This residential home is a modern re-interpretation of the attap “kampung” house. ip:li architects, wanted to step aside from what was fashionable or groundbreaking in architecture to create a home that could serve as a memory of elders, a present abode of parents, and a future house for their children.

“In this house, I hope to look to the future, but not forgetting the past,” says Mr Yip Yuen Hong, the studio’s principal architect and co-partner. This is expressed in the two-storey house’s deliberate low scale with low ceiling heights, allowing the surrounding trees, landscape and house to become one. Such a design creates an old world charm, where one can enjoy the slow life and have a good conversation on a terrace surrounded by trees, explains Mr Yip.

The home at 26 Cable Road also caters for such an idyllic lifestyle with two-metre overhanging roof eaves that keep out the harsh afternoon sun and heavy rains. It is built on stilts, creating an open public space on the ground that extends to the world outside. But there is still a sanctuary for one to retreat to, in the upper floor’s heavily veiled private space.

In line with the ideal of designing a space for simple and modest living, the house is built using cheap and economical materials, such as wood, brick, plaster, paint, and mild steel coated with epoxy. This makes the house almost “anti-design”, says Mr Yip. It was difficult for the owners to accept such an understated house at first, but they have since grown to love it, he adds.

Through this home and his work, Mr Yip hopes to carry out his belief that design is for people, and architecture is a way to help others live their dreams. “My job is to create an appropriate picture frame for them so that they can be inspired to make a masterpiece of their life,” he says.