CONVERGING GEOMETRIES

The design catalyst for this home is an existing teakwood staircase that this family of avid readers wanted to retain. LYNN TAN finds out how the architect's design marries the old and new while exploring the fundamentals of design such as proportion and layering

As a family who loves to read and with two sons who are in primary and secondary school, the clients' brief to architect, Woon Chung Yen, founder and principal of Metre Architects, was to have the living room designed as a study cum reading area. The husband, who works in IT, and the wife, who is a teacher, also wanted to retain the existing staircase in the maisonette as the teakwood is of very high quality and is in excellent condition despite the unit being about thirty years old.

This was Woon's cue to adopt a conservational approach to the project and come up with an interior design that would harmoniously integrate this 'vintage' element with the new. "The functional requirements were not difficult to fulfil. It is the design aesthetics that were harder to convey," Woon admits. He shared that the homeowners did not want cabinetry works that are rigid and utilitarian and they showed him images of what they liked. He interpreted their requirements, made astute inferences and concluded that what they wanted was something with a sense of rhythm and which enhances the overall ambience of the space instead of simply providing storage.