Honest Homestead

Hard on the outside but cosy on the inside, Twinkle Villa captivates with an architecture that interacts with its surrounding nature.

- Martin Teo

Twinkle Villa is a private retreat located in Janda Baik, Bentong, which is around the suburbs slightly over an hour away from Kuala Lumpur. Intended as a private residence for a retired owner in the earlier stage of its design proposition, Twinkle Villa is now a sanctuary used for ‘stay-cations’, recreational activities, performing arts and also as an art gallery.

It’s natural surrounding is considered one of the site’s unique selling points. Tucked in the lush verdant rainforest amidst beautifully undulating land folds, the architecture pays homage to the natural terrains as the building takes shape organically.

From the street, the villa is absolutely hidden. A pathway is reimagined and created to guide visitors to the house. Along the way, a composition of trees in various species takes precedence.

The house is a studied composition of lines and edges – a striated, gravity-defying C-shaped box crafted in different volumes. On one side, a raw concrete wall rises above the building height. The nononsense feature makes the façade of the house that visually separates nature and the interior spaces.

During the course of this project, the architects focus on a reduced impact to the natural forest, with minimum maintenance and a short time of construction. Perched on top of a slope on a flat surface within the topography, the house is designed to emerge from the surroundings with two contrasting facades.