NEW LAYERS

SENSITIVE AND RESPECTFUL EXTENSIONS BY OFYK ARCHITECTS ALLOW OLD AND NEW STRUCTURES TO COEXIST HARMONIOUSLY IN THIS BUNGALOW THAT HOUSES A MULTI-GENERATION FAMILY.

- MICHELE KOH MOROLLO

Ewart Park, in Singapore’s prime District 10, is a residential enclave with many large, good-class bungalows.

One of them is the multi-generational home of a family who owns a tyre business.

Local architectural and interior design practice OFYK Architects was commissioned to redesign it to accommodate the addition of new family members.

It extended an existing single-story outhouse by the property’s pool to connect it to the main residential spaces, bringing the gross floor area of the entire property to 1,020m2.

The owners’ brief was twofold – they wanted to insert additions but in a way that would sensitively respect the scale and proportion of the original house, and reorganise the new outdoor spaces and landscape to reinstate the views from the interior to the lawn and lush landscape beyond.

Sitting on a 2,860m2 plot, the compound consists of five terracotta-tiled, pitched-roof, single-story, pavilion-like blocks, and one double-story pavilion-like block.

Built-in the early 1980s in a style reminiscent of early colonial bungalows, the original house has large overhanging terracotta-tiled pitched roofs with exposed black timber rafters, white-washed walls and French doors.

In the front of the main block is a swimming pool surrounded by stone paving that encroached on the adjacent lawn.

Over time, untidy ad-hoc structures, in particular an entertainment pavilion next to the pool, were added, resulting in a cluttered and uncoordinated aesthetic.