Inside An Architect Couple's 742 Sqft Tiny Garden Home | Singapore

We have a strong focus in spatial planning and how each space connects to one another and we like to host our family and friends sometimes. And we wanted to have a space where people could gather in a cozy setting and have good conversations. Most people either comment that our home at first glance feels like a cafe or lounge or mention that it feels much bigger than what they thought would be a three-room HDB and that was really what we intended it to be. Hi Rosanne. Hi, I'm Zeesan and we both work in architecture. This is a three-room BTO in Middlebury, approximately 742 square feet and we have been staying here for five months. Rosanne and I are quite particular about clutter and wanted our home to stay as neat as possible. We find that reconfigurable elements allow for more flexibility and reduce the need for extra furniture in the home. That formed the skeleton and concept of our home where everything would have its place or can be hidden away from sight. We wanted a clear distinction between the common areas and private areas yet make a three-room HDB to look large and spacious to host people without sacrificing a room if we do have kids in the future. A large part of our material and styling choices were centralized around our love for nature but we really made sure that we didn't restrict ourselves to a theme. Unfortunately, we didn't get a ceiling view of the window so we wanted to bring a semblance of nature in by bringing the outside into our house. Our home has a wide space along our corridor which gave us the opportunity to have a shoe bench outside and bring it into the house when necessary for hosting while keeping the living space organized. When we enter the home, we are greeted with a display shelf that holds our daily necessities that is now being slowly populated with plants. On the top and bottom of the shelf we created a curved cabinet door to store any loose items we didn't want lying around and continued the laminate to conceal the bomb shelter. This laminate also continues to form the backdrop for our dry kitchen, dining and living space. Growing up, it was always a habit of mine to go straight to the kitchen island whenever I came back home so I wanted to have one within a few steps from the door to either put down our bags or put groceries in the fridge. The kitchen islands was always the heart of my family home and this was a key element we wanted to bring to our new home. It's one of the main places we hang out whether by ourselves or when we are hosting friends. We chose a quad-stop pad with grey beige laminate with the entire island functioning as a cabinet to store kitchen accessories. We oftentimes eat and entertain friends at the island during intimate gatherings so we recessed part of the island to create more legroom and fit in some bar stools if we find any that we like in the future. To avoid excessive groove lines and for more concealment we designed large curved cabinet doors on each end that opens up for more storage. We love drinking tea so the weekend mornings are when we enjoy our breakfast together and Susan will brew a pot of Chinese tea. We view Nina in the ritualized process of a Chinese tea ceremony as it allows us to take a moment to have a relaxed conversation and appreciate the nuances of the tea. To separate the dry and wet kitchen which used to be the service yard we pick out a fluted glass door to bring in natural light and keep the space visually open. We cook together very often so our kitchen is designed to be efficient for two so either one of us can be chopping or washing and the other person cooking. We went with a darker aesthetic for the wet kitchen as with the rest of the wet areas in the house since we chose a plain laminate we opted for more patterned dark sintered stone for the countertop and backsplash. So we initially started off with wanting to sort of carve out this space for our dining area and it was a key move that Susan and I made as removing the angular corners will really reduce this kind of small odd leftover spaces. And this actually really helped to keep our dining and common bedroom really seamless and visually spacious. With the first curve move we made we started to incorporate the same curve design language across the house. So actually this carries on towards our gent island counter display shelf to even the ceiling. This laminate cladded backdrop consists of a pivot door that separates the common and private area as well. We chose a circular table for more communal dining during intimate gatherings. This is also where I take calls and do work most of the time. We designed this booth seat that stretches from the dining room window to form a bay window effect but it also acts as extra seating where we have larger gatherings with friends and families. We carved out a half circle stool from the booth seat that can be flushed and placed back where we set up our larger dining table for big groups of friends and family. In our day-to-day setting this half circle gap in the seating is where we place our tv stands or the living rooms. We like things to be concealed and want to future-proof our home as we grow in the space. Underneath the booth seat is storage that can be used for toys or items we purchase in futures although I prefer not to store too much things in general. We don't really watch tv very often but we wanted to still have one in the house for shows and to create an ambience with music so we mounted it on a portable tv stand to move it around. And we chose a lower floor hugging couch to host movie nights with our projector screen by the window so some of the guests can be sitting on the couch some can be sitting on the floor and both of us prefer sitting on the floor most of the times. We love this everfresh tree from Japan and we wanted to find a place for it so we carved out a circular portion of the booth seat to house a pot and added a spotlight to create these natural light textures on the floor as the plant sways from the wind. The carved out circular portion is now used as a stool for my vanity in the master bedroom. Within the corridor to the various rooms we wanted the space to look like a gallery so we painted the walls a dark forest green with a spotlight on the wall where we plan on placing an artwork that is meaningful to us. We just haven't found the perfect one yet. We wanted the private spaces to remain private where Rosanne and I can relax or even guests can use the bathroom in peace. We made the effort to still retain the common bedroom even though it was tempting to remove it entirely to make the living space larger. So to maximize what was left of the common bedroom we used a pocket siding door to not disrupt the space too much and leave quite some room for us to add in a top bunk bed and shelves underneath which currently houses our books. It is now a guest room and can easily transform into a kid's room in future. We wanted to keep our bedroom as private as possible and enjoy the east-facing sun that comes into the master in the morning. To create a more spacious sleeping area we added a step-up platform for a tatami mattress bed. Our full-height wardrobe was carefully thought through and we customized every compartment based on our daily usage. It houses our mirror for a quick outfit check and we also planned in specific areas to store our jewelry, accessories and watches as well. For our master bathroom we kept the darker aesthetics similar to the common bathroom and wet kitchen. There's a clean distinction between wet and dry but to keep the shower area spacious we added a hinge for the shower screen and removed the other side of the glass panel to ensure the bath isn't too claustrophobic. I believe a home should be a place where I can wind down and find comfort. It should really reflect our personalities and lifestyle. To us actually this is a place where explore our ideas and you know do the things that our clients once rejected or things that we always wanted to try. I think our home is our playground and test bed for us to experiment on our design ideas and I'm curious to see how some of these things and ideas age over time whether they achieve what we initially intended. I hope it is a space where we can continuously observe and explore new possibilities. We haven't really populated the space with that much decor items or art pieces because I think we feel the right piece will come to us when the time is correct. I hope this space will be filled up with meaningful memories for the tour.