The entrance is via a square, flat-roofed portico leading to a central axis.

Some of Toh Yiu Kwong’s earliest memories are of growing up in an open-plan house designed by his father, architect Toh Shung Fie. The dwelling had efficient natural ventilation and the interior and exterior were seamlessly linked. The house was a major influence on Toh’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Toh graduated from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia, in 1985. Before he commenced his formal studies, he read Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, in which the protagonist is an architect with uncompromising ideals. Toh still finds the book inspirational. It led him to read about Frank Lloyd Wright. The simplicity and elegance of Wright’s prairie houses moved him tremendously, so that when he commenced his architectural education in Perth, it was something he could relate to, especially in the Western Australia landscape where space seems infinite.

Toh’s memories of Curtin are not specifically of academic mentors but of George Gunter, a perspectivist/illustrator who paid the utmost attention to perfection and detail in his drawings, and of Michael Michelidis, an architect in practice who left a lasting impression through his construction detailing, which was simple and concise. Kerry Hill was also influential in Toh’s architectural education as he exposed him to Geoffrey Bawa’s poetical works. Toh was also influenced by Kerry Hill’s design sensibilities. Other architects who have influenced his approach to architecture include Mies Van de Rohe, Le Corbusier, Glenn Murcutt and Harry Seidler. In addition to Kerry Hill Architects, Toh worked with Architects 61 and Raymond Woo Associates prior to setting up his own practice.

The Oei Tiong Ham Park House does not make a grand statement; indeed, the profile is deliberately kept low and is intended to be invisible from the highway. But what appears initially to be a modest single-storey bungalow adjusts to two storeys as it steps down the sloping site. In that sense it is not unlike an earlier house designed by Toh, located in Victoria Park Road,¹ that works with the topography and exploits axial routes. The two houses have other similarities: the earlier house was designed for a three-generation family as is the Oei Tiong Ham Park House.

This house has a rational linear plan, with all the functions accessed from the central axis that runs from east to west, perpendicular to the site contours. This direct processional route allows one to immediately comprehend the spatial arrangement.

The entrance to the house is via a square, flat-roofed portico alongside a koi pond. This serambi -like space, with an informal grouping of chairs, some doubling as side tables, is used for greeting guests who subsequently proceed through wide timber doors on the central axis. Progressing along the axis, the living space is on the left while to the right, beyond a series of sliding doors, is the external pool deck. Next on the left is the dining area, and following this, the glass-walled kitchen. Varied ceiling heights and the use of clerestory windows, combined with tall floor-to-ceiling clear-glazed windows on both flanks, create a remarkably light and transparent dwelling where components are joined employing simple junction details.

The house owners are Edmund Wee, one of Singapore’s foremost graphic designers, and his wife Tan Wang Joo, a former journalist. Wee is a passionate cook and loves to entertain friends for dinner. The kitchen is consequently located at the very heart of the ground floor of the house overlooking the living room, dining area and outdoor deck. The host is thus visible when cooking for guests; he can see everything from the kitchen and everyone can communicate with him.

The husband is an avid cook who enjoys entertaining friends for dinner.

Proceeding beyond the kitchen, the swimming pool is located to the north of the central axis, followed by three bedrooms for the owners’ two children and a grandparent. The central axis culminates in an elegant linear staircase that descends to the sub-basement where the owners’ bedroom suite is located along with the principal bathroom and dressing room. The master bedroom looks back into a water court that is enlivened by a waterfall flowing over a weir at the end of the swimming pool.

The section through the house reveals the creative way in which the architect has worked with the site and how light is introduced into the house. There is a degree of complexity in the section but, as the owners explain, ‘it is a simple open plan with no prettiness’. The owners are content to live below the children’s accommodation for the present, although it is not a relationship that most feng shui advisors would recommend. For now, it provides the children with large bedrooms and adequate study areas that later can be easily modified. The grandparent’s room is easily accessible to the kitchen and dining area.

Wang Joo talks at length about the changes in Singapore society–ageing, women giving up careers to look after children, people learning to cook or rediscovering the art of cooking–issues that increasingly impinge on the design of houses in Singapore. Asian cooking channels are among the most popular on TV and have promoted a new wave of cooks. Youngsters now aspire to be chefs and a surprising number to be restaurant owners. Another cultural change is the extent to which wealthy home owners have adopted the ‘Western’ fondness for wine cellars.

The house is embedded in the landscape and is surrounded by tall trees. Its transparency ensures that the owners experience nature at close quarters. ‘We love the quietness,’ says Wang Joo, expounding on the visual and auditory benefits of an openable ‘glass house’. ‘The house is very restful. On a sunny day, we appreciate the lacey pattern of the leaves against the sky. It is also wonderful to hear and see the rain beating down in a monsoon storm.’

A minimalist flight of stairs descends to the sub-basement.

The pool deck on the eastern flank of the house.

The koi pond alongside the entrance porch.

The central axis continues alongside the pool, descending via a straight flight of stairs to the sub-basement.

The uncluttered modernist aesthetic is carried through to the interior details.

First storey (sub-basement) and second storey plans.

The architect employs a disciplined reductive language of planes and voids.

Embedded in the landscape, the house is fringed by tall trees.

Footnote

1 Robert Powell, ‘Umbilical Connections’, SPACE, No. 1, Singapore: Panpac Media, January 2002, pp. 79–82.