Tropical living
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about tropical living
Project • By bureau^proberts • Private Houses
Bardon House
Liam Proberts, Managing and Creative Director of award-winning Brisbane-based architectural practice bureau^proberts, has designed his family home. The house is situated on a wide, ridge-top block in the hilly Brisbane suburb of Bardon, falling steeply due-north to a tree reserve.
Amongst an established avenue of large gabled interwar houses, the facade from the street is familiar. Angular monochrome textures screen the house in what Proberts describes as “a strident interpretation of the more traditional gables and hip roofs of its surrounds”.
“The materials and screens are deliberately constructed to reveal shapes and framework that draw on its Queenslander context,” says Proberts. Behind the screened façade, a triangular skylight s... More
Project • By ONG&ONG • Private Houses
KAP-House
Reclined within a well-heeled residential enclave, KAP-House reposes behind wild grassland that grows from the remains of the old Malayan Railway. Placed on a plot that was once the sprawling garden of a classic colonial black and white bungalow, the home was imagined as a paradigm of modern tropical living.
The defunct railway, now a preserved green corridor, provides a backdrop of natural tropical terrain. Seeking to capitalise on the beauty of the home’s splendid surroundings, the design team adopted the Japanese design principle of Shakkei, or borrowed view. Their intention was to create a home resplendent in the “likeness of nature, capturing nature alive to create a spectacular vision”.
Fully attuned to the environment, KAP-Hou... More
Project • By Junsekino Architect and Design • Private Houses
Ngamwongwan House
Project Name : Ngamwongwan House
Owner : Mr. Piti Sawasdivongsa
Location : Bangkhen, Bangkok, Thailand
Completion : 2012-2014
Architect : JUNSEKINO ARCHITECT AND DESIGN CO.,LTD
Interior designer : JUNSEKINO ARCHITECT AND DESIGN CO.,LTD
Builder : Mr. Jarin Dejchutrakul
Structural engineer : Mr. Nares Kamplaew
Building Area : 235 m2
Photographs : Spaceshift Studio
"Sometimes, an ordinary brick wishes to be something beyond itself.”
These words truly portray the potential of an ordinary material; the comprehension of a material which is considered as the petite component that can be composed as the architecture. The initiation of the project with the primary concept that focuses on the curiosity of the most common material, a b... More
Project • By Studio Wills + Architects • Housing
#5
The brief requirement for #5 was a house maximized to the permissible building volume stipulated by planning requirements, a lap pool and a standard schedule of accommodation of Living, Dining, 6 rooms and support facilities.
The site faces a major thoroughfare, is flat and non-characteristic. Maximized to its permissible building volume, this can be a potentially over-sized house for a family of 4 (parents and teenage daughters) and their 2 helpers. The strategy of fragmentation was thus adopted to fragmentize the volume into comprehensible parts.
In order to accommodate a sizeable lap pool of 3 meter width along the side garden, the building had to be set-back by an additional 1 meter beyond the 2m building set-back line. This was... More
Project • By Chang Architects • Private Houses
Cornwall Gardens
This project offers opportunities to reinterpret the ‘Good Class Bungalow’ (GCB). The GCB is a niche category of landed houses in Singapore, often associated with high-end landed housing for the privileged few. There are specific planning guidelines to safeguard the qualities of these houses. The minimum plot size has to be 1400 sqm.
The ‘site coverage’, which refers to the building foot print, shall not exceed 35% of the site area. Intended for a family of four generations, this project relooks at ways of enhancing the joy of tropical living, of enlivening communal living in a contemporary, tropical setting, where family members reside in a home of interconnected social spaces. This house is located along Cornwall Gardens, within... More
Project • By AR43 Architects • Housing
Paterson 3
Paterson 3 comprises of 2 uniquely designed corner terrace units. Whilst sited within a walking distance to the bustling Orchard Road, each unit is pleasantly situated within a calm, soothingly hidden-away haven along Lengkok Angsa.
The design emphasizes on the relation between indoor/ outdoor, through the use of full height glass windows and large sliding panels. The play of elements between the timber cladding, panoramic glass and dark colored metal ties this enclave together into a contemporary art-inspired façade. The design of each unit features clean defined lines, and an open-layout with courtyard space. This allows for abundant tropical sunlight to filter into the living spaces. Each of these spaces that were being allocated manage... More
Project • By Aamer Architects • Private Houses
Jalan Remis
As a typology, the semi-detached house is often perceived as a Siamese twin, reluctantly conjoined to its symmetrical other via a single party wall. The desire to challenge such a notion drives the parti of this single-family house. By separating and pulling the main building block away from the party wall, a semi-detached house breaks free.
Not only does this formally and aesthetically liberate the house from its neighbour; it also creates a 3m-wide fissure into which light and air penetrate deep into its interiors.
One enters the house through the front of this fissure, where he is greeted by a double-storey volume foyer naturally lit from above. Light splashes onto the richly-textured brick wall, casting shadows which vary in form and... More
Project • By Vantage Emea - High-End Home Automation • Hotels
Kata Rocks - Phuket : commercial application
Vantage Challenge : Providing as standard - to each apartment - a comprehensive control solution to seamlessly automate systems in a way that holds up to the demands of hotel guests, owners and a harsh sea-side environment. Vantage supplied, installed and commissioned a luxury control experience for each "Sky Villa" as well as the Clubhouse, Gym, Spa, Library, Conference Center and all of the landscaping, roads, parking garages and individual buildings. -- Vantage Solution : The Vantage system controls all interior and exterior lighting (apartments and common areas), audio-visual systems, air-conditioning and fans, shades and blinds, and color-changing LED lighting. Individual apartment control integrates to building and site management co... More
Project • By DP Architects • Apartments
Jardin
DP Architects has been involved in residential design since its early years as Design Partnership. The firm’s first condominium project, also one of the first condominiums in Singapore, Ridgewood Condominium, a 20-storey, 464-unit development was completed in 1981. It offered a Hawaiian theme to the architecture and a garden landscape for the residents.
In those days, living in a condominium was associated with exclusivity and privacy, a prestigious address, an assortment of on-site facilities and amenities, as well as a more high-end style of living compared with the cookie-cutter type of public housing that was predominant in a young nation like Singapore. Today, condominium design has become increasingly challenging as developers sh... More
Project • By Neri&Hu Design and Research Office • Private Houses
THE OVERLAPPING LAND/HOUSE - Cluny House
Neri&Hu’s First Building in Singapore
For a private residence in Singapore, Shanghai-based architecture firm Neri&Hu Design and Research Office pays homage to the client’s Chinese roots by taking cues from the Siheyuan courtyard house, a vernacular typology found in the northern regions of China. In essence, the courtyard house can be thought of as a spatialization of Chinese notions of domesticity. It expresses the relationship between periphery and core, celebrating the inner zone as a space for the family to gather. It speaks to the complex relationships between the “self” and the “communal,” layering public and private in a spatial procession. It is an embodiment of hierarchical order inherent in multi-generational living, unique to... More
Project • By WOHA • Apartments
The Met
This project investigates the opportunities for high-rise living in the tropics. The design won a MIPIM future project award, and is now completed. Rather than adopting models developed in temperate countries, with a strong separation of interior and exterior, this project explores how aspects of low-rise tropical housing can be applied to create outdoor-indoor spaces in the sky.
Architecture
The design is inspired by Thai forms - thai tiles, textiles and timber panelling, abstracted and used as a way to organise forms. The cladding, for instance, uses temple tiles as an inspiration, while the staggered arrangement of the balconies recalls the Thai teak staggered panelling on traditional houses.
Environment
The solution creates... More
Project • By Atelier Design N Domain • Private Houses
AA House
Tropical living is all about blurring the boundaries of indoor and outdoor allowing the inhabitant to use both spaces exclusively as well as in conjunction.
The house is conceived as a series of pavilions held together along a strong central circulation spine. This spine also helps divide the served from service spaces of the house; the former located in front with the latter behind separated by the circulation spine.
The pavilions open up to large decks serving for a seamless inside outside living experience; tropical architecture demands the balance of living indoors as well as outdoors.
The use of traditional lean too roofs and pitched roofs are complimented with linear walls which give a contemporary flavour to the house.
More
Project • By IMD Design architects • Housing
Residence blue bay Curacao.
The residence is located on the hillside above the Blue Bay Golf Resort. The L-shaped design is making use of the natural course of the lot, the cool east trade wind, the beautiful view on the golf course and the south coast of Curaçao and the Caribbean Sea.
The pooldeck is located on a slightly lower level and has an integrated kidney shaped pool with “infinity edge.
The two sliding doors, when in open position, are completely stored into wall pockets so the living room is connected to the exterior porch. This gives the flair of tropical living.
Movable wooden louvers protect the porch and bedrooms from the late afternoon sun.
According to the rules of the resort the various hip roofs are covered with red ceramic tiles. More
Project • By Rolando Barahona y Asociados. • Private Houses
Los Hongos House 1983
Casa Los Hongos se ubica en una hacienda con clima tropical húmedo de baja precipitación en Pijije, Guanacaste. Costa Rica. El sitio localizado a la vera del río Pijije fue seleccionado con dos varillas de bronce y un péndulo aplicando factores energéticos de geobiología -la ciencia del habitat-. El arquitecto detecta dos puntos de energía concetrada y decide crear dos sólidas estructuras de hormigón generadoras de sombra y conductoras de viento que parecieran nacer de la piedra y el agua inspiradas en la morfología de unos hongos. Los espacios de intercambio, reunión y circulaciones se disponen suspendidos, flotantes bajo la sombra de estos hongos, teniendo así contacto visual con el entorno en todas las direcciones. El agua se convierte e... More