Gems from around the world in various parts of the home: The 3-metre long customised teak table and benches were made in Indonesia and shipped to Singapore. Both were designed from scratch. On the window seat is an old wooden and brass basket from Denmark and holds a bunch of beautifully dried stalks of wheat. A clay holder sits beside it; it is from The Netherlands. Up the stairs, the space dramatically opens up to a double volume attic – copper lanterns hang low, suspended from black-painted timber beams and joists that held up pitched roofs up above. During parties, the chattering of a party of friends – or the solitary soundtrack of a movie screening – echo up and dissipates into the voids above. Respite can be sought via a spiral staircase that leads to a private study that floats above the activity; the attic of the attic and the super space that overlooks into all the spaces beneath it. Throughout the house, a running backdrop of exposed rough and unhewn brickwork walls juxtapose against newly laid timber floors and fresh plastered partitions; the cracks and crevices of the old bricks are remnants and reminders of the former house and the 1960s from the outside. On special evenings, the smells of an outdoor barbecue waft through the neighbourhood, but the front yards remain empty and there is no barbecue pit in use. The house on the upper storey yields other secrets: its residents step out of the full-length kitchen windows and into the courtyard. Ground materialises, taking the form of an elevated wire mesh deck on which an event is unfolding under the night sky with its fairy light stars. Photo 1 of 15 in The Singapore Designer Loft: A Fusion of Old and New by Michelle L.YL

The Singapore Designer Loft: A Fusion of Old and New

1 of 15

Gems from around the world in various parts of the home:

The 3-metre long customised teak table and benches were made in Indonesia and shipped to Singapore. Both were designed from scratch. On the window seat is an old wooden and brass basket from Denmark and holds a bunch of beautifully dried stalks of wheat. A clay holder sits beside it; it is from The Netherlands.

Up the stairs, the space dramatically opens up to a double volume attic – copper lanterns hang low, suspended from black-painted timber beams and joists that held up pitched roofs up above.

During parties, the chattering of a party of friends – or the solitary soundtrack of a movie screening – echo up and dissipates into the voids above. Respite can be sought via a spiral staircase that leads to a private study that floats above the activity; the attic of the attic and the super space that overlooks into all the spaces beneath it. Throughout the house, a running backdrop of exposed rough and unhewn brickwork walls juxtapose against newly laid timber floors and fresh plastered partitions; the cracks and crevices of the old bricks are remnants and reminders of the former house and the 1960s from the outside.

On special evenings, the smells of an outdoor barbecue waft through the neighbourhood, but the front yards remain empty and there is no barbecue pit in use. The house on the upper storey yields other secrets: its residents step out of the full-length kitchen windows and into the courtyard. Ground materialises, taking the form of an elevated wire mesh deck on which an event is unfolding under the night sky with its fairy light stars.