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White and Natural Concrete for a Unique Extended Family Home in Singapore

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From the street, industrial concrete with wild grasses growing out of the ledges intriguingly suggests an overgrown ruin that has been taken over by wilderness.

Formwerkz Architects completely rebuilt an older semi-detached house creating light, spaciousness and privacy for a large extended family in Singapore despite towering neighbors next door.

Inside, wide open clean white space easily accommodates the large extended family, which has lived on this street for forty years.

The site had housed the multi-generational family but needed to be completely redesigned to meet their changing needs.

A large skylight pours light down four floors into this open central atrium on the ground floor, while a brief jungle to one side conceals the looming neighboring building.

Though there are tall buildings on each side of the narrow site, making windows impossible, even this ground floor of the four story house is abundantly lit.

Floor to ceiling glazing slides open out to the side garden, and the grand piano is an elegant touch in the resulting jungle pavilion-like space.

The extended family is now gracefully housed on the bottom two floors within the narrow and difficult site without feeling cramped.

At the top of the four story atrium, a walkway connects to the roof garden, while completely blocking the building to the side.

Living rooms are open to this central garden atrium as if overlooking the outdoors.

The walkway to the roof garden is natural concrete to contrast with the white concrete denoting ‘interior’space.

The use of natural concrete offset by the green of the jungle and polished with white is refreshing, cool and civilized.

White concrete also freshens a garden scene against natural concrete through a window.

Not only does the central atrium bring the outdoors in, but a stepped roof garden on top also re-utilizes the entire footprint of the house on the small lot.

The terraced rooftop provides a small ‘mountain’ to climb to a park-like place ‘to sit and have a conversation while looking out in the same direction, sharing the same moment,’ say the architects.

Even at street level, white fencing subtly civilizes the industrial heft of the natural concrete building.

A very confident redesign, with a very fresh and youthful touch.