Ooi House
Designed by Czarl Architects
View all13 Photos
Due to the tight constraints of the site, there is a need to compact programmatic spatial requirements and formal expression such that function and form are cohesive and complimentary to each other. This led to an exploration of a different systematic approach to the site and space planning and formal expression.
Here, the living room is the heart of the house and it is necessarily accentuated by introducing a double volume above it. The main circulation and the rest of the house is organized around this main anchor space.
The continuous RC slab is deployed as a strategy to organize spatial and programmatic requirements while integrating with visual aesthetics. Various spaces of the house are strung along this continuous surface in succession so that different programs of the house are able to operate co-dependently.
Taking off from the ground floor in the form of the pool stairs, the slab continues as a landscaped deck , followed by a partially sloping plane on the 2nd floor ( for the bedroom ) before upturning and folds back upon itself to become a viewing a green sloped platform at 3rd storey. The slab yet upturn again eventually to form the roof.
By blurring the distinction between the vertical and horizontal, the inside and the outside, the serpentine flow of the slab becomes a legible architectural stroke of formal expression. By drawing references from the steep slope terrain just outside of the boundary,the tilt of the pool stairs and the landscape on the 2nd floor, for instance, can be seen as an immediate extension of the terrain beyond.
Elsewhere in the house, in a similar tongue-in-cheek act of subversion of the cantilevered portion of the house, the cantilevered box is deliberately tilted to reference yet again the sloped terrain while creating a playful adventurous interior for the teenage occupant. Here, the raised floor becomes an underground hideout, a storage as well as a sunken area for bath.
Above, the sloped roof presents a pleasant tumbling green that greets the eye from the master bedroom, replacing the need for another conventional privacy screen for the master occupants on the 3rd Floor.
Property Type
Landed
Property Status
New
Area Size
314m²
Bedrooms
5
Style
Contemporary
Renovation Duration
52 weeks
Year of Completion
2009
Works included
Carpentry
Flooring
False Ceiling
Hacking
Painting
Plumbing
Electrical Rewiring
Wallpaper
Aircon
Tiling
Feature Wall
About Czarl Architects
No two sites or clients are identical. At Czarl Architects, we seek to understand the needs and desires of each project. With every project, we carefully examine the intricate relationship between the inhabitants and their space alongside the relationship of the building with its environmental and socio-historical context.
Every design process is often an exploration of new ways to redefine contemporary relationships between people, heritage, home and the sensory environments we occupy and move through.
For us, that relationship is meaningful. We believe that every good design strategy reflects a key central idea, narrative or essence. This can be expressed through the individualised details of the spatial composition, the discerning use of materials and the clarity and creativity of form.
We see architectural expression not only as a resultant of many logical factors at work, but also needing to be underpinned with measures of wit, ingenuity and intuition… There is no room for slavish obsession with style or architectural dogmas of last century dictating that “less is more” or that “form follows function”.
Instead, we hold the perspective that design expression is driven by the endless permutations and inventive combinations of technical and aesthetic knowledge, socio-cultural, environmental and political awareness, which are then synergistically assimilated into a creative solution.
Chat