Reimagining a Modern Singapore Condo
Woon Chung Yen, a principal architect at METRE Architects, and his team were faced with a design dilemma that is fairly common in Singapore: how could they achieve maximum impact with minimal interventions? Their client’s condo, located in a residential enclave on the fringes of the city, was recently constructed; and though it had much of what they desired – modern finishes, a fully equipped kitchen and bathroom, a built-in wardrobe – it lacked a design quality and didn’t necessarily make the most of the 41sqm/441sqft space. “In Singapore, we often encounter owners with brand-new condo apartments. They want a designed space while retaining almost all the existing finishes and appliances for sustainability and financial reasons”, Chung Yen told Never Too Small. “This challenges the design in terms of how to maximise the design impact with often just a singular intervention”.
The opportunity for this project’s singular intervention came from above – more specifically, the 4.7-metre high ceilings. The residence’s generous vertical space height was prime for a loft addition, which proved to not only expand its footprint but also to enhance its experiential quality. The impact of the loft is felt from the moment you step into the home. Just beyond view of the compact, fully equipped kitchen at the entrance is the ribbed-like joinery of the loft’s base, dipping slightly lower than the kitchen’s ceiling height. “It adds spatial delineation while adding layers to the entry experience of this small apartment”, said Chung Yen.
A Suspended Vessel
In its full glory – best observed from the living room area – the loft looks something like a suspended vessel reminiscent of skyships in fantasy stories. Chung Yen explained that with the loft, METRE Architects wanted to evoke a feel of traditional Japanese carpentry. In effect, they achieved so much more than that, creating a timber-like ceiling that behaves like a piece of spatial art, with LED strip lighting emitting a warm glow and texture from each rib. The loft’s versatile functionality makes it all the more impressive, offering an architectural feature wall, a staircase, discreet storage, and a dedicated office space all in one.
The loft respects the homeowners’ desire for a clean aesthetic through its pared back design that minimises intrusion through elements like the alternating half-step staircase, which, by nature, take up less space horizontally. The owners reported that they found the loft somehow made the space feel bigger, an experience owed in part to the other key intervention made by METRE Architects: swapping the dividing living room–bedroom wall for four sliding, fluted glass panels. This simple alteration significantly opened up the space and cleverly offsets any structural confinement the lowered ceiling height may have brought.
Maximum Impact, Minimum Interventions
With the office requirements taken care of, the downstairs space is free for relaxing and socialisation. Two recliners in lieu of a standard sofa offer the couple the option to watch tv and dine or to move them out of the way to accommodate tasks that require more room. For even more space, they can open the sliding glass doors to form a hybrid indoor-outdoor space that is large enough to entertain 6 to 8 people – all with a view of some lush greenery, something Chung Yen points out is “quite unique in the Singapore context”. The home illustrates how, even in the context of small spaces, all the difference can come down to one well thought out intervention.
