Imagine a home that blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor, a home that redefines urban tropical living. The Borderless House does just that. With its unique design that integrates a garden with 60 sheer concrete walls, it creates a seamless flow between the interior and exterior spaces, fostering a sense of continuity and openness.
Since the 1980s, tropical modern houses have been a significant theme in Southeast Asian architecture. The Borderless House, designed for an elderly couple who cherish nature and family, is a testament to this cultural tradition. It merges the charm of a Chinese garden with the tectonic interplay of modern architecture, creating a unique urban living typology that resonates with our cultural values.
Design
Generational living is a common culture in Asian families. The client, an elderly couple, envisioned a single-storey house filled with landscape, where each family member can have their own private pocket courtyard or garden. This vision was brought to life by exploring a dichotomy between the Asian garden and the design’s modern tectonic forms of Western philosophy. The scenography experience of the garden is curated by the composition of 60 cast-in-situ concrete walls, defining yet connecting the exterior and interior spaces of the 405 sqm of the built-up area of the single-storey abode.
The dichotomy of the wall and the garden offers privacy, shade and delight, light and wind, resulting in a series of unfolding spaces interconnected to nature. Ultimately, this curation gives a sense of seamlessness to the Borderless House. The lead architect, Ar. Lee Cherng Yih revealed that the inspiration for the Borderless House stemmed from a desire to create a space that seamlessly merges the indoors with the outdoors. The open plan of the Barcelona Pavilion, a design admired since youth, and experiences in the Chinese gardens of Suzhou were pivotal influences that shaped this innovative design.
Like the Barcelona Pavilion, the Borderless House features an open-plan layout that promotes a seamless flow between spaces. Glass partitions allow for continuous visual connections between indoor and outdoor areas, enhancing the sense of openness and fluidity. While the walls are seen as a tectonic composition, the spatial logic was driven by the layout and functions of the house derived from a challenging design process. The resultant form was derived from exploring space and circulation, oscillating between digital and physical models.
The walls’ height and positions are designed based on three aspects. First, the sequence of spaces is choreographed based on the client’s daily routine. Second, privacy control between spaces and neighbours. Third, different senses of scale for various spaces. This spatial exploration was driven by how much hidden and exposed spaces were, like a hide-and-seek experience.
Transparency and different shades of grey
Every material has its specific characteristics. Using a palette of modernist materials, concrete and glass, the concrete walls focus on minimalism and structural clarity, while the glass elements provide transparency and integration with the surrounding landscape. The walls intersect with floor-to-ceiling glass doors, much like the precise and minimalistic lines of the Barcelona Pavilion.
The composition of the scattered sheer walls resulted in a formless massing. To create a better sense of layering and depth in space, three grey tones were applied to each homogenous coloured concrete wall, a customised product from a concrete supplier. The coloured pigments create shades of grey to the exposed concrete, offering a sense of layering rather than an assemblage of off-form concrete.
Urban tropical living
By breaking down large walls into the spatial tectonics of 60 sheer walls, the spatial composition offers a comfortable living environment in the tropics, reducing the reliance on air conditioning and artificial light.
At the heart of the house, the pool becomes the anchor for organising the living, dining, and sleeping spaces. The cloistered arrangement around the pool cools the spaces. It extends each space to the garden, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, inspiring a responsible and environmentally conscious way of living.
The careful crafting of space via the walls and the deep overhangs creates shade and privacy that offers a delight for living in the tropics. Glass partitions separate interior and exterior spaces, with a continuous ceiling providing shade. The walls extend and unfold beyond sightlines, blurring boundaries and making the space feel expansive. These expansive spaces can host various gathering events while also serving as a place to take refuge among nature away from the bustling city life.
The garden offers a tropical environmental response. With 77% of the site dedicated to parks and greenery, the Borderless House provides a sustainable approach to urban living.
The Borderless House is a house without form; it’s all about the spaces!
