A Singapore home with zigzagging ramps and a cosy greenhouse

Back in 2020, architect Rene Tan asked me to write the monograph of his firm, RT+Q Architects, which he co-founded with fellow architect TK Quek in 2003. Therein started the journey of visiting many of the firm’s houses to understand his creative ethos. In 2023, Thames & Hudson published the tome titled Rethinking the Tropical House: 20 Years of RT+Q Architects. It features 29 of the firm’s works – a small selection from a portfolio of over 120 dwellings built over 20 years.

Simply put, the houses belong to the ‘tropical modern’ classification. But given their superior design and acute attention to detailing, driven by Tan’s deep grounding in the canon of western architecture, this overused label is perhaps too pedestrian.

What is also interesting, as well as vital to any architect’s oeuvre, is that his work does not remain formulaic. Over the years, Tan’s search for authentic expressions from history, such as the rediscovery of Baroque architecture’s spatial characteristics like arched ceilings, offers refreshing takes on house design.

It embodies his prevailing mantra “to put the right things in the wrong places”. The effect is surprise and novelty. There are these aspects in this newly completed house, which is a wonderful synthesis of the firm’s assorted architectural devices. The architecture was also driven in part by the brief.  The couple that live here with their young child came with an unusual request regarding the house’s form.

“We wanted a single, monolithic block as we anticipated having more children in the future and wanted everyone living here to be able to see and hear one another as they are traversing through the house. We did not want unused pockets of spaces, which sometimes is the unfortunate result of typical U- or L-shaped houses,” said the owner.

Thus, Tan, who worked on the project with architect Jaslyn Lee, conceived a tall cube in the centre of the plot. It commingles voids and rooms, tall spaces, outdoor and indoor spaces, long vistas, skinny columns, a spiral staircase, curves and ramps, making this a very fun house to amble through, as I experienced during a visit.

These are all hidden from the street, where a facade of timber-lookalike aluminium panels provides privacy as well as functions as a sun shield. The well-proportioned, gridded facade mitigates the monumental mass of the 'cube' while lending a sense of lightness to the structure. An adjoining secondary, solid volume housing the main circulation contrasts this porosity.

On the first storey, Tan shaped a formal portal for the entrance, flanked by plants. Pilotis (a set of columns raising a building from the ground) supports a subtly curved ceiling, whose form repeats in the arched openings of the off-form concrete wall containing part of the swimming pool.

The entertainment room opens up to the view of this water body on one side, foregrounded by plentiful empty space and landscaping as the living and dining areas are raised to the second storey. Tan explained that two particular precedents inspired his planning. “The house’s design reconsiders optimising spaces rather than maximising them. It combines the best lessons of the kampong house and Villa Savoy, both of which are reminiscent of the renaissance palazzo traditions of the piano nobile (‘noble house’ in Italian, referring to the main spaces of a residence).”

Villa Savoy is a house by the late architect Le Corbusier – kingpin of the modernist movement who broke tradition with age-old western building concepts. Completed in 1931, the house was raised on slim columns, allowing the garden to enter the plan and giving the house a light demeanour, which is the exact opposite of robust European stone houses.

Inside, the famous Swiss-French architect joined levels with a ramp. The circulation device, more typically reserved for non-residential structures, slows down the pace of movement for one to enjoy views inside and outside when ambling up and down. This house by RT+Q Architects has its own version alongside the pool, connecting a sheltered, open-air terrace outside the living and dining areas on the second storey as well as upper bedroom quarters. It is perhaps superfluous but an entirely delightful alternative to the main staircase.

“A rare element in Singapore houses, it allows for easy and barrier-free access, liberating the section,” Tan stated. The ramp gives a playful twist to everyday living in the house that is full of light and breeze through an open plan and section. Raised from the ground level and given a double-storey height, the living room is saturated with light and breeze.

It faces the rear, joined to the dining room diagonally by the aforementioned terrace. At the living room's backdrop, a glass box cantilevers from the house's cube form. This is where the wife experiments with urban farming in a stylish glasshouse.

“The greenhouse was placed on this floor so we can experience a farm-to-table concept,” said the owner. His wife had asked for a bridge to link the greenhouse to the ramp. Lined with planters, this steel mesh vertical structure also screens the terrace from the tall housing blocks in the distance.

The upper levels are kept strictly for family to segregate public and private domains. On the third storey, four bedrooms in a row share a common corridor overlooking the terrace. At the attic, the master bedroom suite, the study, gym and several bedrooms face inward to a courtyard framing a Japanese bonsai tree. “The attic is meant to be our personal space. The study room houses our Lego collection and the gym is in close proximity to encourage me to use it,” commented the owner.

To accentuate a sense of restfulness and personality, the couple engaged multidisciplinary design studio Farm, known for works like Lloyd’s Inn and New Bahru, for the interior design. “We used materials such as limewash paint, wall coverings and wall panelling to create a refined and warm atmosphere inside the house. Subtle pops of colour were introduced through the furniture and accessories, contributing to the lively and inviting feel of the home,” said senior designer Kania Kusumadi, who is part of the team from Farm comprising co-founder Selwyn Low, as well as fellow designers Gareth Low and Ng Leyi.

The house is a tropical modern structure in the true sense of the word, providing thermal comfort through ample shade and wind. “Brise Soleils (an architectural device to block off undesirable sunlight), coupled with voids throughout the house, allows for air to flow naturally from the freed-up ground floor, through the landscaped balconies, and all the way to the attic. This reduces the need for mechanical ventilation,” said Tan.

Aesthetics-wise, the architecture mixes the couple’s individual leanings. “My wife wanted an ultra-modern home with lots of glass and natural light, while I wanted a Brutalist-cum-Modernist home design,” said the owner. On shared passions, the entertainment room is where they are found.

“We have a soft spot for toy collectibles and the playful pop art style, and wanted this room to be designed with these in mind,” shared the owner, a self-professed “kidult”. The room also has a state-of-the-art karaoke system, retro arcade machines, a jukebox, prized Bearbricks – all watched over by a life-sized Iron Man sculpture. These are at home with vibrant hues and playful elements like custom acrylic domes suspended from the metal ceiling displaying key collectibles, incorporated by Farm as the wife admires the style of The Standard brand of hotels – chic yet intimate.

The owner shared that while the house is large, it feels cosy. The layout of the common spaces that pinwheel around the cube form eliminates wasted corridors, and segregates the different spaces while also connecting them visually. The layout is such that one does not have to walk long distances to get from one part of the house to another; it also helps with easy communication.

In houses like that, it is hard to grasp the true feeling of the spaces through photographs. They lack the feeling of exuberance standing within the lofty spaces, the intimacy and sense of exploration in the foyer, the delight of the sudden bright red colouring of the portal from the terrace looking down into the pool.

This bold use of colourful accents is another of Tan’s motifs in latter years. While many architects still tread along the minimalist or Scandinavian aesthetic, this architect is having fun with chromatic details that cheekily juxtapose with the rational architecture.

“We can’t pinpoint a specific place in the house where we like more than the other, as every space in the house is well utilised by us,” said the owner. These are high compliments from the people who use the spaces everyday. Tan is equally satisfied, stating, “The outcome was a house that proved to not only have understood its context, but through craftsmanship, paved a way for a new typology of housing in Singapore that is unrivalled, pushing boundaries of and what is possible in the industry.”