Tropical change - reorganization of shophouse in Emerald Hill, Singapore

Architectural Review, The, June, 1999 by Winnie Yu

A radical reorganization of a traditional south-east Asian shophouse draws on modernity and tradition to explore new ways of living in the high-density urban form.

The terraced shophouse of south-east Asia was one of the nineteenth century's most brilliant urban types. Invented for and by the merchants of the great Chinese diaspora, the terraced houses allowed very high densities before modern structural materials were available. They had quite narrow fronts (usually about 6m), but were very deep in plan (up to 30m). Typically, they stretch from street right through to back alley. At the front the ground floors are connected by the more or less continuous 'five foot way', a semi-communal arcade which is neither public nor private, domestic nor commercial, where the projecting upper floors keep you dry from daily tropical storms, and the shops spill their wares out onto the pavement.

In Singapore, huge numbers of shophouses were demolished as the city state became one of the most prosperous places in the world. Then, in the late '80s, the first conservation areas were created, so some terraces are now preserved, often bang up to crass modern concrete hulks which have replaced their neighbours. Emerald Hill was one of the first designated historic districts, and it has since become one of the poshest addresses in the city.

Number 62 Emerald Hill Road was bought as a virtual ruin by a young couple who wanted to turn the vaguely '20s Deco building into a house for themselves. WoHa, their architects, quickly faced the main problem of the plan: it is of course very difficult to get light and air into the middle of a shophouse (the great drawback of the type, and one which in poorer times was scarcely mitigated in nasty spaces by poky wells and meagre rooflights).

The architects talk movingly about the building under renovation: 'there is a wonderful moment when the floors are removed and the entire space is revealed - the rough brick party walls catching the light streaming in between the broken rooftiles - space inherent in the form, but usually concealed with partitions and floors'. Conservation rules prevented the architects making major alterations to the roofline, so the obvious solution was to cut a court into the middle of the plan. At the back of the original house was a nasty lavatory and kitchen block. This was demolished and a new three-storey building has been created against the alley. Here is the kitchen on the ground floor, with bedrooms above. Between this virtually Rationalist back building and the front one, the court contains a little spa swimming pool that reflects shimmering bluish light up into the volumes which overlook it. (Singapore is virtually on the Equator, so the sun shines straight down for part of the day.) The effect is enhanced by slightly angling the sandstone wall of the back building to the sky.

The front part of the house is the masterstroke. Into the long tall space, the architects have inserted a sandstone box. On the ground floor, this forms the living room, which looks out towards the pool that fills the very tall luminous dining room with light. Above the living room is the main bedroom, and above that is a study terrace under the roof. This gets light and view from a continuous dormer window in the slope, similar to those of tradition. Between the new inner stone building and the original outer one (the rough brick walls of which have been painted white to emphasize their texture) are service spaces which contain stairs, storage and so on. New parts are smooth, in Indian sandstone, Chinese granite floor slabs and teak. The old front, with its red tiled roof, simple stucco ornament and filigree iron window bars has been immaculately restored. You have to live an austere, equatorial Asian kind of life in the minimalist interiors, but if you can do that, the house is a finely honed container.

Architect

WoHa Design/WH Architects

Design team

Wong Mun Summ, Richard Hassell

Photographs

Tim Griffith Photographer