From the pool terrace of the Lakeshore House (page 160), there are dramatic views over the Straits of Singapore.
cutting-edge tropical architecture in a global city
THE HOUSES IN THIS BOOK EPITOMISE CUTTINGEDGE RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE IN SINGAPORE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AND DEMONSTRATE A REMARKABLE SURGE OF DESIGN EXPLORATION IN THE CITY-STATE.1
Other publications followed in the next decade, including 9
Houses for the 21st Century (2004), New Directions in 10
Tropical Architecture (2005) and 25 Houses in Singapore 11
and Malaysia (2006), as publishers in the Antipodes 12
belatedly turned their gaze on developments in Asia. In 13
Architects in Singapore are producing work with a level of refinement and sophistication that is comparable with the best in the world, and one would be hard pressed to find a nation of similar size with such an abundance of accomplished young designers who have built independently. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, architectural debate in Singapore, as in many Asian countries that had formerly been colonized by European powers, revolved 2 3 around the notions of Identity and Critical Regionalism. Prominent Singapore participants in seminars that were convened in the 1980s and 1990s included Tay Kheng Soon and William Lim Siew Wai. Both wrote at length about the social, cultural and climatic imperatives of architecture. 4
Lim’s Contemporary Vernacular (1998), written in collaboration with Tan Hock Beng, extolled the merits of reinvigorating and reinterpreting the traditional vernacular architecture of the region. His design for the Reuter House (1990) was just such a contemporary interpretation. In contrast, the King Albert Park House (1994) by Tay Kheng Soon was designed in a modern tropical idiom that demonstrated what Tay identified 5 in Modern Tropical Architecture (1997) as ‘a language of line, edge, mesh and shade’. The discourse on the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ fuelled several 6 publications, such as The Asian House (1993), The Tropical 7
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Asian House (1996) and The Urban Asian House (1998), which placed the production of architect-designed dwellings within a broad theoretical framework linked to issues throughout the so-called developing world.
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2008, David Robson’s magnificent volume, Beyond Bawa,
also drew attention to the work of a group of Singapore architects bewitched by the magical houses designed by the Sri Lankan master architect Geoffrey Bawa. Another Singapore architect, Tang Guan Bee, wrote little, but through his built work, such as The Mountbatten House (1988) and later the Windsor Park House (1997), demonstrated a spirit of invention and audacity that captivated the imagination of many young architects entering the profession. The diverse approaches to domestic architecture of Tay, Lim and Tang laid the foundations for the explosion of design ideas in Singapore in the first years of the new millennium. Significantly, four of the architects featured in this book worked at some time or other with TANGGUANBEE Architects, while five began their careers with William Lim Associates and three with Tay’s practice, Akitek Tenggara.
A HOUSE IN THE HUMID TROPICS ‘SPACE … IS NOT REALLY ABSTRACT. SPACE IS SOMETHING WE CAN MODERATE AS ARCHITECTS TO SATISFY A WHOLE RANGE OF FUNCTIONS, INCLUDING VISUAL, SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REQUIREMENTS. NOBODY EXCEPT THE ARCHITECT CAN DO THIS … IT IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT.’ Tang Guan Bee14 For an architect, the design of a bespoke family dwelling is a demanding yet fascinating commission. A designer rarely
SINGAPORE HOUSES
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