C onversations

about tropical living come naturally in Alan Tay’s home; about untameable oil palm trees, resident toads and the tranquillity that the pitch darkness and lack of traffic cacophony brings, being so deeply nestled into nature. It’s a nature lover’s dream home, and one that Tay, a co-founder of Singapore-based Formwerkz Architects, and his family have been enjoying for almost two years.

The post-war modernist bungalow was originally built to house employees of the Public Utilities Board and, with its large gardens and secluded access through winding avenues, provides respite from boisterous urban life. Self-declared fans of ‘old things’, Tay and his wife Cynthia Soon — also an architect — embraced the tropically attuned house with all its retro quirks (its ornate grilles, for example), doing little to change it aside from converting one of the bedrooms into a study overlooking the timber-clad pool and matured landscaping.

The single-storey home means the family is always aware of nature’s — and one another’s — presence. A navy-coloured lounge, two bedrooms and the kitchen edge the centrally placed living space that flows into a large, sheltered terrace. ‘In our projects, we always talk about getting more connection with the land, so this house is paradise for me,’ Tay says. ‘The values that I’m after become real. Here, enjoyment of the garden comes with the hard work. But each time we work on it, we observe nature’s beauty.’

In the multiple times throughout the day that Tay adjusts the terrace’s bamboo blinds as the weather and sun shift, he engages with nature’s rhythms. ‘We begin to observe at close proximity certain things like how the light filters in. I’m working with the house; it’s alive, and it gets me thinking about how I design other spaces rather than always approaching a project as a static object,’ says the architect, whose ecocentric residential designs commonly feature courtyards, and plants scaling interior walls or punching through sections.

The house is furnished with pieces that the couple collected over the years, their mid-century modern tastes matching the 70s architecture. The family gravitates towards the terrace, made inviting with vintage furniture and a white sofa. ‘When we don’t think of it as an outdoor space with only outdoor furniture, we use it more often,’ Tay says. Here, movement flows around a fascinating cabinet of curiosities whose treasures, such as a volcanic rock and an archaic steel candlewick cutter, reflect the couple’s curiosity about life and craft. Potted plants assembled on tables, the floor and even in a glass-fronted display case blur the divide between indoor and outdoor, and domestic and wild spaces. During lockdown, this area became Tay’s home office, complete with both a luxuriant backdrop and the sounds of wild chickens.

‘It’s a wonderful privilege to be able to stay so close to nature. It develops within one empathy, sensitivity and imagination,’ says Tay, and Soon agrees. ‘We evolve with the house,’ she says.