The Tiered House is a compact lightweight prefab home which maximizes liveability & affordability. Keeping to a small built-in, the rooms occupy half of the plot width and capitalize on 'borrowed' space from the tiered garden along the other half of the width.
To address the client’s limited budget, our design strategies were to:
1. keep the built-in area compact: while rooms were small, every room had 'borrowed' space from the outdoor terraces and gardens.
2. keep the structure compact: rooms were lined up within half of the plot width, and the other half of the plot maintained as an open plan with tiered 'gardens' consisting of an indoor courtyard and outdoor terraces
3. employ mid-century modernist principles : elements were kept honest and unembellished with whitewashed walls, bare ply joinery, cement screed and classic ceramic tiles.
The project showcases compact tropical living for the middle class in dense urban areas with limited land. In affluent cities like Singapore, standout homes often belong to those who can spend heavily on outstanding architecture. The Tiered House is a prototype for maximum liveability in a post-pandemic era within a limited floor area and budget.
