A two-storey landed home in the Nassim conservation belt, planned around a mature rain tree the family asked us to keep. The house steps back from the trunk so the canopy reads as the fourth wall of the living spaces, and a long reflecting court draws cool air through the plan in the late afternoon.
The brief was for a quiet house that would age well rather than a showpiece. We worked in a restrained palette of board-marked concrete, weathered chengal and clear glass, detailing every junction so the materials could carry the architecture without ornament. Deep reveals and a louvred screen on the western face manage the afternoon sun the way an older Singapore shophouse once did, keeping the rooms naturally tempered before the air-conditioning is ever asked to work.
Inside, the plan is loose and connected. The kitchen, dining and family room read as one room that opens fully to the court, and a floating timber stair lifts daylight up into the bedroom level. The result is a home that feels generous without being large, and that sits lightly enough on its plot to leave the rain tree the room it has always had.
