BACK TO LIFE

According to Ling Hao, studio founder and a Malaysian architect based in Singapore, the owner’s memories helped inspired the concept of the renovation. “The client remembers going for art lessons in the new apartments near the river as a child, monkeys on the hill, and walking the glamorous high streets of the old city,” he says.

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As such, the Concrete Annexe was designed as a pavilion with an open and airy concrete and steel structure which is inclusive to the street–not only to humans but also to animals and vegetation.

In the original building, the layers added over years were stripped and revealed a big room of soft clay brick with lime mortar topped by delicate steel trusses and a metal roof.

Enclosed openings were reinstated with transparency–this includes glass louvres on the jack roof sides and clear acrylic strips inserted in the metal roof.

Reusing the timber inside, a slender gallery was inserted, introducing a meandering route to the Concrete Annexe which leads to a secluded wild garden on the roof. The ground floor of the pavilion–a prelude to the pre-existing building–was left totally open, directly connecting the street and its myriad of activities. 

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