Singapore

The recently completed apartment of design duo Takenouchi Webb is as personal and characterful as you'd expect

For 13 years, architect Marc Webb and interior designer Naoko Takenouchi lived in a walk-up apartment in Singapore's colonial-era Wessex Estate. It was a charming home, but the founders of design firm Takenouchi Webb — famed for projects like the Katamama hotel in Bali and Singapore's beloved Tanjong Beach Club — wanted a place to call their own. It took them ten years to find what they were looking for: a new home with enough character amid Singapore's glossy real-estate offerings.

What they found is a 1950s walk-up apartment with good bones. ‘We're always drawn to older buildings — the planning and spaces are usually more generous,' says Takenouchi. ‘There are also some nautical Art Deco touches we liked.' Updates include glass louvres in the open-plan living and dining area that allow park and port views, new kitchen sliding doors that enhance spatial fluidity and the division of the large bathroom into shower and toilet compartments for flexible usage.

‘The apartment was designed before airconditioning became common, so it has large openings, deep roof overhangs, high ceilings and ample cross-ventilation. We live with the doors and windows constantly open,' Webb adds. The apartment's north-south orientation brings in comfortable sunlight, while the couple's love for nature is reflected in the leafy canvases visible from bedroom windows and plenty of potted and air plants around the house. This earthy ambience is enhanced with custom oak joinery and enlivened with terrazzo flooring that aligns with the building's original tactility. In the bathrooms, the material's speckled pattern is tempered with grey mosaic tiles, mirror and metal.

Takenouchi's penchant for order is evident in the children's bedroom. Beds conceal storage beneath, and timber-framed shelving neatly houses labelled trays for toys. This organised scene contrasts with the wall of childlike drawings pinned to a whitewashed corkboard. Low, round tables in the living room and children's bedroom are perfectly proportioned for art activities, a staple for the creative family, and outcomes are framed and sit proudly alongside those of artists like Indonesia's Agung Prabowo and Jumaldi Alfi and Venezuela's Starsky Brines.

The simple palette and mixed-era furniture define the home's unassuming ambience. In the dining area, for example, teak chairs by Niels Otto Møller for J.L Møllers surround the table, a slab of wood atop sturdy, rotund legs, all lit by a Louis Poulsen PH5 copper pendant, while colourful Jean Prouvé Standard chairs and rattan armchairs figure in the study. On the marble-topped timber cabinet in the living area, a ‘shelf of curiosities' showcases the couple's varied influences and interests. A Moroccan ceramic candlestick bought in Fukuoka, a yellowed bull's horn scavenged from outside a butcher's shop one holiday, Takenouchi's collection of odd-shaped crystals, ceramics made by her mother and a rusty but working vintage Pausania lamp designed by Ettore Sottsass from Webb's parents' home all contribute to the richness of an abode whose inhabitants value comfort, emotion and authenticity over trends, but whose natural flair and style is no less evident for it.