of the Singapore company entitled Open Courtyard House is no different.
His businessman, Khua, was firmly convinced that in his new home he wanted an inner courtyard that was inspired by one of Wallflower's designs. But the first action in which he fell in love was too long and narrow and considered unsuitable by Robin Tan, the founder of the architectural company.
A few months later, Khua sat on the perfect property in the Gilstead area near Novena. “It was in a dead end, in a quiet area with a large shape,” he describes. “I liked it more.”
There were other bonuses, including closer to his three tween and teen children as their former home in the east. There was a supermarket nearby and it was near the city.
The 8,400 square meter ceded house was baptized due to a gap in the C-shaped plan. Tan put the swimming pool in this emptiness and framed it with green. “The lush landscape design makes the hard architectural edges of the building and integrates it into its surroundings,” he says when he wraps houses with many plants.
Instead of building up to create a high house, tan up to create a basement in which he jokes the entertainment room, a cave – Khua's “Man Cave”, he, jokes – and service areas in the back. The reason for this was Khua's preference for a sloping roof.
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“It made it difficult to absorb a meaningful third level within the regulatory roof tree (guidelines). Therefore, we designed a full basement instead.”
A skylight that runs over the length of the courtyard brings enough daylight and natural ventilation to the underground space, where Tan added an underground garden. At the top of the house, its climax at the two ends of the C-shaped plan and arrives in the middle and gives the house a dynamic and sculptural presence.
Khua's mother occasionally comes with the family, and her room is on the second floor that is directed onto the street, but is written off by a wood-bris-soleiline with a wooden pressure finish. This material disguises parts of the facade and gives the house a warm face. On the first floor it covers the entrance walls and the ceiling and rejuvenates in an inviting gesture.
“Singing a maximum cover of 50 percent. In order to optimize the usable space, we have integrated the Autoveranda under the second stall and effectively” setting “side cover (which was used for other important rooms),” explains Tan about the clever form-meet function trick. The wooden look is matched with gray roof tiles and a slim tra vertical cladding, which delivers the thermal mass and keeps the interiors cool.
Khua also insisted that the stairs had been hidden on a gable edge and took with screens, so that this part of the house becomes a kind of lantern at night and shines with filtered light. Tan put it together with the elevator in front of the house. This cycle costs the living and dining area that bends around the courtyard to weigh the examination room.
All of these rooms are framed by large, room -high sliding doors, which can be installed in the walls for an unobserved view of the gardens. The large openings “extend the views” beyond every room, says Tan. “We always like that homeowners feel the full length and depth (of a house) as far as possible.”
These spacious openings offer good lighting and natural ventilation of times of day. Khua jokes that one of his sons sometimes falls asleep on the sofa in the living room as it is poured away by the natural breeze. Happy plants (Dracaena Massseaana) Line the circumference garden on one side while monetary plants (plants (Crassula Oval) Lift the basement on the other side and merge with the green landscape of the courtyard.
On the second floor, the children's bedrooms are located in a row behind the grandmother's bedroom. The main bedroom suite is located in the back of the study in the kink of the C-shaped plan. It is an ideal form that offers privacy and at the same time promotes interaction in the courtyard. Corridors that open up to the courtyard means that the family is constantly involved in nature.
Khua, his wife and children enjoy life in their new home like the plants mentioned. Khua says that when his children bring friends home, they like to gather in the entertainment room. “The living room in my previous house was smaller, so that the children could hardly wait to end and go.