For their first home, the couple envisioned a place that balanced privacy with openness for their toddlers to enjoy the outdoors, provided ample storage, and was economical to build. On a 275 sqm corner terrace lot facing a busy street and backing a public park, the design adopts the park as a natural backdrop. A series of rectilinear open shells frame shifting views of it, offering varied perspectves throughout the house.

Evolving from paper-folding studies, the design explores spatial dynamics by dissecting and displacing a box into alternating solids and voids. These offset shells blur the interior-exterior boundaries, maximise daylight and ventilation, and ensure privacy while maintaining visual connection with the park. Stepped back from the street, they break down the house's scale and draw in natural light.

Built with slender steel members and clear glass panels, the shells form the structure as well as the walls, floors, ceilings, and windows - creating light-filled, cross-ventilated spaces. The design's spatial porosity maintains visual connectivity, allowing even the front rooms to enjoy park views. Six rooms of differing privacy levels accommodate visiting relatives and friends.

At street level, views are screened, creating a gradual entry sequence where the park vista is revealed only upon entering the living, dining, and kitchen spaces. A central core links all floors visually, fostering family interaction without the need for intercoms.

Classified as a corner terrace, one side abuts a party wall; spaces are detached from it to admit daylight and garden pockets. A rainwater-fed wading pool runs along the opposite side, offering play and passive cooling.

Constructed within a stringent budget, the house employs modest materials while prioritising form, light, and ventilaion over mechanical systems - responding to the tropical climate through design. Blue-toned shells and white interiors reflect shifting daylight hues, continually transforming the atmosphere of this home.