centre piece

Plystudio Architects mitigates new and old parts of this shophouse with a light-filled atrium at its core.

- Luo Jingmei

Shophouse renovations present multiple challenges. In this project, Plystudio Architects has provided a case study of how to tackle conservation requirements and create a liveable interior for its new inhabitants while maintaining the intrinsic, desirable qualities of the vernacular building type.

The 280 sqm shophouse in the Blair Plans conservation area was formerly a vehicle workshop when it was first built in the 1930s before it became a dwelling. The current homeowners wanted to continue its use as a home but needed to tailor it to their specific requirements.

“The clients are business owners who live with an elderly, wheelchair-bound parent and a lived-in helper. The brief called for a rebuild of the shophouse’s rear section and better utilisation of the different levels,” says Jacqueline Yeo, who runs the architecture firm together with her husband Victor Lee.

focal point

They kept the front façade, following regulatory guidelines, but repaired key elements such as timber shutter windows and door panelling motifs. At the rear is a new, three-storey extension with its first storey slightly sunken so that the height of its roof could be kept at the same level of the old structure at the front. This was a conservation guideline the architects had to adhere to.

There was another reason for the creation of separate front and rear blocks. The rear’s first storey lower height had already existed as the backlane was 1.4m lower than the road at the front of the shophouse.

Rather than a sharp dip at the rear, the architects created an airwell in the centre where a split-level of steps and short bridges become important devices connecting the two blocks seamlessly while mitigating the level differences. In this void, a new staircase unfolds upward to a skylight.