Architects: Lekker Design Location: Singapore Design Team: Ong Ker-Shing, Joshua Comaroff, Germain Goh, Sio Lim, Peter Then Project Year: 2012 Project Area: 3,500 sqm Photographs: Darren Soh
This is a small building, with two programs–a house and an art gallery–squeezed into a very dense envelope, in the midst of Singapore’s red light district.
The design attempted to balance this programmatic double-life through a play of two volumes. The lower volume contains a triple-height gallery and kitchen. Above is a rotated tower, which appears to be partially suspended below the ceiling of the gallery; this holds the bedrooms and private spaces. The building has been designed such that the client may open the gallery to the public, via a separate access.
The Gallery House is sited in a typical Singaporean lot, between two very long party walls. In order to bring natural light deep into the interior, a series of small gardens have been extracted from the facade and roofline. This creates a complex series of nested spaces, merging the interior with tropical landscape. Rooms are unexpectedly located and strangely formed, partially overlapping with others or sharing views of interior canyon spaces. The largest of these contains the main stair, which winds informally between rooms at front and back.
