Shophouse Shophouse
Conservation Shophouse at Blair Road
Residential: Completed 2018
Playing with alternating solid-voids, indoor-outdoor, natural and constructed, materiality.
This shophouse renovation celebrates its architectural heritage while adapting it for a Singaporean family contemporarily. The design aims to respect historical elements, but especially to understand and augment specific spatial qualities intrinsic to the shophouse.
For us, this meant overlapping and layering spaces both vertically and horizontally, incorporating transitions from intimate thresholds then to open space internally at several locations. This maintains a fluid experience of the spatial changes inherent in a shophouse typology, such as contrast of light and shadow, openness and enclosure; within a tall axial space bound by party walls on both sides.
For example, abstracted from the five-foot way, the 2nd storey airwell-facing interior elevation is similarly set back from the façade so that there is a buffer space alternative from a shaded, intimate space to an open and airy airwell. At the airwell, a bifurcating y-shaped stair keeps one flight within the front house leading from 2nd storey to the attic, while another traverses the airwell slipping behind a narrow glass-encased wine wall toward the rear house.
At the airwell, a light-weight, see-through, stand-alone glass-encased cellar, reflects light and maintains the open, airiness of the void space here, covered by a jack roof skylight above. At the heart of the shophouse, the airwell connects the front and rear block, each with internal facing shuttered windows. From the cellar at the 1st storey, this narrows into the width of a wine rack, allowing the open stair to float behind. Around the immediate space of the airwell, are naturalistic landscape and water feature elements that aim to expand the “indoor-outdoor” oasis of calm to the adjacent spaces.
The inter-connection between the 3 storeys of the house and airwell is varied and expressive, giving richness in the spatial experiences afforded through the interplay of spaces around stairs, double-volume spaces, recessed balconies and a naturally lit airwell. There are several other instances of this. For example, at the front of the house, a double-storey family area at the 2nd storey connects to the recessed attic bedroom windows overlooking. At the private attic master bedroom, another skylight illuminates the master bathroom which, whilst also has obscured, private views to the airwell, features a visually-anchoring and uplifting naturalistic green moss wall that cannot be seen anywhere else.
There is a sense of continuity of heritage expressed through historical elements and a selection of materials. Timber floorboards and exposed timber floor beams, expressed slim brickwork, shuttered timber windows, a wooden carved house signboard over the door and stone floors come together as the other necessary physical and tactile elements of architecture. Together with familiar spatial cues aforementioned, they evoke a sense of newness within a celebrated npast.
This conservation shophouse offers a space where past and present converge, where tradition and contemporality exist in dialogue with one another through a thoughtful reinterpretation of the traditional typology. The integration of light, materials, and spatial sequences ensures that the design is not just a physical form and space but also hosts liveable vibrant experiences.
Photos by Masano Kawana
