Atypical winner

For bucking the trend, this conservation house in Joo Chiat won an award at this year's Architectural Heritage Awards. -BT
Tay Suan Chiang

Sun, Oct 14, 2012
The Business Times

Step into a landed house, and the layout is fairly typical: living room, dining, followed by the kitchen on the ground floor with the bedrooms on the upper floors.

But this conservation terrace house in Joo Chiat bucks the trend, so throw out all preconceived notions about how a home should be.

Restored shophouse is dream home for family Click on thumbnails to view (Photos: ST, BT, Canny Teo)

There is a reception area upon entering the home, then it is onto the bedroom belonging to the homeowners, Singaporean Canny Teo and her American husband who declined to be named.

On the second floor, the living and dining areas join up with the kitchen.

A corten steel spiral staircase at the back of the home leads up to a bedroom, which is the family helper's room.

The staircase is reminiscent of concrete staircases found in shophouses.

Up in the attic are two bedrooms for the couple's daughters, Carrie and Kate Reidinger.

The home is a winner at this year's Architectural Heritage Awards, given by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The annual award is handed out in recognition of exceptional work in heritage building conservation and restoration.

The restoration and renovation works were done by architects Maria Arango and Diego Molina from Ong&Ong.

"The firm is known for conservation houses and being innovative and we felt comfortable working with them," says Ms Teo, vice-president at an Internet startup company.

On the outside, the home looks similar to the neighbouring terrace homes.

Under conservation regulations, the facade has to be retained.

"All of the windows and doors and the main facade were cleaned, sanded down and repainted to restore them to their former states," says Ms Arango.

The mouldings and motifs on the facade were faithfully restored, and on the upper levels, the roof's original timber structure was retained.

Parts of the floor that were no longer in good condition or had been replaced previously were also restored with material of a similar nature.

"The stained glass on the second floor's main windows were retained and pieces that were broken were replaced with identical coloured glass sourced from local antique shops," says Mr Molina.

Everything else in the home was gutted.

The family declined to say how much they bought the terrace house for, and would only reveal that they spent slightly more than $1 million on its renovation.

The brief to the architects was simple. "We wanted a home with lots of light, natural ventilation and plenty of space," says Ms Teo.

The architects took the opportunity to move the communal spaces to the second storey, and have the bedrooms on the ground floor and in the attic.

"I thought it was an interesting idea to have the bedroom on the ground floor. It would either be a genius idea or a disaster," says Ms Teo. "Even though this isn't a big house, the girls would be so far away."

In their previous apartments, Ms Teo was more used to the girls' bedrooms being just next to hers. "It took some getting used to living in this home."

The second floor is now where the family spends most of their time together.

The couple's bedroom is cosy and comes with its own outdoor private garden.

The bathtub looks out into this garden, giving it a resort feel.

"This spatial reversal also allowed the master bedroom to occupy a much larger floor area on the first level than would otherwise be possible had it been situated higher up within the building," says Ms Arango.

She adds that the concept for the communal second floor was to have a single, continuous space that was unconstrained by walls.

The living, dining and kitchen are on this level.

The flooring on this level is made from compressed marble that bears a likeness to the original terrazzo that was commonly used in most shophouses.

A jack roof was added to the sloping roof to provide enough headroom whilst also allowing for natural lighting into the attic area.

The family have filled their home with numerous pieces of artwork, some of which they bought from Beijing and Hong Kong.

There are also other pieces by Singaporean artist Sandra Lee.

"We prefer art that is impressionistic and not too abstract, art that can be understood," says Ms Teo.

Moving into a shophouse is like coming full circle for Ms Teo, who grew up living in one.

In fact, her childhood home is just two doors away, and her brothers and mother still live there.

Ms Teo says the renovated home is now "functional and very liveable".

The awards' judging panel was impressed by how a space with limited square footage can be tastefully transformed with maximum creativity and resourcefulness to meet the functional requirements of a modern family.

Already, strangers have popped by asking if the house is on sale. But Ms Teo is not selling, and doesn't think the family would ever move again. "This really feels like home," she says.

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