Golden Box
2009 | Singapore | Residential
An un-private house
In a bold embrace of open concept living, our client had the notion of creating a house in the likeness of a shopping mall. With this brief came the challenge, if not the dare, to resolve the contradictory requirements of show and privacy in the most personal of building types.
Layered Opacity
While the glass-sided ground level is generously open, welcoming views both inward and out, an aluminium encasement wraps around the upper part of the house.
Dematerialise
Materialising in shimmer and gold, the mesh asks to be seen yet denies the gaze, guarding privacy for the bedrooms on this level. At night, the light inside softens the shield and lets up more of the activity inside.
Contrast
In all its boldness, the house has delicacy in its quieter details—in the control of spacing and setbacks, for example, or in its engineering, such as the achievement of the 90-degree bend in the corner panels, or free sculptural loop in the stairs.
In all its boldness, the house has delicacy in its quieter details, such as the free sculptural loop in the stairs.
An assortment of screening devices that either shield or reveal, or accomplish both, is employed. Clear glass, metal mesh, and foliage with their varying densities and transparencies are layered to enclose or
