To Grow And Age Well
Living with nature has always been an allure for homeowners in the tropics, but how can it be truly sustainable? While biophilic design is trending, it has always been integral to HYLA Architects’ design approach and this house in Bukit Timah makes a fine
It is a cloudless, blindingly hot morning with the sun throwing defined shadows on walls and the heat dissolving distant forms into mirages. The weather is typically tropical, presenting the perfect opportunity for the properties of this house near the Singapore Botanic Gardens to shine during my visit.
Designed by HYLA Architects for a couple and their three teenage children, the structure is clad in a trellised skin, aged to a chalky grey. Sunlight casts graphic shadows from the timber screen against the off-form concrete shell, bringing out depth and detail, and verdant planting on the first storey is mirrored by greenery poking, pushing and feathering out of screens and balconies.
It’s a pretty spectacle, though not in the conventional sense of pristine whitewashed walls, ornate grilles and terracotta roofs as seen in the neighbouring houses. The aesthetic here is comparatively raw. Bolts and steel members are exposed, matched by the insouciant proliferation of plants. “It contrasts with most of my other houses that are more streamlined and modern. In this house, both nature and architecture have an informal, less manicured feel,” says Han, the founder and Principal Architect at HYLA.
Han was inspired by the owner-built vernacular houses of Southeast Asia, characterised by tin roofs, aged timber and the haphazard growing of plants. “Our idea was to blur the distinction between architecture and nature, but we did not just do this with space. We did this with the building form in a way that plants appear to be almost taking over the building, interweaving with the skin,” he describes. The screen correlates with internal functions, timber battens being spaced further apart over beams and more densely over openings. “And at the very top, we let it open up so plants can grow out of it,” Han adds.
The assimilation of nature is a persistent theme in Han’s work. It usually interacts with the architecture through internal courtyards, concealed behind reticent facades fabricated as defence mechanisms from sunlight and prying eyes. But here the enveloping screen bestows upon the house a more open mien. Playing diverse roles, it filters views and light while allowing the house to breathe.
Inside, a grey-and-brown material palette takes its cue from the exterior. The fusing of nature and building also segues inwards. A perimeter garden abuts the first-storey common spaces, while on the second storey a large window frames the vista of the car porch roof garden, punctuated by a sculptural frangipani tree. The attic master bedroom suite enjoys a lush garden setting created by a onemetre-wide planter all round, allowing the encounter with nature to continue through habitual motions of resting, changing and bathing. Tall plants buffer like a green curtain, though blinds can be drawn for total privacy.
These strategies produce an oasis from the rough climate outside. Furthermore, the house has a southeast-northwest orientation, which mitigates sun exposure. The form also retracts from the parti wall on the second storey to accommodate a skylight, bringing natural illumination deep into the plan. A list of technologies, which includes a roof ventilator, heat-reducing glass, solar panels and a rainwater-harvesting system, reduces maintenance cost while upping the home’s eco-friendly qualities. These are seemingly quotidian considerations but vital in creating a house that works and will last – an often overlooked aspect of sustainability.