Location:
Westwood Residences, Singapore

Area:
96 m² / 1033 ft²

Completion:
March 2018

This mid-sized apartment is shared by a young couple and set within a recently built residential development. They are expecting a new child and keen to have a space that is simple, yet evokes homeliness and comfort.

Entering the space, the apartment opens into a foyer, demarcated by a bar counter finished in solid-wood countertop and a full-height vertical wooden slab that concaves gently as a welcoming gesture to the visitor. Past this threshold space, the wooden slab turns horizontal and runs the entire width of the light grey textured wall, unifying the dining and living areas as a singular space. This five-metre-long horizontality offers storage and sitting, and its wooden live-edge draws a line of nature within man-made confines.

The biggest bedroom has been remodelled as a spacious walk-in wardrobe that is connected to the more intimately-scaled master bedroom via an opening in the dividing wall. This walk-in wardrobe space now functions as the vestibule to the more private spaces like the bathroom and the master bedroom. The warm hue of the solid-wood slabs in the public areas continues here as brown-tinted glass, allowing at the same time a plenitude of natural light to permeate the compact space. The original doorway into the secondary bedroom (now the master bedroom) is concealed with a feature-shelf that animates the corridor with ambient light in the evenings.

This design geometricizes live-edge wood slabs as vertical and horizontal linearities, which evokes our innate affinity for the natural.

“画之为理，犹之天地古今，一横一竖而已”
— 王述缙［清］

屋主钟情于实木的温润质感， 因此设计将几节带有自然边缘的实木几何化， 成为烘托大厅空间的“一横一竖”。

竖向的实木倚于大门一旁，与对面的橱柜和实木台遥相呼应，点出一个玄关空间。直立的两节实木构成轻微的凹线形，恰似微扬的幕帘，将访客从玄关引入客厅，也增加了空间的层次感。

横向的实木是一列连贯的储物柜，并依次存放鞋子，杂物，音响和电视配备等。它也是一条长凳，共随性的摆设或充当大聚会时的额外座位。约五米长的三节自然边缘实木也承载了将饭厅与客厅连接成同一空间的重要设计意图。

将自然边缘的实木做几何处理，既遇合了简洁的设计语言，也借鉴了造型艺术的构图大要，让这一横一竖的天然曲线升华了空间的氛围。