Ninety7 @ Siglap Road House by Aamer Architects

Singapore and Kuala Lumpur-based practice Aamer Architects has completed the Ninety7 @ Siglap project.

This award-winning tropical three-story curved house is located in Singapore and was designed for a bachelor and entrepreneur to accomodate his future family!

According to Aamer Taher, “He had very clear instructions on what his needs were and left the architectural form and style to us, only intervening on functional aspects of the design.”

This project won the 2011 SIA Architectural Design Award in the category Individual House.

Ninety7 @ Siglap Road by Aamer Architects:

“Magnificent views towards the city from atop Siglap Hill inspired the design. Master and family room are placed on the third level having the best views.

Living and Dining on the second level, connected with external verandahs / terraces that flow upwards and fold into the roof form with deep overhangs for sufficient shade and channeling the breeze through the whole house.

Two resort style ‘Cabana’ bedrooms are located on the ground level by the pool with a large open/covered terrace for poolside parties. A sculptural metal ‘drum’ anchors the ‘ship’ to the ground and houses the toilet/shower and barbeque pantry.

Roof gardens and timber decks provide added insulation from the sun.”

2011 SIA Architectural Design Awards Judges’ citation:

“The jury is impressed with the result of what was a very close collaboration between architect and owner, which turned out to be a very up-to-date take on a tropical language of architecture.

Once inside the house, the sensibilities and sensitivities in the spaces are apparent. The architect and the owner opted to locate the bedroom areas at the ground level, facing the pool in a private and exclusive cabana-style setting. The living and dining/entertainment areas were located at the second floor commanding the view towards the city. This arrangement gave rise to the opportunity to create the deep fluid-form patio areas which wraps around the spaces of the house. The patios doubled-up as extended entertainment areas and an environmental filter for the internal areas proper. The living areas are able to be fully opened up, back, side and front, to maximize the views and natural light and ventilation without fear of the sun and rain.

On its own, this is a beautifully crafted house. What it also does is to give its terraced neighbourhood a timely update by way of its unique and progressive but pleasantly white walled, modestly-scaled architectural presence.”

Villa T / Architrend Architecture

© Umberto Agnello

© Umberto Agnello

The context is agricultural, a plateau with sandstone walls to divide the various portions of property. Once marked by the productive outposts of the “masserie”, farms with cultivated fields and cattle, today the Ibleo territory has changed its look. Instead of scattered farmhouses, isolated and divided by farmlands, construction has gradually filled spaces, erasing the network of isolated architectural complexes gathered around courtyards, like ‘pacific forts’. Nevertheless, the site of this project has partially conserved that precious idea of ‘isolation’, and the whole design comes to grips with this context, constructing a direct relationship with the landscape, faced openly on two sides, while emerging from it thanks to an eloquent contemporary design.

© Umberto Agnello

The program of the compositional process is that of a large single-family house, alone at the center of a meadow, bordered by the free, linear horizon of the plateau. Here, in the midst of the grassy terrain, treated as virgin land for construction, the architecture stands out clearly as a complete entity with definite limits. But its borders are not ‘introverted’, they are open to visual enjoyment of the outside world, through the creation of outdoor living spaces, rooms without walls that become parts of the overall solution.

section 01

The relationship with the context and the sequence of the three stacked floors relies on a sort of continuous architectural ribbon that reinterprets the flavor of the Mediterranean home, developing, bending to form rooms and the roof, outdoor zones raised from the meadow like platforms, porticos and overhangs, balconies and terraces. A solid facade clad in stone, to the north, is flanked by the harmonious antithesis of the southern and eastern facades, fully glazed and open to the greenery.

© Umberto Agnello

They reveal the two-storey height of the living area, with the mono-beam staircase leading to the first floor, containing a studio zone and a bedroom. The daytime area is joined to the kitchen, located in the lower volume, while the luminous living and dining area emphasizes the double height of the construction, with its large pitched roof. The master bedroom zone with bath and closet is located behind the living area. The sequence living-dining-kitchen encounters two outdoor spaces: on one side, facing the living room, a terrace at ground level connects to a recessed patio faced by the underground spaces, with two bedrooms and a den, shaded for cool comfort.

plan 02

Behind the kitchen, connected by a full-height glazing, an external portico is like a room without walls, open to the surrounding lawn. The white stucco and stone facings that wrap the forceful geometric design, highlighted by a red floor marker that interrupts the high corner glazing, the planes that combine, in a dynamic way, around the sloping roof, reveal the pursuit of a ‘possible Mediterranean style’ that pays attention to local history, but without copying, ready for experimentation with new possibilities.

Architects: Architrend Architecture
Location: Ragusa, Italy
Client: Private
Structural Engineer: Rosario Tomasi
Project area: 310 sqm
Project year: 2005-2007
Photographs: Umberto Agnello

Modern Black Home in Japan

The Lift residence is a single family home located in the residential district of downtown Sendai, Japan.

Designed by Architectural studio Apollo Architects and Associates to accommodate a couple and their three children, this 1,334 square-foot all black house features an impressive cantilevered structure.

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