Home tour: A restored heritage bungalow in Singapore that retains its vintage charm

“One is a square yin and yang pattern with the words xi, meaning happiness, and fu, meaning good fortune or luck, welded as the centrepiece,” Goy reveals. “The second is a floral or butterfly-shaped pattern formed by repeating sets of five curled steel bars. Depending on how you look at it, you could also interpret it as peaches, which are a symbol of long life and immortality.”

Originally hand-welded, with each pattern customised to the client’s preference, it would have done the home a disservice to have these wondrous features replaced. “Rather than faceless, machine-produced products, it is a delight to see such quirky, customised elements in our daily environment,” explains the architect.

Not wanting to lose the charm of living in a “retrofitted old house”, as Goy puts it, the team took care with not only the retention of its heritage features but also the introduction of new design elements. It was important to the architects to make the home feel like the family’s own space without crossing the line into the erasure of its history. Part of this involved looking at a more personal past embedded in the owner’s childhood.

“In our initial conversations with the client, she had many fond memories of her childhood home in Penang,” Goy shares. “It could be simple items such as a timber cabinet with netting, which her grandmother used to store food in, or the motifs on the tiles and window grilles. We started to look into her core memories for design inspiration.”

The characteristic shophouse tiles from the homeowner’s early days in Penang ultimately inspired the new tiles cladding the surrounding patio, which required fresh tiling due to the slippery nature of the original flooring in rainy conditions. “The client was drawn to geometric shapes and small-scale tactility,” says Goy. “We saw references to houses built in the 1950s, when ceramic mosaic tiling became popular during the postwar decades, with industrialisation democratising the once labour-intensive and costly building craft.” The encaustic tiles at Beaulieu House, built in the 1910s, were another design element that sparked the team’s imagination.

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“We introduced the classic jade green, often used in the 1950s [to evoke] a kind of postwar optimism and cheerfulness, and created a motif in shades of green,” she continues. The entire design process was collaborative, with the final motif and exact hue chosen alongside the clients for a wholly personalised design. The architects used an embossing technique they had developed on a previous conservation project to remove any danger of slipping on the tiles on rainy days. The final effect is attractive, three-dimensional, and entirely functional.

The embossed encaustic tile design was also applied in the dry kitchen, paired with Verde Lotus marble gracing the backsplash and island. The geometrical play was repeated by cutting up and rejoining the marble to form a subtly textured pattern.

Beyond accentuating the existing charm of the property, Goy Architects also ensured the interiors would be injected with a “fresh narrative”, aiming to craft a “soft, ethereal, lofty space with a splash of the regional, vernacular [design] language”.

The clients had requested an extension of the wet kitchen into the backyard, and some extra room for the family to carve out an additional bedroom. With its novel connection to the lush garden and swimming pool, the wet kitchen is bathed in natural light, further enhanced by off-white tiling and a Statuario Venato marble backsplash, converging to transform the family’s cooking time into a much more soothing affair.

Overhead ceiling lights were minimised throughout the house, as the team wished to avoid a flat, one-dimensional look, instead installing strategic task lighting and ambient illumination in the form of floor lamps and smaller luminaires, including the Flamingo 1510 pendant by Vibia and the Sul Sole Va light by Viabizzuno.

The private quarters’ bathrooms are “comparatively petite, with delightful details and floral window grilles”. The features stand out against a soft, diffused palette, using minimalist white Rullata tiles from the Stone Talk collection by Ergon.

“We love how the subtle chiselled finish on the wall adds texture to the space without overwhelming the window grilles,” Goy says. As the existing bathroom floors were found to have waterproofing issues, extra attention was paid to this space in the name of future-proofing. The look was finally completed with sanitary fittings from Gessi in a brushed black-metal finish.

Separately, the original floors of the house were switched out for fresh teak. The outdoor spaces were outfitted with a new car porch, a renovated pool, fresh landscaping and even solar panels for the family’s electric vehicle.

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Working around the abode’s historical structure brought some unexpected discoveries to light during the renovation period, leading to creative adaptations that fortunately lent the property more character. “For example, when removing the ceiling, we saw that the original construction was made with a timber structure that was neatly gridded,” Goy shares. “This allowed us to use it as a ceiling pattern for the rooms instead of a typical flat ceiling.”

A heritage refurbishment of this scale is unlikely to be entirely smooth sailing, and this particular project, too, occasionally confronted the team with a challenge.

“Traces of asbestos were detected in the existing house,” Goy recalls. “On top of that, we discovered a sewer across the backyard. We had to construct a concrete sleeve around the existing pipe as we extended the home. It was a tough challenge for the contractors as the sewers were three metres deep, and the construction happened during the rainy season. [Construction] works were delayed due to trench flooding; the contractors had to pump the water out repeatedly before casting the concrete.”

With the structural works and the refining of the architectural features completed, the home was further transformed by adding a tailored selection of furnishings and key décor pieces. The team at Goy Architects crafted a range of custom furniture for the family, including the solid dining table and neighbouring display console, as well as the coffee table and most of the outdoor furniture.

“The furniture produced for this project was made and designed in collaboration with makers in Chiang Mai,” Goy tells us. “One of the pieces that we really like is the entrance cabinet. The design inspiration came from the style of joinery—mortise and tenon—used in traditional Asian crafts and architecture. It reminds me of a traditional palanquin ready to be picked up!”

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The outdoor “chopstick” chairs are another source of pride; these were crafted based on the clients’ request for rounded outdoor seating that would complement the Moonler Lunar chairs. As the name implies, their inspiration came from chopsticks: “The legs of the chairs look like chopsticks resting on their holders. The clients loved it, so we went ahead and produced it.”

Seamlessly sharing the space with these custom pieces are curated furnishings from Indonesian and Thai designers, including the Jenki chairs, Menik stool and Nong chairs from Santai, and various pieces from Moonler. Thanks to a close working relationship between the architectural firm and the artisans, Goy could request modifications to the brands’ staple designs to best suit the project, such as a special green coating for Moonler’s Lunar chairs to complement the tiles.

Looking back at the project now, Goy and her team are filled with a sense of fondness. “We’re delighted we met these clients. We, too, fell in love with the existing house, with its details that are no longer in Singapore’s modern homes. Even though the client could have torn down and built a new house, they chose not to. Instead, they peacefully co-exist with the charming details that make this property one of a kind.”

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