The Tiong Bahru neighborhood in Singapore consists of low-rise postwar public housing buildings characterized by Art Deco flair. The dwellings here feature rounded corners, facades with bands of brick, and sculptural staircases, giving the development a unique atmosphere. A decade ago, gentrification replaced local coffee shops and mom-and-pops with trendy cafes and retailers, but the charming architecture remains.

Attracted to the area’s aesthetic, rich history, and convivial community, a couple purchased a three-bedroom, walk-up apartment. They called upon Goy Architects, known for its sensitive approach in renovating older buildings and material dexterity, to give the old home an update without losing any of its allure.

“At the beginning of each project, our starting out point is always to investigate how our clients want to move in the space,” says the firm’s founder, Goy Zhenru. “Their routines and rituals give us the skeleton of the layout and design.” Because the owners’ lives center around gardening, their dog, and professional pursuits, the plan needed adjusting to create a balance of sunshine, communal spaces, and private areas for work.

As it was, the living room at the center of the home was surrounded by bedrooms and lacked light. Two bedrooms faced a large balcony, which had been closed up with windows, detaching it from the outside. Goy pushed the living room and kitchen up against the balcony and shifted the bedrooms back.

“It was important that we corrected the grammar of the house,” Goy says. “We wanted to design for more seamless interaction between the activities in each room. The advantage of this apartment was the large balcony and the view of the street. Once we established this vantage point, the layout came into place and we focused more on how to bring the owners’ personality into the space.

The windows at the balcony were removed and replaced with large trifold doors that give the owners full access to the outdoor space. In place of the kitchen at the back of the house is now a study room that gets light from a picture window. “The owners are fond of painting and craftwork, and we wanted to have as much natural light come into this room as possible,” explains Goy.

The next step was to dress the apartment, which Goy did with her signature craft-focused approach. She used materials to demarcate zones and thresholds: cement sand tiles for the main thoroughfare, oak parquet for the bedroom, and microcement screed finish for the study, living area and kitchen. Goy had the cement sand tiles colored in a similar tone to the balcony’s original green mosaic tiles and laid timber strips in the cement screed to define space.

“In hindsight, we feel that through the varying materials, the scale of the home is made more intimate; the apartment does not feel like a single, homogeneous piece of work but a home with its oddities and personality, much like the Tiong Bahru estate,” Goy comments.

In fact, Goy borrowed a lot of interior features from the building. For example, the cement sand tiles’ pattern was abstracted from a photograph the owners took of the stairwells in the block, and the rounded wall corners reference the estate’s Art Deco influences.

Similarly, the use of brick in the living area is meant “to celebrate the heritage of these old blocks,” says Goy. “The brick wall was designed to bring the element of warmth into the living room, like a hearth, to be an opposing voice to the cement floor,” she adds. The jagged pattern is a response to the building’s curved brick facade and an experiment in how to let the pieces abut one another without mortar.

Oak joinery in the bedrooms provides texture, which Goy favors it for its versatility. “It speaks with, and to, other materials—glass, fabric, metals of varying colors,” she explains. A surprising texture choice by Goy, pastel pink wallpaper and timber trimming lines a hallway. “It not only breaks the monotony of the wall, but also helps to establish a visual line from the corridor to the living room,” she says.

Initially hesitant about the drastic layout change, the owners are now enamored with their new home. “The balcony serves as a lush haven for our plants and is a favorite spot for our dog,” says one of the clients. “The open-concept kitchen has become the heart of our home, where we spend countless moments together.”

A Central Courtyard Cools Off a Multigenerational Home in Singapore

Project Credits:

Architecture Firm: Goy Architects / @goy_architects

Builder: Just Build Pte Ltd / @just_build_ltd

Photographer: Fabian Ong / @fabian_ong_