Cover The street-facing facade of this Kuala Lumpur terrace house shows the deep-relief concrete screen wall, open perforated steel garage doors with a matte black car inside, and a cantilevered upper-floor terrace to the right
The street-facing facade of this Kuala Lumpur terrace house shows the deep-relief concrete screen wall, open perforated steel garage doors with a matte black car inside, and a cantilevered upper-floor terrace to the right
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Nu Infinity’s overhaul of a 50-year-old Kuala Lumpur terrace house reorders the entire ground floor, brings the car park indoors, and ventilates the home through perforated steel
The terrace house is the default unit of Malaysian domestic life. Built in their hundreds of thousands from the 1960s onward, these attached single-family homes, typically 22 by 75 feet with a car porch at the front and a narrow rear yard behind, share the same shortcomings: interiors that natural light rarely reaches past the front room, rear yards open to neighbouring kitchens, and car porches sized for two vehicles. Kuala Lumpur-based studio Nu Infinity took one such house, 50 years old and standard in every dimension, and reconsidered it from the ground up.
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Above The perforated steel folding garage doors open to reveal a matte black Porsche 911 parked inside, with the concrete screen wall to the left and the living interior visible beyond
The perforated steel folding garage doors open to reveal a matte black Porsche 911 parked inside, with the concrete screen wall to the left and the living interior visible beyond
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Above The ground-floor planter box with a tree growing through to the upper level, surrounded by ferns and river pebbles, with a perforated wall and banquette seating visible beyond through full-height glazing
Above Close-up of the exterior deep-relief concrete screen wall with pyramidal block detailing, with a tree growing in front
The ground-floor planter box with a tree growing through to the upper level, surrounded by ferns and river pebbles, with a perforated wall and banquette seating visible beyond through full-height glazing
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The clients, a young couple with a daughter and a corgi, had other ideas about what the house could be. The husband, a car enthusiast, needed space for three cars, and that single request set the terms for everything that followed.
The open ground floor with the indoor garage to the right, the kitchen and living areas extending to the rear, a piano to the left, and guitars propped near the staircase
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Nick Fong, founder and co-director of Nu Infinity, was introduced to the couple through a mutual contact in the car community. He was drawn to the project as much by the clients’ personalities as by the brief. “It is common that we could only fit two cars in this standard terrace car porch,” Fong says, “and then the client said, ‘But I need to fit in three cars, even if I need to fit in a car lift. That’s where I knew it was going to be one interesting episode.”
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The rear dining area under a glass roof with perforated steel screening, a marble-topped table, timber chairs, built-in banquette seating, a fiddle-leaf fig, and a Bearbrick figure displayed on a ledge
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The solution was to bring the cars inside. The home’s street-facing facade is fitted with perforated steel doors that conceal the vehicles while allowing air to move through the property continuously. Fong describes this as a founding principle of the design: “The home was designed always to be ventilated.” At the rear, a glass roof extension draws natural light into what was previously a shadowed interior, while a set of angled six-foot perforated louvre panels, mounted on a swing mechanism, allows for cross-ventilation regardless of the weather.
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Above The kitchen with solid wood cabinetry, a terrazzo-topped island, encaustic patterned floor tiles, and a glass roof extension, with a raw timber post in the foreground and perforated steel rear screening with climbing plants beyond
The kitchen with solid wood cabinetry, a terrazzo-topped island, encaustic patterned floor tiles, and a glass roof extension, with a raw timber post in the foreground and perforated steel rear screening with climbing plants beyond
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Above The kitchen showing solid wood upper and lower cabinetry, a terrazzo splashback, a gas hob, a glass roof, and open perforated steel louvre panels at the rear with climbing plants visible outside
Above The rear dining area under a glass roof with built-in banquette seating, a marble-topped table, timber chairs, and perforated steel screening with climbing plants; encaustic patterned tiles in the foreground
The kitchen showing solid wood upper and lower cabinetry, a terrazzo splashback, a gas hob, a glass roof, and open perforated steel louvre panels at the rear with climbing plants visible outside
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The ground floor was entirely replanned, which Fong acknowledges was one of the project’s more demanding aspects. “Convincing the client that this layout works was one interesting part for us,” he says. The result places the garage at the front with a membrane ceiling feature that dramatically frames the parked cars, a detail Fong cites as among his favourites in the completed home.
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Above A second-floor room with dark solid wood cabinetry, a steel spiral staircase, and a built-in planter
A second-floor room with dark solid wood cabinetry, a steel spiral staircase, and a built-in planter
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Inside, the carpentry is executed in solid wood throughout, without laminate, veneer, or spray paint. The material is meant to age alongside the house and the family that occupies it. Fong’s team cut through the existing ground-floor slab beside the entrance to install a planter box from which a tree grows upward through the first floor. The tree is visible from the entrance, the outdoor patio, the master bedroom, the bathroom, the bathtub, and the upper-level family living area. It functions as the spatial centre of the home.
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Above View through a doorway into the study, showing dark wood joinery, backlit open shelving with collectibles, a leather armchair, and a cowhide rug on the floor
Above The study with dark wood cabinetry, backlit open shelving displaying books, scale car models, a Boba Fett helmet, and framed prints, with a warm timber desktop running the length of the wall
View through a doorway into the study, showing dark wood joinery, backlit open shelving with collectibles, a leather armchair, and a cowhide rug on the floor
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At the rear, creeping plants run along a full stretch of perforated steel sheeting that screens the neighbouring properties from the kitchen and dining areas. The effect is of a space cocooned in forest rather than open to the terrace boundaries on either side.
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The master bedroom with a leather-upholstered bed, white linen, and paired pendant lights, flanked on both sides by dark, solid wood louvred wardrobe doors
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The master bathroom features another of Fong’s preferred outcomes: a freestanding bathtub positioned on axis with the bedroom, so it reads as a focal point from both directions. “I appreciate how the bathtub stages the centre view for the master room," he says. “From both sides, be it looking at it from the bathroom or even from the family living upstairs, the bathtub is truly an art of living.”The bath fittings are by Premtex; the living room sofa is sourced from Babakagu in Japan.
The Premtex freestanding bathtub set on a raised platform against the rough stone feature wall, with a glass shower enclosure to the left and a multi-globe floor lamp to the right
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The rooftop, built as a structurally independent level supported by eight steel I-beams to avoid overloading the existing fifty-year-old walls, accommodates at least twenty people and offers an unobstructed view of the Kuala Lumpur city skyline. Fong considers it underutilised, given the budget constraints, and says it is the one area he would return to.
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Photography: Design Seed
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Jennifer Choo is Regional Managing Editor of Tatler Homes, covering architecture, interior design, and art across Asia. Based in Malaysia, she oversees regional content on luxury residential design and contemporary art collections. Legally trained but choosing to pursue her passion for design, she previously led notable design publications and worked as an interior stylist and art consultant for property developers, design firms, and private clients.
